Mortgage Leads - How to Improve Your Internet Leads

If you buy Internet-generated loan leads or insurance leads, you most likely do business with a firm that “scrubs” its leads to eliminate bogus information. This does not resolve all of the quality issues related to Internet leads, of course. Depending on the lead supplier, the lead may have been sold so many times that the consumer will not even take a call from you. Or you might find that the consumer has already closed a deal. A recent survey of more than one million internet loan leads showed that fully a fifth already had funded at the time the leads were resold—a practice that borders on fraud. Another common problem is the fiscal fitness of the lead. Can the consumer qualify for a loan? Do they have $100,000 of equity in their home, or is it more like $10,000? These problems cannot be “scrubbed” away, but recent technological advances may make them as obsolete as leads from Homer and Marge Simpson.

The paradox of traditional lead generation is this: The same process that produces good leads also produces bad leads. All lead generation depends on a consumer completing an online form. If the consumer is accurate and truthful, the lead is good. If the consumer is mistaken or misleading, the lead is bad. Most lead providers screen out intentional errors such as fake names, bogus addresses, and phony phone numbers. As for the other problems—consumers who will not speak when called or those who have already inked a deal—could not be caught ahead of time. All a reputable lead provider could do is replace the “bad” lead. When it came to consumers not qualified to close a deal, the lead buyer had no choice but to move on. Recently, however, iLeads.com, a lead supplier based in Newport Beach, California, has developed a patent-pending process designed to reduce if not eliminate problems resulting from consumer error.

The heart of the new process is technology that accesses the vast real estate database of First American Financial Corporation, a partner of iLeads.com, and processes the results in real time. iLeads.com automatically does this for its own mortgage leads and insurance leads. It now offers the same service for leads from other sources as well.

On the simplest level, for example, the technology can generate refinance leads with adjustable rate mortgages due to reset in the near future. This information is in public records, but it is difficult to access. iLeads.com retrieves the data from First Financial, then filters and bundles it so the lead buyer can know when the lead will reset, how much the current interest rate is, what the reset rate is, how large the loan is, and other loan and property details. Nothing earthshaking about this process, however the company claims that its ARM leads close at a more than respectable 20 percent rate.

The company’s software can also sneak a real-time peek at recent loan activity to flag leads that have already closed by the time they are delivered to the lead buyer. The product, known as VendorWatch, gives lead purchasers the ability to go back to their internet lead providers instantly for replacements and refunds.

A more complex maneuver is to enhance leads in real time by appending data from various sources. To correct consumer error regarding home equity, for example, iLeads.com offers a product called TruEquity that inserts the latest equity and loan-to-value figures for a given property into the lead. The real numbers help lending professionals target which properties are most likely to qualify for refinance or home equity loans, saving valuable sales time and improving conversion rates.

Adding data to the lead is helpful, but iLeads.com also claims to be able to measure the viability and closeability of mortgage leads. Using a predictive model known as LeadScore, iLeads.com rates leads for their propensity to fund and for the projected ROI of the deal. LeadScore is the first and so far the only predictive model created using real Internet leads that have been tracked over a period of months to the outcome of the transaction. In other words, the model is based on actual history, not theoretical assumptions. By replacing the traditional discovery and qualification process with numerical scores predicting a homeowner’s near-term likelihood to get a new loan, LeadScore allows the lead purchaser to prioritize its sales calls and focus on the most convertible leads.

The same lead tracking capabilities that serve as a basis for creating LeadScore also can be used to identify leads that have not closed but still could. Lead buyers are always in quandary about what to do with old leads. The assumption often is that old leads are dead leads, but this is not always the case. Upwards of a third of all Internet loan leads that have not closed within 90 days of generation nevertheless go on to close at a later date. An iLeads.com product known as LeadWatch allows a lead buyer to identify which of its previously purchased leads are still open up to 180 days after generation. The automatically generated reports reveal which leads might be viable as well as which leads have closed with competitors—business intelligence that can help a company improve its product offerings or sales approach.

Traditional Internet lead generation was like dating using personal ads: The person showing up could be great, good, mediocre, or poor. There was no way of knowing until you met or talked on the phone. By enhancing traditional leads with additional hard data, iLeads.com is producing results akin to today’s sophisticated computer dating services that compile, filter, and “score” compatibility data. The new leads do not guarantee sales chemistry, but they greatly improve your odds of success.