LoanTrust is Surprise Google Financial Advertiser

The online loan-referral market must still be healthy. How else can you explain how an unknown company, providing not a single clue as to whom might run it, can afford to be within the top-three advertisers on Google searches today for "refinance" and "home equity."

Google_homequity_searchThese search terms, each used millions of times each month (NetBanker Sep. 20, 2005), currently have three ads across the top of the Google search results. In both cases, previously unknown referral agent, LoanTrust.org, is a top sponsor. For "home equity," it’s in the company of two well-known brands, Ditech and LendingTree (click on inset for a closeup). 

Loantrust_homepage Clicking through the LoanTrust ad drops users onto a professional looking site that name-drops ING, Geico, and Equifax to build credibility (click on screenshot right for a closeup). But anyone peeking under the covers should be concerned about where their personal information will end up. For example, the short About Us section includes this grammar-challenged sentence:

LoanTrust, is dedicated to operating in an ethical conduct in all its activities.

Also, many of the "services" offered simply dump users into other websites, earning LoanTrust commissions on the traffic.

Analysis
We have nothing against this company: they are probably a well-meaning outfit cutting corners on copy editing (we’ve been guilty ourselves). The point is: why are they able to snag a top-spot on Google? Shouldn’t large, established lenders be able to squeeze better returns from the $100 CPM keyword buys on Google?

Apparently, the answer is no. And that’s because the big players often don’t execute well on their landing pages. Rather than give rate searchers what they want, access to multiple rate quotes to ensure a fair price, large financial institutions tend to dump surfers right into their loan application and expect their brand image to win the day. It’s usually not that easy.

Read more in OBR 124 and 126, Online Lending v5.0.

JB

Google Unveils New Finance and Investing Website

Google_finance_logo_2Google just staked its first claim in financial services, opening Google Finance <finance.google.com> today. It comes as no surprise that the search giant would look to grab a share of the considerable traffic to consumer finance sites (see chart below).

Naturally, the Google effort is well designed and fast. The site uses interactive, Flash-based price charts, news feeds from Google news, and company and officer information from a number of sources. The site allows users to set up a personalized portfolio, and it links to blog postings and even to postings from Google’s moderated forums (click on inset below for a closeup).

Google_finance_full_3The only surprise is the lack of advertising. Not only are there no banners or postage-stamp ads, but also no buried "sponsored links" to be found. We don’t expect it to stay advertising free, but for now, it’s a good place to refer customers to check stock quotes, track target companies, or set up an online portfolio.

Consumer finance traffic
Unique visitors in Feb. 2006
  Yahoo Finance>>>12 million
  MSN Money>>>11 million
  CNNMoney>>>8.5 million
  AOL Money & Finance>>>8.3 million
  WSJ/MarketWatch>>>8.3 million
  Forbes>>>6.7 million
  Reuters>>>6.6 million
  Entrepreneur>>>5.5 million
  ConsumerInfo.com>>>4.0 million
  BankRate.com>>>3.5 million

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings, 3/06

JB

Credit Report Marketers are Faster than Google!

In thousands of searches using Google and other search engines, I’ve succeeded in stumping them a few times, receiving no results on my search expression.

Vantagescore_googleHowever, today I saw something I’d never witnessed before. A Google search for "VantageScore," the new joint credit score from Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax (NetBanker March 14) returned the following (click on the inset for a closeup):

  • Zero mentions of the term
  • Two ads placed against a search term that returned zero documents (click on inset for closeup).

But I guess it had to happen: savvy credit report marketers are moving faster than Google’s spider to lay claim to a new term.

JB

Citibank using Google to Pitch Credit Monitoring

Citi_creditmonitoring_logo

Since the dawn of the online credit bureau era (1997/1998), online credit report marketing has been dominated by the specialists: Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, ConsumerInfo.com (now owned by Experian), Fair Isaac, Intersections, and others.

Citi_creditmonitoring_googlead_2Now, financial institutions are becoming more involved. For example, Citibank’s AdWords spot pitching its Credit Monitoring Service showed up fourth overall (and second in the right-hand column) in a search today for "credit report monitoring" on Google (click on inset right for a closer view). With 84 advertisers vying for space on the first page or two of results, that’s expensive real estate.

Citi’s $9.95/mo service (after one free month) is powered by Intersections <intersections.com> and includes info from all three credit bureaus, daily alerts based on Equifax info, $20,000 in identity theft insurance, and other benefits (see screenshot below for a full listing).

Another surprise advertiser in the category is Wal-Mart whose ad appears in the sixth position along the right side of the search results (see inset above). The retail giant’s $7.46/mo service is co-branded with TransUnion’s TrueCredit (click here for screenshot).

Citi_creditmonitoring_learnmoreAnalysis
We are big fans of credit report monitoring, having personally used it for more than a decade. And while the service does deliver significant value, we think the single $9.95/mo price point is too high for the mass market. Granted, ten bucks is better than the $14.95/mo charged by TransUnion’s TrueCredit for a similar service (see inset for an email received today). But the $120/yr is simply too much for information that can be extracted relatively easily by consumers themselves.

Better would be a multi-tiered offering: Regular/Gold/Platinum that starts at under $5/mo and peaks at $9.95/mo for an individual, $14.95/mo for a family. That way, more customers would receive the benefits of proactive monitoring while the truly paranoid could use the pricier options for added peace of mind. Truecredit_email

Another puzzling aspect of Citi’s service: it’s impossible to find it through the home page. It not only lacks its own link in the product menus, but also comes up blank in searching on "credit report monitoring" or even "credit reports." You shouldn’t have to use Google to find such an important service, especially at a bank that’s spent tens of millions promoting itself as a safe haven against identity theft.

For more information on credit-report monitoring, see Online Banking Report #83/84. For more on pricing, see OBR #109.

JB

Looking for ARM conversions

The Wall Street Journal’s Ruth Simon writes today about how lenders are using the rise in short-term mortgage rates to convince borrowers to swap their adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) for a fixed-rate one. She told how CitiMortgage, Wells Fargo, and others are targeting borrowers through direct mail, statement inserts, and telemarketing campaigns.

To see if these tactics had spilled over to the online world, we tried a few Google searches to see who was advertising "ARM to fixed-rate conversions." The only highly targeted ad was by DiTech, <ditech.com> the online lending unit of GMAC.

Ditech_google_arm_to_fixed_mtg_1

Under our search, "trade ARM for fixed mortgage," their AdWords promotion used the headline, "Dump Your Adjustable & Get a Fixed Rate Loan from Ditech.com" (click on screenshot above for a closer look), exactly what we were looking for. Unfortunately, DiTech has not created a landing page that speaks to this niche. We were dumped on their busy homepage (click on screenshot below for a closer look) and left to our own devices to figure out how to accomplish this intricate task.

Analysis
It’s simple to see what went wrong here:

   Great search engine marketing
+ horrible website execution
= wasted $$$$$

Ditech_homepage_2The old advertising cliche about the fastest way to kill a bad product is with great advertising is doubly true with search engine marketing. Great search engine marketing increases click-throughs, driving costs through the roof, while poor website execution pulls conversions down, making the whole effort appear terribly cost ineffective.

So before launching any clever search engine campaigns, make sure you are able to cash in on the traffic.

JB

E*Trade “Debit Card” on Google

As we searched Google today for debit card info, we noticed E*Trade on top of the paid search results with an AdWords listing entitled Platinum Visa Debit Card (it was the first "banner" on the top of the search results).

Etrade_landingpage_debit_on_google_1Interestingly, clicking on the link takes you not to a single-product pitch for a debit card, but to the broker’s E*Trade Complete product which combines brokerage, banking, and lending into a single offering (click on inset for landing page screenshot).

Note: The graphic image appearing in the middle of E*Trade’s landing page features a check, debit card, and security token overlaid on a screenshot of its online banking area.

AnalysisEtrade_complete_1
Showcasing its Complete product on debit card searches shows good mastery of search engine marketing by E*Trade. The online giant figures the type of person searching on debit cards will be intrigued by the total control promised by the package account. The out-of-scale security token also adds a reassuring touch to the image (see inset). 

JB

Top Financial Search Terms

Top50_search_termsIn reviewing common banking, credit and insurance search terms today (August 2005) vs. two years ago (April 2003), there has been phenomenal growth in searchs on specialty loan terms, such as (number of searches on Overture each month):

home equity loan — up 21-fold from 82,000 searches to 1.7 million searches in August
home equity credit line — up more than 80-fold, from less than 15,000 to 1.2 million
auto loan — up 10-fold, from 100,000 to 1.1 million
student loan — up 12-fold, form 110,000 to 1.3 million
credit card cash back — up more than 50-fold, from less than 15,000 to 730,000
mortgage refinancing — up more than 38-fold, from less than 15,000 to 570,000
payday loan — up 7-fold, from 79,000 to 560,000

In comparison, some of the more generic terms have shown much smaller gains:

mortgage — doubled to 1.2 million from 640,000
debt consolidation — tripled to 700,000 from 250,000
mortgage calculator — up 10% to 630,000 from 560,000

Another big mover: online banking, up 16-fold, from 31,000 to 500,000

Click on the thumbnail above to see all 50 top search terms or download the Word file here: Download banking_search_terms.doc

You can use Overture’s keyword selection tool yourself at this link.

JB

Banking Comparison Websites

Froogle_logo_1Comparison shopping has been in the news lately. General consumer sites, Shopping.com and Shopzilla (formerly BizRate), and financial services specialist LowerMyBills.com, were purchased this year for a combined total of $1.5 billion (source WSJ, 9/14/05). And of course, Google entered the fray last year with its Froogle service.

  • Experian bought LowerMyBills for $330 million
  • Ebay bought Shopping.com for $620 million
  • E.W. Scripps bought Shopzilla for $525 million

Consumers like the shopping comparisons, with 60% of Internet users having used one according to Jupiter Research. The popularity, and merger activity, will attract more entrants such as Become.com, each looking for a new angle.

Buysafeshopping_logoOne new twist is to add value through shopping guarantees. BuySafe recently launched an online marketplace <www.buysafeshopping.com> where users can choose from 1.5 million products covered by the $25,000 BuySafe guarantee. Merchants pay for the protection with a 1% transaction fee.

One area that has seen relatively little activity considering its popularity with online users is financial services. For one thing, financial services, especially loan products are more difficult to compare, because the credit quality of the applicant determines which products are appropriate.

Pricegrabber_mtg_comparisonWe expect more financial comparison sites to join the ranks of BankRate.com, FISN.com, Banx.com and others. The mainstream shopping comparison sites will also add financial services to their coverage. Already Shopping.com, PriceGrabber.com and others have mortgage comparison services (click on inset for closeup). We’ll look at these service in more detail next month in Online Banking Report.

For price leaders, these sites have the potential to be wonderful sources of qualified leads. But if you are a premium-priced provider, you’ll have to work that much harder to keep your share.

JB

Debunking Search Marketing Myths in Banking

Contributed by Mike Bailey, Compete, Inc.

Compete_logo_1Every day millions of consumers use the internet to search for new deposit accounts, loans, and credit cards. As a financial marketer you understand connecting to the growing online demand for financial products and services is a competitive necessity.

But what is the most effective way to understand and even predict how a potential customer thinks and behaves online? What search strategies will be most effective to allow you to tap into an online community of potential customers?

To find the answers, Yahoo! Search Marketing sponsored a study, conducted by Compete, Inc., a predictive analytics firm specializing in the financial services industry. The results provide some surprising insights that can dramatically influence your success in attracting and retaining customers.

First let’s look at two of the search “myths” we uncovered:

Myth #1 – People searching for credit online are not good prospects

The first thing we discovered is that consumers who use search to research deposit, loan and credit card products are affluent, have great credit and have a higher likelihood of applying for the products they have searched for than consumers who use other channels for their research. With 49% having an average annual income of more than $60,000, these prospects are 67% more likely to start an application than a typical online shopper and loan searchers are 59% more likely to apply.

Myth #2 – Brand names are not relevant in search marketing because those searching for specific banking institutions must already be customers there

As it turns out, searchers who type in a specific retail bank name are not just looking to log in to their existing accounts. A full 30% are potential new customers researching new accounts. And of those 30%, about 80% are looking for an alternative financial institution. So in search marketing, your brand and the terms associated with it provide three opportunities:

  1. Service your own customers
  2. Acquire new customers looking for specific services
  3. Access competitors’ customers

Most financial institutions have worked hard and spent marketing dollars to build a brand with positive and credible attributes. The good news, as our study shows, is that consumers looking for deposit and loan services hold brands in high regard. Consumers searching for particular brands make more than two-thirds of the search-generated deposit applications in a typical month. And a hefty 80% of credit card shoppers start their online searches with brand names, including the highly advertised brand names that you would expect, as well as partner and affinity cards, such as “air miles card.”

So how do you achieve better results with your online marketing? We recommend three strategies:

  1. Establish a balanced portfolio of terms. We have seen that deposit and loan searchers balance the types of terms they use. Credit card searchers, on the other hand, are inclined to research brand-related terms, including partner cards and affinity relationships. As a marketer you will need to adjust your portfolio of keywords and terms to make sure you have as broad access as possible to all potential customers.
  2. Leverage brand terms to attract deposit customers. Consumers who look online for major retail bank brands are most interested in deposits and cards and least interested in loans. Create copy that reflects this insight and tailor your incentives toward what your customers want.
  3. Measure and reflect offline conversions in search marketing ROI calculations. Without measurement how will you know how effective your efforts are and how to make adjustments? At least 50% of conversion volume occurs offline at a branch or call center, but the bank, product or service was researched online first – so tie your offline transactions to search.

Online search is a powerful consumer tool allowing people to easily find the information they need to make decisions about banking and financial products. As a marketer, make sure to do the research and analysis so you can create the most effective multi-channel and measurable marketing programs.

Mike Bailey is Managing Director of the Financial Services Practice at Compete, Inc., headquartered in Boston

Financial Search Engine Marketing Conversion Rates

Yahoosearchmarketing_logoDisappointed in your conversion rates on prospects attracted to your site via search (paid or natural)? Compete and Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) released results of new research at the recent Net.Finance conference.

Compete_logoThe study looked at a pool of 75,700 searchers who conducted 250,000 financial information searches. Of that total, just 5,640, or 7.5%, ended up submitting an application for a financial product. Since they are often looking at more than one provider, your "expected" share would be less than 7.5%.

So if you are closing 5% or more of your visitors, you are hitting it out of the park. Even a 3 or 4% close rate is exceptional. On the other hand, if you are closing 2% or less, your creative and/or offer may be lacking.

JB

Local Option Boosts Google AdWords Appeal for Financial Institutions

Now that Google has begun identifying search engine users by their IP addresses, advertising via Google has become a whole lot more lucrative for community banks and credit unions.
Financial institutions now have the ability to target their keyword ads via city, state, or MSA.
See OBR 95 for a full report on search engine marketing.