All Posts Tagged With: "Lead Generation"

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LendingTree Uncovers Breach of Lead Data

As reported on Twitter by an early tipster to the Lead Critic, and quickly confirmed by LendingTree in letters to customers and a website FAQ, LendingTree uncovered a breach of internal security that allowed some mortgage lenders unauthorized access to customer qualification forms. This is LendingTree’s description of the incident:
Recently, LendingTree learned that several former […]

22Apr2008 | Bill Rice | 2 comments | Continued
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Building a Lead Marketplace is Hard, as Zillow is Learning

Zillow has been at the lead marketplace building business for about two weeks, and I bet internally they are saying, “wow this is hard!” Early responders to the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace were easy to categorize, as I pointed out in my Zillow Gets Negative Reviews (from Non-Adopters), outside observers (non-adopters) were pointing out all of […]

18Apr2008 | Bill Rice | 2 comments | Continued
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Lead Generation Industry, You Asked We Delivered

At LeadsCon 2008, there was a lot of interest in closing the loop between lead generation and lead management performance data–seen as a critical success factor for online originations.
As you may remember we had this discussion all the way back at Leads2007:
TODOs
These major themes drove this group to commit to three major initiatives:

Internet Leads Best […]

10Apr2008 | Bill Rice | 0 comments | Continued
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Stop Using Cost Per Closing to Evaluate Lead Sources

Lead quality is increasingly front and center for new and existing online lead buyers, but that quickly begs a debate on how to measure quality.
One of the metrics that is often quoted by buyers and sellers is cost-per-closing, essentially ROI. Now, although I do not debate this metric in running your overall business, it is […]

9Apr2008 | Bill Rice | 2 comments | Continued
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Zillow Mortgage Gets Negative Reviews (from Non-Adopters)

I have been following the Zillow Mortgage discussion with great interest. By reserving follow-up to my early commentary in BusinessWeek I have an opportunity to survey the discussion and distill a few important observations:

Zillow did something radical
The harshest criticisms are from non-participants
Smart folks are observing and participating with the intent to learn
This is an important […]

7Apr2008 | Bill Rice | 4 comments | Continued
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Reply.com Launches Blog and Lead Exchange

Reply.com just launched a new blog and revealed their new lead exchange. It appears the lead marketplace concept is about to get a bit more competitive, with Reply.com being one of two new entrants that I have heard whispers of emerging.
The concept of a lead exchange seems simple, but I think the challenge is in […]

3Apr2008 | Bill Rice | 2 comments | Continued
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What Would a Jason Calacanis Mortgage Startup Look Like?

A pondering post by Jason Calacanis (Mahalo) about a camp to help startup entrepreneurs got me thinking. What would a Calacanis trained entrepreneur’s mortgage or real estate business look like?
Here is my guess:

It would be efficient with it’s capital and startup costs
It would have an expensive expresso machine
It would leverage the Internet
It would blog
It would […]

24Mar2008 | Bill Rice | 2 comments | Continued
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Does Your Ad Ask For Feedback?

Should your ads be asking for feedback? The increasing clamor for quality and increasing conversation marketing makes this a compelling question posed by Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion.
Have you added a feedback link to your advertising? Would you be willing to? Would you rather buy leads from a lead provider that did?

11Mar2008 | Bill Rice | 0 comments | Continued
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Lead Generation Economics 101

The last couple of weeks, amid the dynamics of the mortgage market, there has been interesting commentary on recession and online ad spending. The contagion effect of the mortgage meltdown is alive and well and creating havoc in the lead generation market.
I thought, since I have had multiple inquiries into my opinion on potential investments […]

3Mar2008 | Bill Rice | 0 comments | Continued
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Does Your Lead Provider Do Co-Registration?

Many do and certainly is worth asking the question. The positive and negatives of co-registration has been debated and there are certainly a right way and a wrong way for publishers and advertisers to us this technique.
Here is an excellent primer in co-registration networks and some of the “hidden” things to look for when you […]

28Feb2008 | Bill Rice | 0 comments | Continued
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eBureau Singing the Lead Marketwatch Hymn

Jeff Liebl of eBureau shares his ideas and views on a “credit score” for online leads. There is certainly a rowdy client base that wants this type of evaluation of Internet leads and lead providers. The top question to anyone in this industry is, “who has the best Internet leads?”
I think modeling services are valuable […]

14Feb2008 | Bill Rice | 1 comment | Continued
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Bankrate gobbling up bargain Internet properties?

Bankrate recently completes two acquisitions of InsureMe, Inc. (insureme.com) and Lower Fees, Inc. (feedisclosure.com). It continues a trend of paired acquisitions that included the 4th quarter 2007 purchase of  National Card Services, Inc. and Savingforcollege.com, LLC and a pair of late 2005 deals to take in FastFind and MMIS/Interest.com.
The 2007/2008 acquisitions certainly demonstrate a strategy […]

13Feb2008 | Bill Rice | 0 comments | Continued
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OLGA wants more from IAB’s lead generation best practices

Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) recent release of online lead generation best practices for B2C and B2B is an unprecedented step in bringing a benchmark of acceptable practices to lead generation. Those of us involved in lead generation and lead management see on a daily basis the very loose and wide view of acceptable means to […]

11Feb2008 | Bill Rice | 0 comments | Continued