Intuit’s QuickenMortgage $20k GiveAway is a clever way to develop a database of mortgage leads. The sweeps is easy to understand, easy to enter, and gathers just enough info to qualify the leads without being overly nosey. The $20,000 grand prize can be earmarked for home purchase, second home purchase, home improvement, or mortgage principal repayment. Alternatively, users can take a $5,000 cashiers check. Intuit is also giving away a copy of Quicken Deluxe during each of the 34 days the contest runs.

The entry process is broken into three parts (see screenshots right). The first step is a single checkbox and blank to enter your email address. This draws users into the form before they have a chance to think about going elsewhere. The second step calls for name, zip code, and home ownership status.

The cleverest part of the entry form is the close. Instead of simply thanking entrants and wishing them a nice day, Intuit has them select a mortgage-related activity to close out the entry process. Users select from one of these four exit ramps at the end of step #2:

•  See how much house I can afford.
•  See if I should refinance my current mortgage.
•  Comparison shop for the best refinance deal.
•  Get advice on starting out to buy a home.

During this final step, Intuit hopes to get users involved in its site, determining if it’s time to refinance, purchase a home and so on. If the company was sneaky, or clever, depending on your viewpoint, they could append the information entered into the calculators with your profile entered earlier in the contest entry form. This would create a powerful database of mortgage prospects complete with name, email address, homeownership status, a proxy of disposable income (intended use of the $20k), current mortgage size, current mortgage rate, and desired mortgage size, term, and rate. What more could a loan marketer want, short of a completed application?

As long as the Web site fully discloses the data being collected, we see no problem with this approach (although consumer groups may see it very differently). We checked Intuit’s Privacy Statement www.quicken.com/support/privacy but it wasn’t clear on the issue of collecting user inputs to calculators. The company did disclose they were actively gathering user info through registrations and cookies throughout the Intuit site and Excite’s Business and Investing Channel. Intuit has even turned its privacy policy into a profit center running banner ads on top and bottom for credit report monitoring and brokerages.

Step 1: Just two questions to ease entrants into the survey with a low threshold of pain: (1) what you would do with the $20k, and (2) your email address quicken.imgis.com/qm/quicken1.html.

Step 2: Just a few more details: name, zip and birthday, then the killer close, four choices of what to do next.

Step 3. Intuit hopes you’ll spend a little time
with its refi calculator before moving on.