Case Studies

Reviving Mortgage Lead Generation via Live Transfers

Last fall, Ad Authority was facing a situation that many other mortgage lead generators were facing - client demand was on a down slide, generating high quality Internet leads was becoming more difficult, and the need to maintain certain levels of profitability was forcing the company to take a serious look at its involvement in the mortgage vertical. As the industry has decentralized and behemoths like Ameriquest, Aegis, and New Century have drastically reduced their marketing budgets, lead generators have had to redevelop their marketing programs to maintain viability or drop their mortgage programs altogether.

Some organizations have refocused on purchase leads, others have moved to vintage-only sales, while many have continued the uphill battle of trying to turn a solid profit selling exclusive Internet leads. In contrast to most other plans, Ad Authority decided to focus their mortgage efforts on a live transfer program. Rather than having to battle in the online mortgage lead arena, they moved into a relatively unsaturated market and have been able to provide a high quality lead at a price that's profitable for both Ad Authority and their clients while continuously streamlining the process. Every transfer goes through an American call center for quality verification before it reaches the client and in the event of a dispute, every call is recorded, allowing clients to spend less time managing their campaign and more time closing loans.

Now that the live transfer program is six months old, there is absolutely no doubt that it is the best decision Ad Authority could have made at the time. Through incremental improvements to the program they've been able to reduce the cost per transfer by over 25%. Combined with clients who have shown a willingness to pay more to ensure they receive volume, this has translated into approximately a 30% rise in profitability for Ad Authority's mortgage vertical, not only ensuring the company's continued involvement in mortgage, but putting them in a position to expand their involvement.

Entering the Competitive Automotive Lead Market 

In early 2007, Ad Authority was looking to expand into different areas of the lead generation business.  Previous attempts were not successful due to the lower margins involved in establishing a strong presence in this industry.  Efficiency was the main issue, as Ad Authority has never had a way to move leads efficiently enough to justify the smaller margins associated with breaking into an extremely competitive market. 

This problem was solved by 2 methods the first involved creating custom “PingX” software that fully integrates into the existing LeadX platform. LeadX is the same technology platform that has made Ad Authority so successful in other verticals.  The software fully automated the distribution process of leads based around the industry-standard pingpost model. This effectively created a real-time auction system with each lead going to the highest bidder while maintaining the target return on investment. With the entire transaction from lead generation to lead distribution taking under 30 seconds, this was a big step forward in auto lead distribution. The second step was creating an aggressive tiered pricing system that has allowed Ad Authority to establish a solid foothold into the auto market. 

Since the inception of PingX, Ad Authority has created a stable profitable presence in the Automotive Finance Lead industry. With a steady revenue increase of  20% per month, Auto has a very bright future.