The Digital Marketing Dilemma.

2,000 Millenials each day start a digital marketing agency.

That’s an exaggeration, but if your email and Facebook feed looks anything like mine it may be not very far off.

Just today I have seen 8 ads just like this.

I’ve been in the industry now for 6 years and never before has it been so over-saturated with amateurs. If this comes off as an angry article…it is. I’m sick of hearing horror stories of fake experts charging exorbitant fees to over promise and under deliver.

I made a shortlist that goes over my top reasons why hiring a digital marketer is a waste of time and money if you are a lender or realtor.

They have no secret formula or special sauce. 99.9% of digital marketers use the same templates and tools. Each digital marketer has access to the same limited targeting filters on Facebook and Instagram.
Most digital marketers are not business people. They have never been tested in the trenches or understand what it takes to close deals consistently. They have zero knowledge of what needs to be done after the lead is generated. Generating cheap leads is fairly easy. Turning a lead into a loan predictably is very hard. Most digital marketers have only been successful in selling other business owners on digital marketing products.
Most digital marketers charge $1,500 to as high as $5,000 a month to manage your marketing and then pass it off to what is called a “Whitelabel” agency who manages it for $600-$700 and they pocket the difference. They will try to substantiate high fees by claiming it takes long hours to set up and manage campaigns when most of them outsource this work to $3-$4 an hour freelancers in India or the Philippines.
Most digital marketers’ fees are not transparent. You pay them a lump sum and are never really sure how much they are spending on ads or they charge you a highly marked up lead. These leads are often not qualified and take constant follow up. They will tell you…”All I do is provide the leads it is up to you to close them” knowing all too well that the leads are shit from the past 10 loan officers who fired them the month prior.
Long contracts. Many agencies will try to get you to sign 3, 6 even 12-month contracts based on their “experience” and past results. If a digital marketer asks for a long contract prior to delivering results then run.

I am not trying to say every single digital marketer is bogus…just the ones in lending and real estate. Their are plenty of branding agencies and D2C e-commerce advertisers who deserve big paychecks. Your digital marketing consultant or internal marketing director may be a great person. They may do a great job…but they are missing a number of key elements that separate a highly profitable marketing campaign from one that just breaks even.

My formula for assessing any product, service or partnership is simple.

A 3 comma mentor of mine gave me this short acronym with which I measure every deal (and product I build).

MASE

Margin – Do I have enough margin to cash in on every conversion?
Automated – Can I automate 90 to 95% of the daily processes?
Scalable – Can I scale quickly?
Easy – Is the product easy to use & can I train others on it with little effort (The E-Myth) so I can delegate everything.

Arlo = MASE

Margin – We are generating leads for around $5 per long-form lead. 28% of them have over 620 credit score (this number is increasing by 3.76% every quarter). So that is around $17 per credit qualified lead. Even if we doubled that to $10 and only 15% credit qualified that is still only $66.66 per qualified, exclusive lead. If you ask any enterprise that spends millions a month on advertising they will tell you that the number they need to be at is $750 per loan. Even if you are a horrible salesperson and close only 5% of the credit qualified leads then on average you will spend $340 per qualified loan.
Automated – We automated 98% of the online lead generation process. Arlo will set up proven ad campaigns, uncover the most profitable market segments, pull credit, pre-qualify and manage all your follow up, 24/7/365, so you can focus on building relationships, closing more deals and expansion.
Scalable – All you need to do to scale up is to increase your ad spending and set up more campaigns. You can start to scale ad campaigns overnight. Since teo manages qualifies and follows up with every lead you will not need to hire more support staff.
Easy – teo takes 15 minutes to set up and requires NO technical knowledge. By integrating teo you are also making it easier for the consumer to get pre-qualified for a loan which will help lower costs and increase conversions.

So how is teo different from hiring an agency?

We are the only platform that integrates lead enrichment and on-demand credit scoring to qualify a lead in real-time. This helps us hyper train Facebook’s algorithm to reach potential buyers first, before the competition. By pre-qualifying leads instantly we will save you hours from chasing bad leads while boosting conversions.
It costs $195 a month to access the teo platform. You decide how much you want to spend on ads and we charge a performance fee for qualified leads. We make more money when you get more qualified leads and make more sales. We are also introducing a system where our lender partners receive credits for every low credit lead through a partnership with a number of nationwide, reputable credit repair companies.
You can access to AI & big data. Online advertising feeds on data. The more data you have, the higher your marketing ROI will be. In order to generate results on Facebook, you need to train its algorithm with ALOT of data. This takes months and high budgets to achieve. Think of teo like a mutual fund. Hundreds (soon thousands) of loan officers and realtors across the country will be sending teo data and training Facebook on how to target the best borrowers…FIRST. Thousands of qualified leads every day will be sent to Facebook allowing you to zero in on top targets in week 1. With this level of data, it allows the teo team to gain deep insights into online lending patterns so we can consistently upload new ad campaigns that convert right out of the gate.
Instant follow up on every single channel. By combining our on-demand credit qualification with omnichannel automated outreach on messenger, text, voice, and email we have seen an 8X boost in lead to loan conversion.

So if you are paying an agency right now, have entertained doing it in 2020 or have been burned by one in the past then hire teo…you and your bank account will not be disappointed.