According to F***edStartups via our new friend LeadTwit Experian has laid off another 20+ people. Nothing new or exciting about the news and in fact much of the same old same old and very depressing for most.

Jay Weintraub posted some interesting commentary today that briefly touched on the depressed Internet ad budgets of companies today. The decreasing of ad spend for the finance industry started over a year ago and in hindsight was a precursor to all the industry layoffs and cutbacks. It doesn’t matter how resilient you think certain companies may be, they will be affected too. The mortgage industry is being pigeon holed by the strict loan guidelines and is effecting the marketing strategies that have been firmly planted in lead generation companies for years. The increased amount of unwanted and unsold inquiries are taking affect on the size of each company.

It is my thought that these larger companies with less ability to be flexible are the companies that are being hardest hit.

Its too bad, really.

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It was announced to all LowerMyBills clients today, via email that Steve Krenzer will assume the position of President of the Experian Interactive team which encompasses LowerMyBills.

According to the letter sent to clients:

Let me start by sharing my background with you. I have been with Experian for more
than 20 years and have held numerous executive positions leading successful businesses.
Prior to joining Experian Interactive Media, I was Chief Strategy Officer for Experian
Interactive. In that role, I led mergers & acquisitions within Experian and was
instrumental in bringing LowerMyBills.com into the Experian family. I have an in-depth
understanding of the business, its strengths, and how to achieve its vision.

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According to TechNews LA, 3 top executives have been laid off from LowerMyBills/Experian.

The most shocking of the layoffs was of Stephen Semprevivo, the President of Experian Interactive Media, LowerMyBills, and ClassesUSA. Semprevivo was previously Executive Vice President and General Manager of LowerMyBills, a position he held from April 2004 until his promotion to President in June 2007. Before LowerMyBills, Semprevivo was Chief Operating Officer of GetSmart, a company that was acquired by Providian Financial for $38 million, and eventually acquired by Washington Mutual Card Services. In 2000, he was selected by Credit Card Magazine as “Leader of the Year,” for his work with GetSmart.

The other executives that were laid off were Travis Thomas VP of Sales and Rob Gabel VP of Marketing. These are 3 big cut backs and looks to be signs of even more consolidations within the Experian company. How, if at all will this change the marketing strategy and  ultimately the quality for LMB?

Any opinions on what has been going on with LMB and the many changes?

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Yesterday, it was posted on Rumory and then confirmed by a more reliable source here that LowerMyBillshas slashed their staff by 40 to 45 people. It is said that the layoffs occurred across the board and involved everyone from sales to middle management.

Is anyone really surprised by this? No.

Obviously the mortgage lead generation vertical has seen better times and many lead-gen companies are suffering for the same reasons lenders are suffering and of course it has to do with market conditions, but also poor management. It is always difficult to see hard time coming when things are going so well, but the best companies begin to diversify when things are good and do not wait until they hit bottom.

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Today I received an email from LowerMyBills with “Fed cuts rate to 2%” in the subject line.

This is interesting to me for a few reasons. This, as far as I know marks the first time LMB as marketed or re-marketed to its database of old consumer data via email. The email that was used must have been at least 1 year old and in fact it states on the email that I filled out the inquiry in 2006.

This is a good sign that the LMB is looking for immediate ways to reduce their marketing expenditures. They continue to use the boarder line bait and switch type tag lines like Fed cuts rate to 2%. The average consumer thinks this coincides with the actual interest rate they can receive and in my opinion generates borrowers with unreasonable expectations and therefore bad leads. Of course just my opinion.

Here is the email:

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What is the world coming too!!

Now we have spiders climbing up pornographic blow-up dolls. “Yeah, I want to get a mortgage quote from that company”.

This is extremely ugly and pointless. I know the creative team over at LMB has to be better then this. Guys stop taking the low road.

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MediaPost announced that Nielson Online’s AdRelevance service reported that mortgage ad spend had decreased in January. Along with their affiliate payout reduction Countrywide also cut their CPM (Cost Per Thousand) advertising spend. A couple of things that should be noted before I go any further. First, CPM advertising can include banner ads and some text ads but does not include email or PPC. Second, these Nielsen reports tend bounce around time to time, but I think these are not typical monthly adjustments.

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Interesting news came out over the weekend stating that Experian was in the market to sell it’s comparison shopping site, Pricegrabber. The article also claimed that Experian is expected to cut 100′s of jobs in Britain because of their losses. The sale and overall cuts are not surprising.

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It has been noted by two source, one here on ABestWeb Forum that LowerMyBills has cut their affiliate payout by over 62%. They were currently paying out their affiliate partners around $20 per refinance lead and now have lowered it to $6.00. I believe this is the second cut this year and moves the payout from the original price of $40 to $20 and now $6. LendingTree also cut their affiliate payout today as well. I have not confirmed the amount of LT’s cut, but this also would be the second time this year they made a cut as well.

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Pardon the rant, but I need to get this off my chest.
Earlier this year I wrote an article on my previous blog, which was called Morinsight about the riduculous pricing that LowerMyBills was giving out to specific clients. After posting the article Mr. Coffin called my company and insisted that the article be taken down. My boss at the time did not have the guts to tell him to F-off so the article was taken down and of course I didn’t have the guts to tell my boss to F-off either. Funny thing was the information was so well known that I had known it about it months before we negotiated our own pricing. Really it was just silly that a CEO and founder would implement a pricing strategy and not be confident enough in the strategy or feel right about it to allow an opinion based blog give its two cents about it. I know some of you may not have read the article and unfortunately it is on my PC that recently took a “break” on me. I should be able to post the article again once the computer is back up and running. The closest thing I have is this post that includes a couple of paragraphs from the original article. The article was actually very tame.

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Do they really have to make every figure in their ads dance? Is this the winning recipe for a successful ad? This last dancing santa ad really tops it of for me. LowerMyBills, I must admit it doing a good job here by targeting the time of the year and the pinch many home owners may be in, but geez, dancing Santa?

Click here to see the Santa’s in action.

I guess to some extent I am feeding the fire by talking about. I don’t know, I am speechless really, but I guess what works, works. Right?
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Bill Rice of Kaleidico recently posted his Lead MarketWatch widget and referenced the increase in quality (application rate) for LowerMyBill leads. He points out and he is right that there has been a large amount of LMB bashing and yes much has come from this blog, but is there really an increase in quality from LMB.

I sincerely hope that there as been an increase. Any time lead quality improves it is good for everyone, obviously. Now, I can’t tell you if quality has improved or not, but I can tell you that they are spending money on advertising. They currently are spending around $12.5 million a month on media, you can also see on this report that LendingTree is continually in the number one and two spot for ad spend. You can see past reports here.

So we know we have to take a few grains of salt with the Lead MarketWatch widget, because it doesn’t tell you the peramaters for each provider on the list. We do not know how many leads, what states and what type of lead is being used to measure the app rate, but I guess on some level you can derive some information from it. In reality, it is the only source for any transparency into the quality of lead providers, good or bad.

So with that said, I would like and I am sure others would appreciate LMB buyers to comment on the quality they are seeing. How is it? Are you seeing an increase in conversion or ROI with LMB leads.

Anybody want to comment?

(Little disclaimer for my new buyers and readers, please take the comments with a few grains of salt and research your lead providers on your own too.)

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Does anyone else find this ironic? (By no means scientific or authoritative, but ironic)

LowerMyBills’ Vendor Perspective:

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ — TARGUSinfo honored LowerMyBills.com, an Experian company, yesterday with the Best in Lead Quality Award at the Online Lead Quality Summit here at the Palms Hotel and Casino. The Summit, sponsored by TARGUSinfo, is dedicated to helping companies drive profits through successful online lead generation and improved lead quality.

LowerMyBills’ Client Perspective:

Does anyone know how i can get out of my contract for lowermybills

It is in my 3rd week with them and probably over 75% have been d/c numbers, they say I have to be with them for 31 days before I can cancel and also after 31 days I have to send a letter of cancelation [sic] that takes another 31 days.

Hmmm…At the very least it demonstrates that long term, "lock-in" contracts are not trust or performance-based. And I am sure, what I am guessing to be a small account, is not threatening to impact LowerMyBills’ strategic media buy forward contracts.

I have written a number of post regarding the movement of sales reps within the lead industry. Why you ask? I find it interesting to watch and make note of these changes because where they end up says something. Do you think that the more experienced reps are going to choose a company that isn’t going anywhere or that don’t have a solid product? Of course not, they are going to choose companies that have up side potential and that sell a quality product.

The same goes for people who choose to leave. Are they leaving simply for a change or have they lost faith in the company or product?

With that said LowerMyBills “very first hire”, from what I was told, has chosen to move on. Scott Shanker, whom LowerMyBills hired from GetSmart and who brought many of the large accounts that LMB still has. Accounts such as Quicken, Home Loan Center and Ameriquest were all created by Shanker.

My team generates the majority of company revenues; also responsible for the planning and deployment of all initiatives associated with the national client base. -Shanker

Shanker has chosen to to team up with Los Angeles based LeadPoint. For LeadPoint, which practically made up of all ex-LMB employees, this is a big catch. What’s in it for Shanker and why did he go to LeadPoint. Well, I don’t know for a fact, but I would speculate that they brought him on board to whip the sales team in shape and generate sales prior to the speculated liquidation.

There seems to be an ongoing exit of sales reps and key members of the LMB team. Moral is said to be lower than normal and I was even told from a lead provider that they had interviewed everyone at LMB except the CEO. Now this was probably an over statement but apparently the resumes are out.

This is clearly a transition period for many of us and LMB is clearly included in this bunch.

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Yesterday at the TARGUSinfo Lead Quality Summit they honored LowerMyBills with the “Best in Lead Quality Award“.

“LowerMyBills.com earned this award by standing out in a growing field of companies that are pioneering the art of generating, verifying and delivering high-quality sales leads captured on the Internet,” said Dave Wengel, General Manager of Interactive Markets for TARGUSinfo. “LowerMyBills.com nailed every criterion for the award, gleaning effusive praise from recognized lead buyers and demonstrating a high level of sophistication in its quality assurance process. Leads that come from LowerMyBills.com are leads companies can trust.”

There is no doubt that LMB help pioneer the art of of lead generation and I congratulate them on the doing so. Maybe a life time achievement award would have been more appropriate, since the actual quality of the leads have suffered since the end of last year. I must say they have also pioneered how to sell a lead 5 times, give certain buyers different prices to keep them on the network and of course make interesting, to say the least, banner ads. I am going to guess that the praise they received from the “recognized buyers” are the buyers that are receiving the low price points and therefore have a better chance of profiting from LMB leads.

I do like the idea of giving awards or recognizing the good and innovative lead providers, but minus the politics. I would love to create a LeadCritic awards for our industry, but it would have to be a peoples choice award. My concern is that many lead buyers don’t like sharing their best providers with others. Which I think is ridiculous . That mentality is completely counter intuitive to finding good sources and eliminating the bad ones. If you think that telling someone about you good lead source is going to hurt you in the long run, I must say you are crazy.

What if lead providers actually worked towards receiving the LeadCritic people choice award by continually improving the quality of their leads. Don’t you think that would benefit everyone?

So what do you think? Would lead buyers be interested in taking a survey on lead quality?

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Within the mortgage industry, the lender side and the lead generation side, turmoil is all around. We have LO’s, processors, upper management flip flopping around from company to company trying to find a stable home. This also seems to be happening in lead-gen side of the industry as well. Sales reps are moving from, sometimes older more “established” lead providers to newer boutique style lead providers. I believe many of the larger lead-gen companies suffered more damage from the sub-prime debacle and the alt-a meltdown then the smaller, newer shops. I think many of the transitioning sales reps are looking for new opportunities and a chance to convert their current client base over to the younger lead company. They obviously would not be able to do this if they moved on to an older more established company because many of their clients are already with the established company. It just wouldn’t make sense.

I am also catching wind that many feel the larger companies are loosing focus or drive to innovate and are relying on other channels to pull them through. I have been told that LowerMyBills is loosing more and more control to Experian and it will soon be transitioned into Experian Interactive.  Rumors also have it that older employees are either leaving or let go for new hires. There are a lot of new faces in the LMB offices these days.

Rumor has it that change is brewing at Low.com as well. One partner is rumored to be disgruntled and his looking to separate himself from operational decisions and could possibly be looking for new opportunities. I believe that Low will continue to succeed even through these tough times. Low continues to bring on new personnel, many from the top tier lead-gen companies and more importantly they now how to generate good leads.

If are all the rumors are true how will it effect us if at all? For the tier 1 providers will these changes equal poor quality leads? Can more interaction with Experian save LMB or will it hurt them? Can the Low.com turmoil hurt quality and the overall company direction?

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