Recently, Root Markets took another swing at building a direct relationship with a search engine. Last year Root gave AOL a try to no success and this past week they gave it another shot with Yahoo!. Now Root claims they are not a lead-gen company and claims this is a Yahoo! lead as they did the AOL leads, but this clearly looks like a Root lead. No matter how they want to word it Root is paying for this ad space and selling the lead.
The pitch is that the consumer is allowed to choose which banks are going to be able to compete for your business. Which at first sounds good, but thinking about it a little further I would guess that this would only benefit the well known, branded banks. One major reason why brokers buy leads from an exchange or a lead provider is to leverage their advertising expertise and ability to get in front of a consumer at a lower cost.
After seeing this ad on Yahoo, I wonder if it generated any leads? The ad in general is some what ridiculous, in my opinion. Nothing on the ad gives me the urge to “Apply Now” which brings up another question. What am I applying for, a loan? Do I have to apply to receive quotes? I find this terminology kind of strange in the situation. Maybe its just me and I am being too critical, but be a little more consumer friendly for crying out loud. Instead of telling the consumer about the ability to choose a lender prior to submitting a form, tell them why this will benefit them. I can’t imagine a consumer is going to know why this feature is beneficial to them unless they have filled out an online form before and had a bad experience.
What is Root really up too anyway? They have struggled to attract any quality leads and now seem to be only focused on grandiose ideas like partnering with AOL and Yahoo to generate a lead rather than first attracting the long tail of lead providers. Over a year ago they promised a transparent lead exchange with actionable data sources and today, as far as I know, they still do not provide historical performance data for the lead buyers. For a start up they sure do seem to act like a company that has been around for 25 years.
If in fact they are doing things and releasing new features how about a press release or two to let us know? The lack of press has also given lead buyers the impression that LeadROI has fallen off the map even though they were the first to implement an auto dialer and a pricing solution to their platform.
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I found this article that may shed some light. http://www.iddmagazine.com/idd/fierce_finance.cfm?id=14444&issueDate=current
I don’t think you are being too critical, they aren’t providing any real benefits to the consumer. They present you with a list of 6 lenders and you choose. However, I have no ability to see offers before I apply. So there is no level playing field for me to compare before my information is sent.
For an exchange such as this to work it would need to be open in such a way that members (brokers and lenders) can present offers that are verified prior to the borrower choosing and more importantly providing their financial information.
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Maybe they can start using the tag line: “When Wall Street Firms and Big Banks Compete, Advertising Buyers and Sellers Win!”
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so on one side you have Mortgagemarvel.com – a well built group of lenders (small, mid size banks and credit unions) and a consumer friendly site but no huge budget for driving consumers.. and in this corner – lead generation $’s with no functioning site.. maybe they should meet.? I recall a conf call with Root a couple years back with a group of LT lenders – after the call – several emails about our collective bewilderment.
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