Leadpile’s Blog

Companies in all industries are experiencing the pressure of having to come up with new ways to get consumers attention. Online lead generation has been a tool for helping companies find consumers needing a new home, a new car, or various types of loans. However, with the economy the way it is now, companies are working on trying to attract online customers to “new” types of products.
Gone are the days of focusing all your marketing efforts on high profit margin items such as home sales, new car sales and other high price ticket items. According to leadmarketwatch,“The time between major purchases is growing larger due to market pressures as well as improved quality and higher prices. Therefore, marketers need to capture the client in between purchases and it is through micro-needs like chrome wheels, new tires, paint jobs, etc.” This means that companies such as GM are focusing on bringing in leads of consumers wanting new tires and accessories, versus getting the new car. This is also in line with Leadpile Lead Exchange and the need for lead types such as car warranty, car refinance, and home security system leads that are becoming more and more in demand. Service providers could be the ones reaping the rewards of the slower economy… don’t buy a new car or house… fix up the one you already have!

In recent months the debt vertical has become a very popular, yet challenging vertical to work with. Understanding reasons consumers have gotten into debt and the specifics that the lead buyers are looking for, has been something we have worked on to fully understand.
According to Bankrate.com there are 10 main reasons why consumers get buried in debt. Understanding more about debt allows consumers to be more educated and ultimately try and avoid these types of situations.

1. Reduced income, but same monthly expenses
2. Divorce
3. Poor money management
4. Underemployment
5. Gambling
6. Medical expenses
7. Not saving money or not saving enough money
8. No money communication skills
9. Spending money you don’t have yet
10. No understanding of money

These are all scenarios any consumer can be faced with, including myself. With the economy being very tough right now, many lead generation companies are focusing on the debt vertical. Fortunately, there are various types of debt help that the consumers can get, but most consumers do not know the difference between one another.
The main details that debt consolidation and debt settlement companies are looking for is the amount of unsecured debt. What is unsecured debt?
Unsecured debt is debt that is not secured by any collateral. For instance, credit card debt, medical bills, cell phone bills and other collection accounts. Most debt companies do not work with secured debt such as mortgages, tax debt, student loans and auto loans.
Leadpile Lead Exchange generates a lot of debt leads. Lead types such as debt consolidation, debt settlement, and credit repair are all types of leads we are generating that are there to assist the consumers with the debt/credit. We are connecting the consumers that need help, with those companies that can help them get out of debt.

I have had multiple calls these last few weeks, and one of the things I observed was that Loan Officers’ main focus is becoming the “credit repair”.  LO’s are looking at different avenues to assist their clients in need. We all know that a large percentage of consumers are having credit problems. Unless you have good or excellent credit, you won’t qualify to refinance your home. After Loan Officers are attempting fixing your credit, they are assisting the client to refinance their homes. 

That’s a smart move for LO’s.  First they charge to fix your credit, then they help you refinance.  Realistically speaking I think its a brilliant idea. It’s not coming fast, but do we have other options? Adapt to the new situations, look for what the consumers need, and you will be able to succeed, even in this market. 

The demand for credit repair in these last few days have gone up.  Finding new ways to make a living and to survive even when the economy is struggling is fabulous. 

Any thoughts on this?

We all know there are some tough times going on with most Americans. Right now, Leadpile Lead Exchange is experiencing a surge with the payday loan lead type. Not only are publishers wanting to generate the leads, but the advertisers are needing those payday leads. If your not apart of the Leadpile marketplace, take a look at some of the conversions our publishers are receiving.

There are a lot of payday loan leads being generated, and WE want them to be SOLD here!
There are also a lot of payday lenders needing leads, and WE want them to BUY here!

According to MSNBC late Friday, there is some speculation that Chrysler could possibly be getting out of the auto leasing arena. I guess time will tell if this turns out to be true.
Major changes such as this has been happening in the auto industry, and turning the once SUV dominated auto industry into the now ECONOMY driven auto industry. This potential exit from the leasing market, could be the beginning of other major auto manufacturers doing the same thing. Why would auto companies continue to be apart of the leasing industry that is dominated by massive gas “hogs”? Then again what about leasing some of these other cars that are making a surge in the auto industry now? Does that mean consumers will not be able to potentially lease those auto types too? WE will see….
One positive that I can see in this potential change is the increase in the auto finance (own) industry. This potentially means more people will be owning their cars instead of leasing. This could result in an increase in our auto finance lead type. Leadpile Lead Exchange will welcome this potential increase in demand!

Last year first half of 2007, Toyota sold 4.5 million vehicles while General Motors came out winning selling 4.54 million vehicles.  Pretty close in sales.  

2008, first half the year, the numbers have arrived.  Toyota automaker sold 4.8 million vehicles for the first half.  That’s about a 2% increase from the same period of last year while GM sales drop 3% the first half.

With the gas price increase more consumers are staying away from the bigger trucks and SUV’s that GM is well known for.  The percentage difference on Toyota’s increase and GM’s drops are somewhat related.  My theory is that consumers are going after the gas saving cars that gives the more miles per gallon.  GM, being a leader in sales until this half of 2008, should  take different approaches to catch the consumers interest?  Maybe it’s time for the engineers to start developing more smaller cars to bring out, less expensive with more miles to the gallon.

All in all the economy is not doing that horrible as critics are proclaiming.  Look at the sales, they are pretty steady, meaning consumers are still spending and they are still buying new vehicles. 

Great time for Auto Groups to take advantage of leads in a lead exchange.  More cars to sell!

Many industry experts are predicting that intensifying economic pressure is sure to lead more auto dealers to consider closing. According to the Detroit News, “General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and privately held Chrysler LLC are going through cash at a faster rate than they generate it, and investors worry that one or more of the companies could run short, perhaps before the end of next year”

According to the Wall Street Journal,  “Ford, GM and Chrysler are running programs aimed at reducing their dealership network by weeding out under-performing sites while bolstering profitability potential for those who remain. The auto makers are kicking in cash to help dealers buy out one another or exit the business”.

What will happen to Dealerships as more competetion, and a weekening economy, continues to “hit” them?

The answer is pretty straight forward. Competition will reign supreme, and efficiencies in sales cycles, cash flows, and ROI’s will rule the day.

What does this mean for the portion of LeadPile’s business that makes up our Online Exclusive Auto Lead Exchange?  Simply put, as more efficiency is demanded by the market, only those companies that can compete with an efficient deliverable (in this case an auto lead), will continue to gain market share.

If you are a lead buyer in our Online Auto Lead Exchange, and you need anything at all to make your buying experience even better, please do not hesitate to ask. We are at your service!,

Okay, we have all established there are some winners and some losers in this struggling economy. But, here is an interesting one for you…. did you notice your food items are shrinking? Yes, your food items like your cereal, your ice cream, and a lot of other food items you eat and getting smaller.
According to MSNBC today, food manufactures are feeling the heat of these tough times, however they did not want to raise their prices. So, instead of raising prices on their food products, they did it in a “sneakier” way- same product, same price, but different amount of it. That same box of cereal for instance has not changed, except there is slightly less of it in the box. Therefore, consumers don’t necessarily notice this, but still get their food items they normally would want to buy.
Is this wrong?
You could look at it as something that they have a right to do, because we are all experiencing a change with the economy. The “tough” will learn to survive, and that is what these companies are trying to do. Or do you look at it as misleading?
No matter how you look at it, times are changing and so are our boxes of cereal. We all need to deal with it the best way we can! Car companies, hair dressers, dentist, lead exchanges, advertisers, and all other companies are some how being affected by this change in economy. Time to adjust.

As we have all been working at the highest level to provide a World Class Service to our clients, The Fourth of July is here!! 

Today, no long “how to” blog post about the economy…
I am simply writing to say ENJOY the 4th of July!

p.s. A little trivia I found about the 4th of July.

1. Did you know that 66+ million people will enjoy some sort of barbecue on the 4th of July?
2. Did you know that 128+ million will be spent on Fourth of July fireworks?
3. Did you know 66+ million visits to our nationwide parks in one year?

ENJOY, BE SAFE, and BE HAPPY!

LEADPILE WISHES YOU A HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Of course, we are on call if you need us!!!!!!

Looking over some posts myself and others have posted in the last few weeks, I see a common topic of conversation. A large amount of the Leadpile blog consists of some good postings from my peers about what is going on with the economy. The sad part about the troubling economy is it is affecting so many people in the world in a BAD way. However, did you ever think about the people that this struggling economy is benefiting? I mean really… one person’s failure is another person’s gain. So, who is gaining in this credit crunch and declining market?

1. Honda- the auto maker has struggled like all other auto makers with producing newly desired hybrid models. Honda will be rolling out 1 more hybrid variations in addition to it’s 2 models that are currently at Honda dealerships. However, consumers are looking for smaller more economical cars VS trucks and SUVs. Them not being a car maker that had been highly focused on trucks, has allowed them to be the only car maker to increase their sales numbers, and that was only 1%.

2. Public transportation- more and more people are now taking public transportation and now cities are even adding new routes to take care of all the additional people. Cities have wanted this for years- save the environment, cute down on pollution etc. Now they have what they wished for!

3. Credit repair and debt settlement companies- these companies could have seen some slower times with everyone going the refinance route. Loan officers were advising consumers to do a refinance to consolidate their debt, amongst other things, with the new found equity in their homes. The credit repair companies are now seeing consumers coming to them because they have no other options.

4. Payday loan industry-consumers have an ability to take out a payday cash advance loan as a last resort for a really hard time. However, are there now more consumers that normally are not taking out a payday loan, having to consider it to pay that next mortgage payment or other outstanding bill?
How about car warranty providers, gas companies, loan modification companies, bankruptcy attorneys, and home buyers looking for a good deal? All these types of companies should be feeling an increase in business.
There are some more that are benefiting from this downturn in the economy, and we really have to say hats off to them. Some of these companies like Toyota have been in the shadow of other auto makers and now it is their turn to shine!
With regards to lead generation companies and lead exchanges, how are we going to adjust to this change, and satisfy any new demand for different products and services? Why not look at the economy in a positive light, that there are some out there that are not going through any economic hardship? Glass half full VS half empty: YOUR choice.

We ALL know those lovely dancing people in the Lower My Bills advertisements. Unique online advertising that promotes consumers to click on their animated banners. Anyone in the mortgage world who has ever bought leads, has probably at some point or another purchased leads from this company. In recent weeks, I have been writing some various posts about different aspects of our economy and how it seems to be affecting different online companies.
Who would have ever thought there would be an affect on such a large company as Lower My Bills.  It appears that it has.
LMB it seems is now getting into remarketing through email campaigns?  They weren’t doing this already? From what I read they were not.  So what could be the reasoning behind something like this? Was there never a need to remarket because the payouts on selling leads multiple times was enough to satisfy them? Has business slowed down so much that they need to remarket their database to generate new online activity (new leads, clicks, better EPL etc)? Maybe the cost for online marketing is too costly for them, and they need to come up with lower cost ways to generate leads?
No matter what the reason is, there seems to be not one industry or company that is not some how affected by what is going on in our economy.
Companies must start thinking outside the box in order to come up with more efficient ways to generate business at a lower cost.  Email marketing seems to be the answer for Lower My Bills, so what are other companies going to do to adjust and stay afloat?
I HOPE THAT DOESN’T MEAN THE DANCING PEOPLE BANNERS ARE GOING TO GO BYE BYE……..

According to Interactive Advertising Bureau, the spending for advertising is up for the first quarter of 2008. This is kind of ironic considering everything that our nation is going through with the economy. It appears that advertisers are backing down on other forms of advertising, but increasing their web advertising. Why is that? Is it because they can get immediate feedback from consumers because of reports that track people clicking on their ads, versus other forms of advertising you do not have that immediate feedback from consumers? In reality, advertising spending were actually down compared to the 4th quarter of 2007, however this is because of the holidays and most retail and online companies increase advertising spending during that period. As we all already know, the internet is the wave of the future where consumers will be spending a lot of time. Corporate America realizes this and they are changing what they are doing to get YOU to buy their product. Let’s see if these spending dollars continue to rise for the 2nd quarter of 2008.

Where is most of the money spent on internet advertising? Search advertising (Google, Yahoo and MSN)is where a large volume of dollars are spent followed by display ads (IE- banners), classified advertising (IE- Craig’s list), lead generation (IE- Leadpile), rich media (IE- youtube), and lastly email marketing.

So, has the slumping economy affected internet advertising also? It appears it did not, but the bottom line is: ……………………………. did the internet advertising result in more sales?