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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