JohnDeMayo.com: Internet Advertising Insight

A mortgage primer - expected trends

            Mortgage ads still hark "rates are still at historic lows!".  I suppose as compared to the last 30 or 40 years, rates are indeed quite low.  They are, however no longer at all time lows or 5-year type lows, and as such the feverish pace of the refi environment has pulled back a bit.

            As interest rates flatten or raise slightly but no longer hit all-time lows, consumers are switching products more then lowering their interest rate with a new loan of the same product.  With more and more people using ARM products, and with America continuing to load up on debt, refi'ing soon to expire ARMs, debt consolidation refi's, and cash-out refi's continue to grow.  A smaller percentage of consumers who are either very cash-tight, or who are perhaps duped by loan officers a bit, are changing longer period standard mortgages to ARMs or even interest-only ARMs to lower monthly payments -- but at significant risk to their possible future payments upon rate adjustment.

            Mortgage advertising has gone from capturing straight-up refi interest, to trying to capture almost any consumer interest in any product so that a loan officer can guide the consumer to one of a large set of varying products serving the needs (of both the consumer and the loan officer;)

            Look for the market to continue to try to stir up and capture any expression of interest -- and move away from the more stock "plain refi" messages.

     See also http://www.johndemayo.com/johndemayocom/2006/08/of_times_a_mort.html
 

Domain purchases

Some of you might find this interesting.  Recent purchases of mine:

EasyCarLoan.com/EasyCarLoans.com for $4200 (total).
Degrees.info - $3800 (probably a little steep, but i like the ed market)
EmailMarketing.info $495
SearchEngineMarketing.info 200EURO
LeadGeneration.info $650 (loving this one)
iAdvertising.info $125

I have some preliminary thoughts on developing the last 4 domains as industry blogs.  Any interested writers please let me know, potentially some good industry exposure, and a link back to your personal blog.

Mortgage lead secondary markets

In an industry as large and with as many players as there are in the mortgage lead industry, there are bound to be various secondary lead processes and offerings. The  most notable that come to mind are older leads, refreshed leads, and call transfers.

As leads get older, naturally their costs fall. Decaying quality means a lead is sold for as little as dollar or two 30-60 days out. Often a lead that was originally limited to be sold a maximum of 4 times is sold additional times after some period of time has elapsed -- so even an couple of extra bucks is looked upon a gravy for the lead originator (or a buyer somewhere along the way who is trying to scrape a few bucks). The more interesting question then who is selling these leads or how much they may be sold for, however, is what the buyers of old leads are doing with them.

Many of the buyers of these leads are trying to "refresh" these leads. This may include emailing, calling, or postal mailing older leads to try to get a second expression of interest from the consumer. If the consumer is still interested, these leads may begin the sale process as new leads. If they are refreshed via a phone call, they may be "call-transferred" on the spot to a mortgage agent.

Call transfers are interesting to look at as well. Here leads of varying quality are called and filtered by a middleman (or the lead originator at times) to make sure they can get the person on the phone, that the person is indeed interested, and that the property and person fill some bare minimum criteria. The person is then put on hold and transferred from the middleman to an end loan officer a few seconds later. Call transfers, depending upon origin and quality, sell between $50 and $100 per or so. Upon call-transferring someone, some middlemen will also simultaneously sell the lead to other buyers through standard channels (as a standard data lead).

Call transfers work great for mortgage companies and loan officers who are not especially aggressive and prefer to spend time with a more consultative sell (as opposed to banging the phones through higher volumes of leads).

All in all it’s a complex and messy marketplace with lots of people selling leads in lots of directions. Hopefully this provides some smaller overview of some of the more prevalent practices. Oh - and if you are looking to buy call transfer leads, I recommend checking out Double Positive.