Mortgage Lead Frenzy

Bankrate Inc. announced last week that it signed one-year contracts with LowerMyBills.com and iHomeowners Inc. under which the two companies will be the only mortgage lead aggregators running ads on its site. The new relationships are effective immediately. Financial terms of the agreements were not disclosed.

Bankrate, the operator of Bankrate.com — an Internet consumer banking marketplace, said it took on the initiative to award exclusive advertising rights and create an auction process among mortgage lead aggregators by limiting the inventory and number of aggregators advertising on the site in 2005, and to share some of the backend revenue that it helps create. The freed up inventory also enables Bankrate to sell to other non-aggregator graphic advertisers.

“With these agreements, we believe we’ve accomplished those goals,” said Bankrate chief executive Thomas Evans in the announcement.

New York-based Bankrate said it started its hunt last November when it issued a request for proposal to the seven mortgage lead aggregators that ran adds on its site last year. After analyzing and considering the submitted proposals, LowerMyBills.com won the platinum level agreement and iHomeowners was awarded the gold level contract. Under these agreements, the two companies’ graphic advertisements will run on Bankrate.com’s home page, mortgage and refinance channels, calculators, and other areas of the site on a category-exclusive basis. Bankrate said it may also participate in a performance-based revenue sharing opportunity with each of the companies.

“We’re very pleased with the outcome of these negotiations; it’s a win-win for both Bankrate and these two companies,” Evans added. “LowerMyBills and iHomeowners are receiving category exclusive access to one of the largest mortgage audiences on the Web, and the high quality of the Bankrate audience is renowned throughout the industry.”

In another lead company deal, Mortgage Lead Place announced Monday that it entered into a joint marketing venture with online financial products quote provider Refinance Lane. Under that agreement, the two companies intend to leverage their collective strengths to provide comprehensive lead generating systems technologies to a greater number of mortgage brokers and their potential clients.

Mortgage Lead said the inked deal formalizes a “loose partnership” that was sustained since the companies’ founding, when there was a variety of mutually beneficial cross referral cross marketing campaigns.

With Refinance Lane as a lead network partner, “Mortgage Lead Place will now have even greater access to consumer prospects nationwide — and that means we’ll solve more qualified lead production problems for our clients,” said Mortgage Lead’s Michael Mahoney in the announcement.

Refinance Lane said it had been looking for ways to expand its online operations into markets nationwide. “Refinance Lane’s online financial products quoting applications are the perfect complement to the comprehensive lead solutions Mortgage Lead Place gives mortgage lending houses and their brokers,” company representative Dirk Lester said in the announcement.

Refinance Lane will initially head-up Mortgage Lead’s exclusive mortgage lead production and filtering network to clients in the Midwest, before expanding nationwide. The move will complement Mortgage Lead Place’s roster of lead management solutions with Refinance Lane’s Internet-based instant mortgage-quoting tool, which is currently available nationwide, but focused in western-state mortgage quoting markets.