I think one possible way to approach this branding/exclusivity would be to take the EDU lead gen approach of letting the user select the lead buyer, and engineer the process so that they choose one and only one.

One approach to this would be the “black box” approach that has been discussed in the past, i.e. the user still goes through a 1-3 page form with their information. From there, rather than sending the information to X buyers automatically, they are presented with a list of qualifying buyers, similar to what happens in EDU.

From here, in order to create the best possible user experience, the lead buyers are much more than a logo and a “submit request” button. Allow the user to read more about the banks, read reviews or user feedback, and what to expect when working with them. This way when the user is ultimately contacted by the buyer, they’ll know which bank is calling them, and they’ll be expecting to hear from only them.

This approach would definitely help build the branding initiatives as well as lead exclusivity.

I think you are right, brands within in the EDU space have different meanings to the consumer and therefore are important to advertise on. I also agree to your point that the finance vertical (the consumer) relys less on brands, and that possibly could be argued, but I think that idea behind branded campaigns for other verticals is not to specifically capitalize on a brand or build the brand, but to simply generate exclusive leads whereby you know their true source and reduce the amount of fraud and poor quality leads. If brand is not relied upon by the consumer as much in these verticals, as you said, then it should be even easier to launch.

Whether or not the campaigns are open to the correct filters, etc would be the main issue. Mortgage companies would need to be willing to take most types of mortgage leads. i.e. purchase, home equity, refi, etc. Granted, the campaigns can be built in such a way to filter out much of the unwanted filters, however not completely.

just a thought.

People who make their for their post secondary education choice want to make sure that the school (brand) is a good fit for them, as they’ll be spending tens of thousands of dollars and many years with their brand of choice.

Someone who is interested in refinancing or loan modification, for example, doesn’t care who’s logo is on the envelope that comes in the mail every month – they simply want they best deal.

I agree, the price is definitely higher then the typical shared lead, but the conversions and ease of communication is also much higher. I think that when a campaign can leverage the brand and increase the brand specific conversation within the campaign the lead becomes very qualified and ultimately will outperform any other lead. The challenge is building a way to efficiently and cost effectively run these types of campaigns.