GetSmart

www.getsmart.com

New Look: GetSmart moved upscale with its revamp debuting the first week of May. We find it far more appealing than the previous iteration (below).

Old Look: The 1970’s color scheme was good enough for 100,000 mortgage leads in its final 90 days.

GetSmart (Burlingame, CA) a division of BFC Inc., is the leader in the field of mortgage lead generation. While Intuit was garnering all the press with 10,000 prequalifiaction forms submitted during its first four months, GetSmart was quietly generating five to ten times that volume on its innovative Web.

GetSmart has pioneered a whole new industry: financial services lead generation. The company is generating thousands of mortgage leads per day that are fed to 82 lenders for as much as $40 a piece. In the three-month period ending the first week of May, the company reported 114,000 leads generated, 100,000 of those were for mortgages. The company also collects credit card, second mortgage, student loan, and car loan leads. A mutual fund area was removed in the latest iteration of its Web site.

Each lead can be sold to up to three times if the user comes back through the site for a new quote. This puts the pressure on lenders to take care of its leads immediately. According to the company, 15% to 20% of all leads result in a funded loan. Doing the math, the average acquisition works out to $200 to $267 per closed loan. That’s far less expensive than most retail lending operations supported with traditional direct mail.

GetSmart recently revamped its Web site from top to bottom. The new home page is quick loading, uses more upscale green, blue and tan colors and gets right to the point. If you don’t have a name brand name, you must tell Web surfers what you are about, right away. GetSmart accomplishes this with a 33-word mission statement prominently displayed in the left-hand portion of the screen:

GetSmart’s Mission Statement:

• GetSmart is a free, objective information service that helps take the complexity out of borrowing.
• With GetSmart, you can see more options so you can make the most of your time and money.

GetSmart has wisely opted not to run banner advertising on its site. Banner ads would detract from the company’s “unbiased advisor” positioning and pull users off the site before the $40 lead was booked.

GetSmart’s displays this screen when users click in from a mortgage-related banner ad (next page).

GetSmart’s banner advertisement on Yahoo!

GetSmart’s Web has several entry points depending on your path to its site. For example, clicking on the Loan Finder box on Lycos leads you directly into the MortgageFinder at www.getsmartinc.com/mlycos001banksandloansbox Three new buttons have been added to the MortgageFinder: About Us, Privacy Statement, and Why Should I use GetSmart? There is also a testimonial from Tom Proulx, cofounder of Intuit, which could be considered misleading since it’s not disclosed (until deep in the Web site) that he is a company board member.

GetSmart’s Why Use pop-up window.

Clicking the Why Use button causes a window to
pop up (above) with a concise pitch offering three reasons for using the company’s services (paraphrasing, with the italics ours):

•  We are not a lender so we can give you free and unbiased advice. The company also says, “We receive no financial incentive for steering you to any particular lender.” Given that the company is selling leads for $40 a pop, we think that’s a trifle misleading.
•  We provide more loan options by assembling the “largest” lender network with more than 15,000 individual loan products.
•  We are secure and confidential and your “personal information will remain confidential and never be sold to an unauthorized third party.” Considering the company’s business is built on selling your information to third parties, we also find that statement somewhat misleading, though not technically incorrect.

In early May, the company announced aggressive marketing commitments totaling $13 million for 1998 and $50 million during the next three years. Recipients include DoubleClick, the Internet advertising network, Lycos, Yahoo!, Wired Digital (owners of HotBot), and Infoseek. If the company follows through with these commitments, it may become one of the largest advertisers online, perhaps even the largest advertiser in the financial services sector. Estimates of total Web-based advertising in 1997 range from $300 million to $900 million.

Contacts: Bill Fisher is Founder & CEO; John McNamara is SVP Marketing (650) 685-5937.