Okay, I feel a little better. Some of you are still out there and even spent a few minutes telling us what you have been up to. Thank you.

But it brought up a big problem that has been building over the last 6 months and that came to a head over the Holidays. Consumers are not being serviced. The amount of inquiries have dramatically gone up over the last 45 days or so and the level of lead buyers and mortgage companies obviously remain very low. I have heard from a number of buyers that they are up to their ears in applications. The fact that it has been quiet out there is because everyone is swamped.

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While I certainly applaud the ingenuity of using eBay, I have to admit that I got a little chuckle out of a business being listed currently on eBay. You can see the actual post here.

Established Mortgage Lead Business & Website for Sale

The seller does a somewhat fair job of trying to set realistic expectations by explaining:

This is a real business for a real business person. If you are looking to get rich quick or be a lazy entrepreneur [is there really such a thing? Lazy entrepreneur?] then this business is NOT for you. This business requires a few hours a day to manage and promote. In the past we have had 4 employees running this site and it was earning $25,000-$30,000 per month [“the past" clearly being 2003 when interest rates were 2.75% for a 30 year fixed] in profit. Now the website and business is being administrated by 1 person and is still earning money weekly [I would imagine because the employee was hurt on the job and had AFLAC].

But what he does not disclose is that we are in what might be one of the most challenging mortgage markets in this country’s history and that much larger and generously funded lead providers are folding by the week.

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I hope you all enjoyed your 3 day weekend and all took at least a few minutes to remember all the brave soldiers that have died for our country and others around the world.

Lets get back to the playoffs. Before I called it a day on Friday I closed the voting on the Low.com and LowLender playoff and as many of you already know, Low.com pulled out the win by only 2 votes. They will go on to play against the winner of this next playoff. ReallyGreatRate and BigMortgageLeads face off today and both use a variety of ways to generate leads that include paid search, email marketing and some display.

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Its a rap on the KeyLeads and iLeads playoff and KeyLeads pulls out the win with 57 votes. Voting seemed quite normal and no shenanigans occurred. It was a fair fight that saw a consistent flow of votes throughout the day for KeyLeads.

KeyLeads will now go on to face Bills.com in the next round and should be a good fight.

Next up we have two PPC powerhouses Low.com and LowLender. Both claim to generate 100% of their leads in house nad work with no affiliates. LowLender has a proprietary PPC management system that maximize bids to the 10th degree. The question is who can rally their client base to vote.

Who do you think is better???

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Round 3 has now come to an end and was full of drama. As you can see there was a huge amount of votes for both Bills.com and LeadPoint, but not very few were unique voters. I am alright to some extent with mulitple voting but when one person sits at their computer for over an hour and continues to clear their cache and vote and again and again, I think that crosses my “alright” line. So both providers had a diligent fan that participated in this American Idol style voting tactic and I have eliminated that voters from the mix and there was a clear winner. Yes, I know that in itself cause some questions and may give some to question to the validity of the playoff and I want you all to remember any way what this really is. It is simply just for fun and has no real statistical relevance nor does a winner have a better quality then its competitor. (So for though, I think it has been right on, just my opinion though)

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Playoff #2 is now complete and QuinStreet was able to fight off a late charge by Adchemy to pull out the win. QuinStreet will now go on to face LowerMyBills in the next round.

Next up we have the lead exchange, LeadPoint up against boutique style provider Bills.com. Both, in my opinion produce good quality leads…but I know who I am voting for. Who are you going to vote for???
Let the votes begin!

Results:

Round 1:

LowerMyBills VS. Nextag

WINNER: LowerMyBills  45 votes to 31

Round 2

Adchemy VS. QuinStreet

WINNER: QuinStreet 34 votes to 21

Round 3

LeadPoint VS. Bills.com

Round 4

KeyLeads VS. iLeads

Round 5

Low.com VS. LowLender

Round 6

ReallyGreatRate VS. BigMortgageLeads

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It’s official you can pencil in the results from the first round playoff between LowerMyBills and NexTag. LowerMyBills took out NexTag 45 votes to 31 and will move on to the next round.

For this next playoff I would love to get some of the reason for your votes. For example if you voted for LowerMyBills yesterday you could have left a comment stating you voted for LMB because you love their banner ads and have experienced great conversion ratios from their leads or you can say that you work there and were forced by management to vote. Either way leave a comment and let us know why you voted the way you did.

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In the spirit of the NBA playoffs and a to have a little fun I am going to be hosting the First Annual Lead Provider Playoffs. What are these playoffs I speak of??

The lead provider playoffs will be a bracket style playoff between the top lead providers in the industry. Every few days you will be presented with 2 lead providers to choose from, so it will be important for you to vote as soon as possible. It will be up to you to vote for which company you think is the best. You can determine your choice based on experience, which is what I would prefer, or simply speculation. Whats the purpose of the playoffs? To have some fun and to find out which lead company you think is the most popular.

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This is one of the biggest mistakes I see lead buyers making with their leads. An Internet leads, if generated with any level of integrity, is not a cold call. It is an initiated, hand waver!

Think about what a quality Internet consumer lead implies:

• There was a need
• They have done some level of research (i.e., did a search, read an email, had a discussion)
• They provided private contact information

They are asking to be called so don’t treat them like strangers–complete the experience. Continue Reading

It’s definitely that time of year again. The NFL is drawing close to an end and my baseball stats sheets and forecasters are arriving in the mail–that’s right Fantasy Baseball is in the air!

This time of year gets me all excited about stats and predicative indicators. So, this weeks best practices post and whitepaper is in tribute to Michael Lewis’ ode to Fantasy Baseball–”Moneyball.” I am about to show you what ROI, %contact, %app, AttAR, AttCR, and many more quintessential key metrics and indicators can do to optimize your loan production. Continue Reading

Rumorville has been pumping out some interesting news this week. One that stands out the most and has a higher likelihood of being true is the one involving Adchemy and a few ex-Quicken employees.

Word flying around the industry is that recently exited Quicken employee’s Chris Meerschaert and Jon Moises will be joining the Adchemy team. This has not been confirmed with Chris but Jon Moises Linkedin profile confirms the move. If the the rumors are true Adchemy will be using these two gentlemen to start a consulting arm of their lead generation business. Coming from Quicken I am sure these two men will give their soon to be clients some very valuable information.

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Welcome to 2008! Time to reassess all your assumptions and set blockbusting goals for the New Year. I am guessing, if you are visiting Lead Critic to start your year, that smarter lead buying and higher lead conversion rates are centerpieces to these new goals.

I thought I might lend a hand by taking a deep dive into what makes an Internet lead and why you should buy them. Continue Reading

Many of you spend a fair amount of your life online these days. You use email daily at work and with friends and family. You are probably doing a good bit of this year’s Christmas shopping online. And, you have probably, long ago, discontinued your local newspaper (that never ended up on the porch anyway) for your favorite Internet news, weather, and sports website.

So, why are most of us in the mortgage business so stubborn to believe that our future clients are online too? Why are we resistant to believe we can convert leads (referrals) from the Internet?

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Bill Rice of Kaleidico comes out of the wood work to call out potential scammers of the Lead MarketWatch Widget. He puts out a pretty stiff warning to anyone who is thinking of ways to game the widget.

Here is the warning: If you are willing to compromise your integrity in the marketplace we will not allow you to leverage the Lead Marketwatch in that scam. If you are a lead provider your data will be indefinitely suppressed in Lead Marketwatch with no appeal. If you are a lender you will be terminated from the lead management network as a violation of our terms of service.

I was wondering when someone would actually get caught gaming the widget. I have speculated in the past about lead providers possibly gaming the widget here and here. It turns out that a lead provider actually been caught doing so.

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It is complete, I will be joining the Zipsearch! team! To say the least, I am excited for a couple of reasons. First, to join such a solid team that has so much potential. The Zipsearch! team has been consistently generating quality leads for the last 12 years and under the radar too. At one point they were a secret source of mine for Life Insurance leads. Secondly, I am excited to be back in the industry full time! My passion for the industry never died and continued to live through this blog even after I was not directly involved. I feel like I am an evangelist for the lead buyer and quality companies within the industry and that of course will never change. I am extremely excited to make a direct difference in the industry and continue to help lead buyers by delivering the highest quality leads possible. My position at Zipsearchwill be the online Media Manager which will manage all our lead-gen strategies and techniques. Thirdly, I am excited because my views of lead-gen are in-line with Zipsearch!. My goal is to generate quality, not quantity. What does this mean? Leads will not be generated with the goal of generating a click only, this means no crazy square dancing turtles or crazy teaser rates. These types of ads generate quantity, which is fine for most lead generators, but we will focus on quality.

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Patents are becoming crazy these days and the thought that some people will actually try to back them up with a law suit. AutoBytel of Irvine CA, recently file a patent suit against Insweb, LeadPoint Inc, Internet Brands Inc, and Auto Internet Marketing Inc seeking damages and permanent stop of the use of their U.S. Patent No. 6,282,517, entitled Real Time Communication of Purchase Requests.

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Adteractive, admitting to no wrongdoing, settles with the FTC over questionable incentive-based lead generation. According to MediaPost Publications the inquiry by the FTC focused on Adteractive’s use of “free” incentive language in their Internet lead generation campaigns:

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It was announced today that the rumors were true that DoublePositive was actively looking for funding. The company scored $4 million to boost their client acquisition and marketing efforts.

“We are very excited to be a part of the impressive growth story at DoublePositive. We believe DoublePositive will continue to be the leader in the live lead generation space, and we see tremendous opportunities for DoublePositive to diversify into new Internet lead-buying markets,” said Marc A. Cole, Partner at Hamilton Investment Partners. “We think DoublePositive is positioned very well to build on the great success they’ve had and capitalize on the tremendous opportunities that exist in industries such as Education, Insurance, and Consumer Debt/Credit.”

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There have been a few additions to the Quinstreet team that are worth mentioning. As I have stated in the past I think it is important for lead buyers to watch the movement of employees in the lead industry, especially the sales reps. The reps that have been in the industry for a while tend to choose lead providers that have promise and growth potential. With that said, John Challis formally of LeadPoint, Anolio Reyes and Steven Sears formally of LendingTree have joined the team at Quinstreet.

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I had the pleasure of having lunch with a lead provider today and it was interesting to chat about our two different points of view of the industry. We touched on a number subjects but I found it interesting that both the buyer and the seller have the same problem. Lead buyers and sellers have a wide range of quality levels. I understand that this is far from a revelation, however it is huge obstacle for both sides. Lead buyers find it extremely difficult to find quality providers and are forced to use the trial and error method. Lead sellers have to deal with risking their reputation by selling leads to companies or brokers that do not know what they are doing.

When people ask me who are the good lead providers, I try to make it a point to say ” these worked well for me, but everyone has different experiences”. One company may have a more refined sales process than another’s. Really there are number of different factors that may breed success for one and not another; How many leads does each LO receive in a day? What states do they buy in? What are their filters? I could go on and on.

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