Things come together a little more with the new LendingTree TV spots.

The new futuristic/robotic logo starts to make more sense and more direction is given after watching the new commercials. LendingTree’s “You to the Rescue” turns you into a superhero and arms you with the tools to fight any financial obstacle ahead.

I like the direction of giving control to the consumer…or at least allows them to think they are in control. But more so give the message that you have to be your own hero and save the day, because no one else will. This quite ingenious in these times and the messaging I think will catch on very well.

You can see the LendingTree spots here.

After you watch them, come back and let me know what you think.

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Today LendingTree launched their new logo and website.

The new logo, which uses the same font and image of the Tree.com logo, is a far cry from the traditional looking logo of the past. A logo that used to conjure up thoughts of tradition, quality and trust as been swapped out for a cool, young and techie logo.  Currently, it appears as though they have even ditched the “When banks compete, you win” slogan, however I am sure a new slogan will appear over time.

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Insiders at Tree.com were informed recently that a key member of the team will be moving on to the next step in his career. Keith Moore, Senior Vice President at Tree.com and long time Lead-Gen industry member, who was the reason for the positive quality and growth of the LendingTree’s short form product, has chosen to take a stab at a new venture.

Where Moore will officially land next is unknown at the moment, but he will be missed at Tree.com and will be a huge asset to the his next destination.
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Guest Post By Adrian Huth, friend and “good guy” in the industry.

Allow me to introduce myself…. I am an individual who has been in the lead generation industry going on 10 years.  I have seen the industry involve from the early days of the mortgage boom to the now recent collapse and repositioning to new verticals gaining increasing value such as loan modification and debt consolidation leads. I have seen the evolution of the search engines and SEO marketing and was there in the beginning of cost per click marketing.  I have witnessed how lead generation and lead quality was affected by the rise of the affiliate networks, display advertising, email marketing and incentivized leads.  I saw first hand how all these different types of marketing caused lead buyers to cancel and how some increased closing ratios.  Even back 4 years ago with all these types of lead generation I began to suspect that people are playing a game of buying and selling leads to each other and that everyone is becoming the enemy of the other.  Lead generation has now evolved into screwing people over and this has now become the de facto business model and state of the industry.

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I think it was on the call with Gariel Buck of ClickPoint where I we discussed the low barriers of entry into the lead gen industry. It was my view that they have been continually been lowering over the last few years at a dramatic pace. Sure anyone can get out there and generate leads, but the difficult part was building out an efficient code to distribute the leads. With implementation of ClickPoint and others it has become even easier. But first, I must say that not everyone can do it, even with the amount of out-of-the-box tools that are available. It takes much more then simply being able to generate and distribute leads to build a successful lead generation company. The evidence for that statement is the many lead gen companies that have not been able to survive the economic downturn of the past 2-3 years.

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Wow, this had probably been the longest time I have gone without a post. Since my layoff I have been quite busy discussing different opportunities and jobs offers. And additionaly any time I am home my wife goes on “vacation”, which is well desrved, but I gotta tell ya I was hoping to get a few rounds of gold in during my time off and I don’t think that is going to happen!

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More Tree.com news:

They announced their Q4 results today that posted a $7 million net loss, which is actually good compared to last 2007 Q4 which posted a $531 million net loss.

The decreased loss according the Lebda came from their ability to cut marketing and run off of organic and residual traffic.

“While we are certainly pleased with the results for the quarter, we were benefited by a confluence of several positive events that are not continuing in 2009. In Q4, our refinance volume was extremely high and we cut our marketing expense to balance lead flow to lenders. In 2009, volumes are still strong, but lenders are now significantly reducing their marketing spend with us. Thus, we do not anticipate sustained profitability until our strategy of revenue diversification and organic traffic begins to pay off.”

 Summary Financial Results
                 $s in millions (Except per share amounts)
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                                             Q/Q                Y/Y
                        Q4 2008  Q3 2008  % Change  Q4 2007  % Change
                   --------------------------------------------------
 Revenue                $  48.1  $  50.3       (4%) $  50.8       (5%)
 EBITDA                 $  (2.0) $ (10.7)      82%  $ (26.5)      93%
 Adjusted EBITDA        $  (0.8) $  (8.3)      90%  $ (14.7)      94%
 Net Loss               $  (7.0) $ (22.6)      69%  $(531.5)      99%
 Net Loss Per Share     $ (0.75) $ (2.41)      69%  $(56.98)      99%
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

Tree.com CFO Matt Packey added, “Both the mortgage and real estate markets continue to be extremely volatile, which have impacted our businesses both positively and negatively. This low rate, high volume environment has allowed us to significantly cut costs but we have also experienced capacity issues with our lending exchange as lenders work to balance their staffing levels against these short term volume spikes, which was also complicated by the holiday season.”

According to insiders there were 10′s of thousands of leads that went unsold over the holidays and I am hearing more and more often from LT buyers that they are looking for other options. It will be interesting to see how they balance the new verticals as well as a decreasing demand for their mortgage product. This is happening across the industry, not just with LT and I don’t think it has anything to do with quality. LT will continue to be a high quality lead provider, however whether it continues to provide an acceptable ROI may be in question.

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It was announced this morning that Tree.com as acquired the assets of Thrive from LoudWater Labs. Thrive is a consumer finance portal that claims to bridge the gap from the in person meetings with financial adviser and the multitude of online tools.

Tree.com Chairman and CEO Doug Lebda said, “The acquisition of Thrive is a perfect fit with the strategic vision of Tree.com. This is a great step for the company which moves us beyond home loans and real estate and into helping consumers organize their financial lives. For the last 10 years, millions of Americans have trusted us to fulfill their financial goals by helping them find and purchase a home, get or refinance a home loan, finance college education, or get a car loan. The addition of Thrive to our growing list of financial lifestyle offerings allows us to further help our customers make smart decisions from budgeting to saving for retirement and every major life decision in between.”

I agree that this a great move for Tree and continues to build Tree.com as a great source for a persons finacial needs. While they continue to expand into new lead generation verticals the acquisition of Thrive adds a nice dynamic to their portfolio of services.

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It was announced yesterday that LendingTree has launched the Reverse Mortgage vetical. This is another step to diversify the services offered by Tree.com.

Keith Moore, Senior Vice President of Emerging Businesses for LendingTree.com said, “One of the defining characteristics of LendingTree is our dedication to helping consumers. With baby boomers nearing and entering retirement age, a larger population than ever before is now eligible for reverse mortgages and LendingTree, as always, is here to help. LendingTree is exactly the resource for consumers looking to obtain all types of home, car, and education loans – and we’re pleased to expand our offerings to benefit senior homeowners.”

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Last Friday LendingTree announced to its affiliates that they would be cutting their pay outs, effective emmediately. This most recent cut was fueled by the increase in organic inquiries and conversion rates. The simple supply and demand rule played a big part here and affiliate relationships are the easiest to make adjustements. What does this mean for LT buyers? Nothing, so keep closing deals.

Compete.com has volume taking a little dip into the end ’08, though.

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Tree.com announced its 3rd quarter earnings this morning and stated a $22.5 million loss.

Doug Lebda, the company’s chief executive, called the results “acceptable” given the current market environment, and he lauded the hard work of his employees and the company’s discipline on costs.

Recapping the last day of the conference:

The day started off with the key note speaker Guy Kawasaki and his “Art of Innovation” presentation.  Guy was great as normal. If you have ever seen any of his videos or presentations either on YouTube or his blog you know that he is an entertaining speaker with a dynamic delivery. Guy’s presentation targets the entrepreneurs in the crowded and discuss the essentials for driving innovation and building out new business ideas.

Here are a couple key points pulled from his presentation:

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Just for fun, which is the best conference to attend every year? Is it Targus? Is it LeadsCon?

Every conference that comes around the corner I hear the same question from the industry sales guys.

“Who is going and how many buyers will be there?”

As a marketing professional in the industry, that has little to do with direct sales, I usually don’t care because I am looking for new strategies and partnerships, however it just clicked for me. You can argue that I may be a little slow, but the #1 conference for meeting new contacts that will result in sales, either for leads or other services has got to be the lobby bar at the annual LendingTree Summit.

I can hear the front desk attendants saying, “Who are these guys? They have been sitting in the lobby bar all day”. Now, I am all the way over here in southern California so I am only speculating, but if it is not the case, it should be.

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Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, the newly separated companies will begin  “when issued” trading under their new stock symbols.

Tree.com which includes LendingTree.com, RealEstate.com, Domania and iNest. This group will trade under the ticker symbol TREE. The new IAC will trade under the symbol IACI and will include Ask.com, Match.com, CitySearch, Evite, Gifts.com, ShoeBuy.com, ServiceMagic, Pronto, CollegeHumor, GarageGames, Zwinky and RushmoreDrive. Tickemaster and its partnering divisions will trade under TKTM and the Home Shopping Network and its partnering divisions will trade under HSNI.

This is a huge move for the new spin offs. IAC, TicketMaster and HSN will no longer be dragged down by the real estate group and could really thrive down the road. At the same time, Tree.com may be priced at a nice discount with most of their losses already baked into the price.

We will see what happens, it will be interesting to see what Tree.com does to diversify away from the suffering real estate market, if anything at all.

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According to the Charlotte Business Journal LendingTree cut 25 more jobs this last week bring down the total to 950 employees.

The company began layoffs in May 2007 as the mortgage market all but imploded nationwide, starting with problems in the subprime sector. LendingTree and sister company RealEstate.com laid off 440 employees in that first round, 250 more workers in September and 220 in December.

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Q2 results were released last night, but I didn’t have a chance to get to it until tonight. None the less it is worth noting, especially because we track so many of LendingTree other movements. Nothing new really, the post spin Tree.com that will include LendingTree, RealEstate.com, GetSmart, TuitionTree and InsuranceTree brought down IAC ‘s overall earnings, along with restructuring costs and investments write downs.

  Results As They Would Appear Post Spins*

                                                     Revenue

                                        Q2 2008      Q2 2007     Growth
                                                 $ in millions

    New IAC                              $354.4       $318.9        11%
    HSN, Inc.                             695.8        681.5         2%
    Ticketmaster                          382.4        293.4        30%
    Tree.com, Inc.                         60.0        114.0       -47%
    Interval Leisure Group, Inc.          103.2         85.9        20%

The excuse was the same as last quarter and the same excuse we all have and had to do with few loans sold, the decline in per loan revenue and tighter loan guidelines.

I think it will be interesting to see how long they are going to hold onto the mortgage vertical has their main focus. I think very soon you are going to see some branding shifts into credit card debt and student loans.

We shall see…

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You are probably saying to yourself, “Another post on ROI?  Is this guy capable on writing about anything else?”  The answer is apparently, “no.”

I did enjoy the dialogue that resulted from my last post on the ROI associated with live transfer leads, so I thought I would touch on the same topic for LendingTree leads.  Like the live transfer leads, the LT longform lead is essentially a niche product.  The former GetSmart brand, or short form version competes against all of the other lead providers in the space, but the LendingTree longform lead remains to be the only lead-type of its kind.

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According to the Charlotte Observer 40 people were laid off at LendingTree last week.

LendingTree laid off about 40 workers on Thursday, some of them in Charlotte, where the online loan matchmaker and lender is headquartered. The layoffs were across all divisions, spokeswoman Allison Vail said, and came because “we need to match our cost structure and company size to the realities of the market.”

LendingTree, like many financial companies, has been buffeted by the mortgage crisis. Last year, the company laid off about 910 employees. LendingTree now has about 1,000 employees total; about 450 are in Charlotte.

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According to CNNMoney.com a lawsuit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on behalf of all people who submitted a loan request via LendingTree. This makes the second lawsuit filed against LendingTree in a week.

“As a result of defendant’s actions, millions of its customers have had their personal confidential information compromised, have had their privacy rights violated, have been exposed to the risk of fraud and have otherwise suffered damages,” the lawsuit said.

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The IAC released its quarterly earnings report this morning and it wasn’t pretty for its LendingTree division.

Overall revenues increased for IAC, but LendingTree took a 38% plunge in revenue in the first quarter.

      Revenue
                                       Q1 2008      Q1 2007      Growth
                                                $ in millions 

    New IAC                            $392.0       $320.7        22%
    Retailing (To be named HSN)         676.9        666.7         2%
    Ticketmaster                        349.0        303.6        15%
    LendingTree                          70.2        113.2       -38%
    Interval                            115.9         86.4        34%

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