Leadpile’s Blog

With today’s news about Wachovia Bank being purchased by Citigroup, this leaves pretty much 3-4 major banks out there now. For instance, there is Wells Fargo Bank, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. According to Business Week, this could mean the cost of taking care of your money, or getting new loans could cost consumers more money. “The larger the bank is, theoretically the more power they have to set pricing and other policies,” said Nancy Atkinson, senior analyst at Aite Group, a financial services research firm. “I expect we’ll start to see free checking accounts start to disappear, and rates on overdrafts could go up. Savings rates could drop, Business Week says.” Also, things such as customer service and answering questions, could be a little hard to get taken care of with these new consolidation of banks. Therefore, those that are maybe wondering how this bank consolidation affected them… maybe soon will see.
Will all these changes cause industries such as payday loans to become more popular, because consumers getting loans with their banks won’t happen as easily? Time will tell how this will affect Leadpile Lead Exchange and the types of leads we are bringing in.

In recent months with all the foreclosures happening around the world, there is unfortunately some that are trying to capitalize on this. According to MSNBC, one in eleven consumers are facing foreclosure or behind on their mortgage payments. Therefore, consumers are trying to get out of this situation in any way they can. However, there are those scam artist that are trying to take advantage of these consumers trying to get out of their tough situation.
There are two types of scams going on right now with home owners. There are the scams where the consumers are asked to put up some upfront fees to pay for the “assistance”, but then the scam artist disappear with their money. “But the more lucrative scam involves seducing homeowners into complicated transactions that allow con artists to steal equity in the house or walk away from the closing table after netting thousands in phony payouts,” according to MSNBC.
This is a huge problem for home owners that are already in a bad situation. Before allowing anyone to assist in “helping”, all consumers need to really know who it is that they are working with. Asking questions and checking out specifics of these companies/individuals can hopefully prevent some from getting scammed. Unfortunately, peoples hardship is another person’s gain. Our home is one of the largest investments we will ever have, and we can’t allow those criminals to take that away. This can not happen if we are all aware and educated on the different types of scams.

Leadpile Lead Exchange does not currently generate a lot of foreclosure leads, however if there is a company out there that is truly wanting to help consumers from going through this sort of situation, we are certainly able to look at generating more leads. Matching up consumers with legitimate companies to help them is also our goal.

Easy Money, a payday lender with stores in Alabama, recently joined Borrow Smart Alabama – a TV  campaign aimed at encouraging borrowers to use loans wisely.

The title loan and cash advance industry, under fire for high-interest rates, have smartly recommended regulatory oversight which will help to promote legitimacy. Borrow Smart Alabama is comprised of more than 225 cash advance and title lenders in the state who have committed to a Code of Fair Lending.

Smart Move by Payday’s in Alabama.

According to paydayfacts.org, The Ohio Grocers Association has backed Ohioans For Financial Freedom. The group is stating that consumers are going through a lot of economic hardships, and taking away additional sources of financial help is not the way to go. The other aspect they are concerned about is the fact that if this legislation takes effect, 6,000 employees in the payday lending industry could loose their jobs, resulting in their bills and loans becoming delinquent ultimately affecting other financial industries. This group believes that consumers should be able to make their own decisions about borrowing money, and the government should not be making that decision.

Either way, the payday loan lead type is a very demanded lead type with Leadpile Lead Exchange.
We shall see if Ohio falls in the footsteps of some other states developing legislation in this industry.

Curious, what’s the next category LeadPile is looking at generating?  Well, folks here you have it!  Tax Debt Leads.  Very popular, and the demand is off the charts.  

The definition of this lead type is clearly back taxes. Consumers that did not file or owe a lot of many preferably in Federal taxes.  Why, the sudden demand?  For years, we have encounter consumers finding themselves in financial trouble, but the economy now is focused on people not paying taxes.  Believe me thousands of consumers owe money to the Federal system.

The downfall for thousands of people is that when you owe money to the Feds, the Federal government has the ability to start garnishment from your revenue or put liens on your property.  Not an experience you would like to encouter.  You will also be penalized and depending on the time frame owed or amount owed it can become a serious headache to deal with them, as you will be fined and some people even experience time in jail. OUCH!

LeadPile Lead Exchange will be introducing Tax Debt Lead.  We will connect the consumer that are in serious tax debt and need assistance talking to a specialist that can assist them.  Stay tune for a more firm ETA!

Bankrate.com just released the top 10 selling cars for 2008.  The hottest and most popular automobiles: 

• #10 – The Chevrolet Cobalt.  Listing price $14,217. Sold to date 114,250 vehicles.  Runs at about 25-30 mpg.  
• #9  -  Ford Focus. Listing price $15,363. Sold to date 123,449 cars. Average 28mpg
• #8  -  Chevrolet Impala. Listing price $21,348. Sold to date 138,952.  MPG depends on the cylinder of the vehicle.  Your looking at anywhere between 17-23mpg depending on the version
• #7 – Chevrolet Silverado (light duty). First truck on the top ten.. Listing price$25,921. Sold to date 148,046. They average 11-16mpg. 
• #6  - Nissan Altima.   Listing price $22,798. Sold to date 158,006.  Average 22-26mpg.  
• #5  - We are half way down the list . Introducing the Ford F Series (light duty). Nice to see another truck on the board.  Listing price $22,798.  Sold to date 164,828.  10-16mpg.  Wow, get ready to spend your money on gas with this type of mpg!
• #4  - Toyota Corolla.  Listing price $17,122.  Sold to date 169,868.  25-30mpg.  Nice!
• #3  - And now the top three!  Honda Civic! I’m not surprised to see this bad boy on the list.  Listing price $19,114.  Sold to date 204,961.  The MPG is great with whopping 28-42mpg. 
• #2  - Honda Accord.  Listing price $25,859. Sold to date 227,874.  Save some cash with this beauty 25-34mpg.
• Finally, what we have all been waiting for .  #1 best selling auto for 2008!  You ready?  Announcing the most popular car around, the TOYOTA CAMRY.  Listing price $22,859.  Sold an amazing 228,874 cars this year.  Take a vacation with the money you will save on gas with 23-34mpg.

Surprised to only see 2 trucks in the top ten?  I think not.  Overall car sales are down 10% this year compared to last year.  Leadpile Lead Exchange deals a lot with the Auto Finance vertical and the volume of leads coming through our system is slightly down also, however we are expecting it to turn around any day now!
There you have it, the top 10 autos for 2008!

In recent years, more and more people are going to college and taking out student loans. These loans were once looked at as “good debt”, however there are students that are graduating with $100,000+ in debt. This is equating to $500-$1,000/month in payments for students. Good debt? ALOT of debt!
The excitement of graduating from college is overshadowed by the idea that within 6 months of graduating, you will begin paying back these debts. How can you really get excited about the fact that you have spent the last 4-6 years going to school, and to be finally done?
According to Yahoo, there are students graduating and becoming affected by the high level of stress, because they know that they are going to have to pay this money back. The first stress should be finding that job that they have been going to school for, however with the outstanding debt, it is hard to really focus on getting that “right” job.
This is a very common type of situation that is happening around the country. This makes me wonder if maybe student loan debt should be somehow waived by the government, or some other options being available? Taking on student loan debt is not the same as going out to the department store and charging up credit card debt. Something to think about… any other way to potentially handle student loan debt? We want young adults to WANT to go to college.
On a final note, student loans/student loan consolidation lead type is minimal in our Leadpile Lead exchange. However, I do know there are a lot of students that are out there wanting to consolidate their student loan debt, because of the exact reason of the payments being out of control.

According to MSNBC today the numbers are in and retailers lost money, even though the 100 billion dollars worth of stimulus checks have been mailed out by the government. So where did all that money go?
A little over 1/4 of the Americans who received these checks used it for paying off some credit card bills. Only 11% used the money on discretionary items such as electronic items and travel.
Grocery stores to retail stores were offering discounts to come into their stores, to spend their stimulus money on THEIR products. Some retailers placed radio and television ads with reference to spending their stimulus checks at their stores. They all have reached for a piece of the pie.
It appears the winners were discount retailers such as Walmart, Target and Costco. The loosers, that were unfortunately not able to benefit, were department stores and clothing stores. So maybe it is a good time to go out there to get some REALLY good deals!!!!!
Another area that felt some negative effects of the stimulus checks was the payday loan industry. If consumers are getting checks from the government, then they don’t necessarily need a payday loan. However, everything seems to be headed back in the right direction for payday lenders/lead generators. Leadpile Lead Exchange focuses a lot of the payday vertical, so our heart goes out to all our affiliates that felt any negative effects of the stimulus checks going out.

Publishers are spending a lot of money on PPC campaigns through Google AdWords.  Have you ever researched the cost of producing a real time quality lead? Depending on the vertical, it can get really expensive, especially if you are looking for quality and genuine interest.

Capturing a name, number, email, address, best time to call, can get really expensive. If you want to target geographically, by zip or state, it will increase your price and lower the amount of traffic you are getting. A lead can be really inexpensive, if you are just capturing email address, and you incentivize it, but if you are looking to attract customers that are genuinely interested in your service, its not going to be .20 cents or .50 cents, it will be way more expensive. You can expect prices as these if you are looking for lists, but why would you do that when you have the Yellow Pages and costs you nothing. You can definitely get leads for such a price, but those will be leads that are generated from the yellow pages, or aged data (lists) of consumers that showed an interest in your service years ago.  So what is the price for a good, real time, exclusive leads? It depends, it can be very expensive, depending how competitive is your vertical.  You will get what you are paying for. In other words, you are going to be happy with the return on your investment (ROI).

Advertisers have to consider that publishers or lead exchanges are eating the cost of any leads that are invalid.  Paying anywhere between .25 to $1.50 per click, or even $15, does not guarantee a conversion. Even if we get a conversion, it will not necessarily mean that you, as a buyer, will accept the lead. If you are a Debt Settlement buyer, you might want only want $15,000 and above in Unsecured Debt, which will significantly increase the price to produce that lead. 

Lead exchanges welcome advertisers to join the marketplace to HOST their offers. Paying the right price for the lead, working with the lead exchange to optimize your campaign and filter the lead sources, will ensure a successful campaign for you, as a buyer, and for the Lead Exchange and its publishers. 

Think of it this way, lets say you need to travel to a different state.  Would you rather rent a bike or a car? By renting a bike, you will save money on gas and get in a better shape If you are concerned about the time you need to get to your destination, this will not work too well for you, and renting a car might be more suited for you. Time is money, and we all know it very well.

Make great choices and you will see more money coming into your business! Buy quality, real time exclusive leads, and you can be assured that Leadpile will be on your side from start to end! Pay the price that they are worth and you will get the satisfaction that you are searching for!

Leadpile’s Motto: “Good is the Enemy of Great!” – Jim Collins, Good to Great

According to CNBC there is a great new website being rolled out by the same company that owns Lending Tree and Ask.com- LIFE123.com.

We all use the internet as a source for information no matter what the topic is. Searching for information on the internet has truly become something we are “addicted” to. Well, there are a lot of resources available to search for information, besides just the search engines.
This great new website is a source for information that you will want to know more about. This site could be compared to such sites as About.com or chacha.com (which I did a previous post on).

What is Life123.com?
Life123 is the place to start when you need some answers to some questions you have about pretty much anything. The web site is full of experts that can help people quickly find information on a wide range of life topics.

Why Life123?
More and more, people are using search engines, however we are not always getting the information we need. According to the life123 website, roughly 75% of Americans experience search engine fatigue. Everyone has spent hours looking for information without finding what they really need.

What does Life123 cover?
Life123 covers 11 life categories: Beauty; Style, Celebrations, Food; Drink, Health; Wellness, Home; Garden, Money, Parenting; Family, Relationships, Technology, Travel; Leisure, and Work.

Enjoy LIFE!

If 85% to 95% of all emails being handled by the ISPs represent spam which mostly are unwanted messages abusively and indiscriminately sent by unscrupulous marketers or scam artists, and the costs associated with the necessary bandwidth and network maintenance are supported by the ISPs, which in turn get paid by everyone that’s using the internet one way or another, then spammers are really picking our pockets.

Someone has to pay for creating and supporting the infrastructure required by 100 BILLION SPAM emails PER DAY!!! And that’s not cheap: the estimated costs were about $100 BILLION in 2007. So with 1,412,489,652 internet users worldwide (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) and $100 billion in money spent/lost in connection with the spam, it comes to about $70.79 per person using the internet per year.

Incredibly, about 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200 spammers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam), which would mean that each spammer steals nearly $500 MILLION per year from everybody else. Now is that grand theft or what? If a bank had HALF A BILLION stolen by 200 different people in a year I would tend to believe these people would be caught pretty fast.

LeadGen companies and Publishers that specialize in internet marketing do need to have an ethical conduct and refrain from spamming. LeadPile has built its reputation as a lead marketplace / exchange that strictly prohibits the practice of spam or any other abusive or deceptive marketing methods. All marketplace participants have to abide by strict rules which ensure that consumers are protected, and the lead exchange continues to grow based on the benefits it brings to consumers, lead buyers (advertisers) and lead sellers (publishers). All accounts have a dedicated account manager who is in constant communication with lead sellers and our quality control division is closely monitoring the leads production. Confidence in using the LeadPile Lead Exchange is critical to its success and the marketplace proved to be incredibly successful at attracting both quality lead sellers and lead buyers (http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS215372+06-May-2008+MW20080506).

This tops the cake on articles I have read lately… some politicians are thinking about reducing the speed limit because of the higher gas prices. According to the Wall Street Journal, politicians are entertaining the idea to make some changes to our standard speed limit of 55 mph. The 55 mph speed limit has been around since 1974, so alot of us never saw the uproar that was caused when that speed limit was implemented years ago.
U.S. Energy Department is potentially calculating all these speed demons could save the equivalent of 29 cents to 94 cents a gallon if they slowed down just to 60 mph, but also reduce the fuel they burn by about 7% to 23%. It seems that some are talking about raising this as a potential vote, however it does not appear it will get to far. Most politicians don’t seem to want to admit that they would promote this sort of change.
Something else to think about with regards to the changes going on with the economy.
1. Go out and get a more fuel economy style of car, to save money on gas.
2. Drive slower to save gas.
What’s next for automobile drivers?

So good idea or bad?