Many states have adopted strong predatory lending laws to try to police your industry from RAPING often poor, financial uneducated consumers who have for years swallowed the line of BS that " this is the best rate we can get you - or the is the only deal you qualify for" when it just isn't true.
When multiple lenders compete for the same borrowers that was told he had no good options you'd be surprised how often a number of MUCH better offers surface.
The NAMB took the issues of triggers all the way to the FTC. You know what they said - they are not outlawing triggers. You know why, they don't have the authority. Triggers don't violate the FCRA, they offer often disenfranchised borrowers choices, and too many mortgage brokers have forgotten how to earn business. Too many years of being just order takers. Too many times grossly misleading consumers to take their "best deal" when in fact it was only the best deal for the broker and not the consumer.
The NAMB also stoked the flames of identity theft concerns regarding triggers - WHAT A JOKE!
NEVER on a trigger lead is the borrower's SSN, date of birth, or any other information that isn' t already public info given out. Nothing on a trigger lead is giving an identity thief anything that takes him closer to stealing your mojo.
Trigger leads have been around forever. It's only in the last 18 months that they have been effectively used in the mortgage industry.
Apply for a credit card...guess what, you get 10 more offers in the next week. Why, a trigger is generated at the bureau and sold to credit issuers...is anyone screaming about that - NO!
Same in the insurance and automotive industries too.
Every American with a phone number can opt-out of the bureaus marketing lists. But it's funny, I don't see consumers complaining. A call from a mortgage company based on a trigger is somehow more annoying than any other mortgage cold call that interrupts their dinner? I think not!
The NAMB will always talk about the 1 of THEIR OWN MEMBERSHIP that are flat out unethical. Trust me, it isn't a trigger lead that makes them lie to a prospect. They do it with teaser rates on direct mail, phone calls to non-FCRA regulated lists, etc.
Triggers aren't to blame. Competition makes America great. Triggers EXPOSE the very brokers that cry foul when they have their prospect move to a better deal.
That is truly the rest of the story of trigger leads.
Jack Johnson President MortgageTriggers.com jack@mortgagetriggers.com 1-877-MTG-TRGR
Split testing, actually any testing in general, can be enormously helpful in fine tuning your websites to be more effective sales channels for your business. The goal of the testing is to produce higher conversion rates, but the term conversion rate is used loosely here. For example, you can measure whether a user buys your product, clicks on your affiliate links or opts into your mailing list. Split testing can be a powerful too, however, like any other tool that produces hard measurements it can be abused and it's results misinterpreted.
What is the purpose of split testing?
If you are selling an ebook on how to improve your golf game, what is the best headline to engage your visitor's interest? Is it "Perfect Your Swing?" or "Lower Your Handicap?". Even if you are a diehard golfer, don't make the mistake of thinking you know the answer. You'll likely get it wrong. You will need to test different versions of your headline and let your site visitors tell you the answer. I once wrote a headline that started off with "Who else wants to ...". I had seen similar long headlines on many other sales pages. My rationale was that if that style of headline was working on other sales pages, it should work on mine. Fortunately I decided to test it, and what I found was that it performed poorly against my control headline! By listening to my site visitors through testing, I found out that they didn't like my "Who else..." headline at all.
How does split testing work?
Here is how split testing (also known as A/B testing) works, half of your site visitors see one version of your site (the A version), the other half sees the another (the B version). You monitor the conversion rate of the two versions. The version that has the highest conversion rate is what you use going forward. It's often an iterative process, you keep testing changes until the conversion rates don't change very much from version to version. You are not limited to only testing the headline of your site. You can test other prominent components of your site that play a strategic part in converting your customers. For example, here are some website components you may consider testing: the main image of your landing page, the call to action, and even the promotional copy.
So when it is not useful?
Split testing is not particularly useful if you change more than one component of your site at a time. If you change both the headline and the main image on your B copy and it performs better, what does that tell you? That the image performed better or the headline? Sure you can use the B copy of your site going forward, but what if the best combination was the B version of the image and the A version of the headline? The only way to know is to test each change individually. If you want to test multiple versions of your site components, you should explore using a tool that supports multivariate testing. Multivariate testing it just what it sounds like, a way to test multiple changes at a time.
Another trap that testers fall into is putting too much significance on minor differences in the results. If you have 50 visitors to your site and 3 of them convert on the A copy and 4 of them convert on the B copy, is that justification enough to decide the B copy is the best version going forward? Not really. If you have a low traffic site, it's best to be patient and wait for more traffic, or put some effort into promoting the site to get more traffic so you have a more statistically significant test. Don't keep changing your site day by day trying to take advantage of what could be the result of a complete whim of your site visitor.
Keep your mind open
Split testing is useful but variances in your conversion rates may have nothing to do with your split tests and you have to be careful not to draw the wrong conclusions. For example I was running a split test over a period of time for my headlines. I submitted two articles spaced apart by over a week to the article directories during my test. The first article had a higher conversion rate than the second. The likely cause is that my second article was not as well targeted to my desired audience as the first. Simply put, the people that found my second article interesting and clicked through to my site were not interested in what my site was offering. If I had changed my headlines in the midst of this I might have drawn the wrong conclusion. My choice of topic for my second article had a much larger impact that either of the headlines I was testing.
Split testing is a powerful tool but like all measurement tools it's results need to be taken into context so you can make wise decisions going forward.
Both Jack Johnson & Kathy Alice are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Kathy Alice has sinced written about articles on various topics from Writing, Site Promotion and Tools and Resources. Kathy Alice has been in the technology industry for 20 years. She helps business owners and marketers bridge the technical gap. She loves finding . Kathy Alice's top article generates over 1000 views. to your Favourites.