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P2P Lending -- News, Information, Borrowing and Lending Strategy

Lending Club Clarifies Referral Program at P2P No Bank Forum

After my gripes I will reproduce the post on p2p no bank post in entirety… 

1. User must sign up in the same session…  Amazon, EBay, Prosper, and many many more affiliate programs have a cookie that lasts 30 days.
2. Any page of the lending club website (including the blog if I am wishing) should be linkable with a referral query parameter.  This makes any content produced by lending club a potential hook for an affiliate.

That being said the clarifications are awesome…  I really like knowing what the deal is…  Stay tuned for my tomorrow’s post on how RateLadder would change lending on Lending Club.

Here is the forum post from Rob @ LC the Web Production, Director (here is a link):

Hi everyone!

Thanks for your comments and questions.   And apologies for the long post, but I wanted to address all the comments at once:

QUESTION 1. What are the terms of the program?

The referral program was initially introduced back in July as a $5 prize for any friend who joined.  We quietly revamped it on Oct 25 to increase the prize to $25 for any friend who became a borrower OR lender.   This was a test to see how users will receive it, and we noticed users liked this idea better.   Today, we officially launched the program and the rules are:

When you refer friends to Lending Club and they become borrowers or lenders, we will deposit a bonus into both your and your friend’s accounts:

• $25 when your friend successfully submits a loan application
• $25 when your friend opens a lender account with $1-$999
• $50 when your friend opens a lender account with $1,000 or more

QUESTION 2. Can I use the URL?   

Absolutely!  In fact, I was very excited to see some of you discovered this even before we announced it.  Basically, the URL in the email can be reused to post on your sites.  The URL is generalized as I mentioned in my new features post today.  Just make sure it has your Lending Club screen name as the referrer.   

In a couple of weeks, we will be offering small images you can also add to your blogs or personal pages.   

QUESTION 3. Can I point my referrals to a different page?

Yes.  You can use 2 different links.

LINK 1: http://www.lendingclub.com/landing.action?referrer=ScreenName
This one drops referrals on our home page, and if the user creates an account within the same session, you get the bonus.  Use this for friends that still may need to read more on the concept before signing up:

LINK 2: http://www.lendingclub.com/refer.action?referrer=ScreenName
This one drops referrals on the sign-up form.  Use this for friends you think are ready to sign. 

QUESTION 4. Are the terms different depending on which URL the user took?

No.  The terms I mentioned in Question 1 are valid whether the referred person came through from the invite friends email, or any of the 2 links above, which you can post on your site or blogs.

QUESTION 5. Does the referred user have to sign up immediately or is the referral stored?

The information is stored in the session, so the referred user has to sign up while in the session.  Information is not saved in our back end or a cookie.   The session will “expire” if the user closes the browser.  This means that if the user closes the window, and comes back next day to sign-up, and types up “lendingclub.com”, the system will not recognize the referral. 

QUESTION 6. Why do you have 2 links in the email?

This is an issue.  The second link is supposed to land users on the home page but still remember the referral in the session.   Thanks for catching this.  This was completely unintended and I will follow up with the tech team to correct as soon as possible.

Let me know if I missed any of your comments.

Best regards

Rob Garcia
Web Production, Director
Lending Club

Referral Program Strategies (part 2)

I wasn’t planning on this being a 2 part post, but I got some great comments and I wanted to republish and respond…

First a great suggestion from Used vans girl:

Have you considered buying lists. There are a numerous companies out there who produce lists for every type of business, consumer lists etc. You have to work out what type of individual or business do I need to target then contact one of these companies to see if they do a list for the area you are looking for. That way yes you have to pay but you are getting targeted people to contact. Hope this helps. Google adwords can be expensive if you don’t convert click through’s to sales.

Great idea…  I am unfortunately no more versed in this area than AdWords…  But I bet someone with experience could do very well with this strategy.

Next a pair of comments from the brothers Tom and Matt that run a great new Prosper blog — Prosper Lending Review (I hope they keep it up… so far I like what they are doing):

Matt:

My brother and I created a Prosper blog. While the primary purpose is not referrals and most people are already Prosper members we did include some referral links and had one person sign up so far as a referral. I also got one referral who is a family member in addition to my wife who signed up and loaned out $50. I think in general it is difficult to obtain referrals because it is a difficult process. First, they must sign up, get their identity verified, get their bank account verified, transfer money (which could take up to a week), bid on a loan, win the bid for the loan, have the loan complete the verification process so that it is fully funded. All of this has to be completed within 90 days, and I think there is a lot of attrition at each step in the process. Not trying to discourage anyone, but just trying to be realistic about the process.

Tom:

I thought about using Google Adwords. I have some experience and have managed thousands of dollars worth of Google Adword campaigns. Ultimately I decided that it not likely to be worth the money spent. Let’s assume that you spend the very minimum for each click - 5 cents. To break even, 1 out of every five hundred that click on your ad have to sign up and complete the process as Matt described above. I think that you are unlikely to get conversion rates that high. In addition, it’s going to be difficult to keep costs to 5 cents an ad in the competative loan ad market. I know that nonattender is running some googleads though and after the first week he was a referral leader - #2 I think. It would be interesting to see what his results have been and how much he has spent in the process.

I agree that there are holes in Prosper’s funnel, but as a blogger that has been attempting to make money from day 1, in 8 months I did more revenue in one month of the Prosper Referral Program ($125) than from any other single source in a single month.  Granted I spent about $100 in an Adwords experiment, but I have over 50 referrals.  5 of which are already lenders.  

I think the 90 day window is sufficient to get a referral through the funnel.  Do you really think the average time through the funnel is greater than 3 months?  I don’t think so…  It took me less than 2 weeks to get into my first loan. 

I have been tracking my referrals with ProProsper Referral Tracking and I believe I will get a few more through the funnel before I am done.

All that being said, I am admitting that I am an AdWords novice.  I think someone who knows what they are doing would do very well targeting lenders.  Good borrowers are more expensive to target, but I think there are quite a few cheap sources for lenders referrals.

Also I found this thread on the Prosper forum: http://forums.prosper.com/index.php?showtopic=27860 Any idea what site he runs?

 

Referral Program Strategies

Since the start of the Prosper Referral Program, in the beginning on June, I have been trying to generate referrals.  You are paid 50 basis points for a borrower and $25 for a lender (the lender also recieves $25).

I have tested a number of strategies and have a number of other ideas… I am interested in my readers opinions and their thoughts.

Ideas that have worked (although most of my readers are already members):

• RateLadder.com
• ProProsper.com

Ideas that have worked but have an unknown cost effectiveness and I have a limited knowledge of the tricks of the trade:

• Goggle Adwords

Ideas that have worked but have a limited scope:

• Emails to friends/family

Ideas that worked a little and might yet work:

• Prosper Listing Widget
• Group Rotator
• RSS Rotator

Ideas I havn’t tried yet:

• Craigslist
• Yelp
• Yahoo Answers
• Yahoo Paid Search
• Ask.com Paid Search
• MSN Paid Search
• Any Random Internet Forum

Anybody have any other ideas?  Any success stories?

Malama Ohana Group Listings (or any other Prosper Group)

This feature displays a group’s active listings randomly. If there are no active listings it display a random completed listing.

As an example here is the group Malama Ohana:

Here is the group Lend2:

Here is the code to display a groups listing (Malama Ohana in this case). The parameter is the group’s short name.

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfgroup.do?group=ohana">
</iframe>


Listings are updated daily if Prosper provides a data export.

LazyMan RSS Feeds Prosper Listings Widget

ProProsper has extended the Prosper Listing Shockwave Widget to redisplay the top listing of the LazyMan RSS Feeds (LazyMan24H and LazyManAutoFund.) Anybody wishing to display these listings (or any of the other ProProsper RSS Prosper Listing Feeds on their site can — code at bottom.)

LazyMan AutoFund:

LazyMan 24H:

Here is the code for the various feeds (please use):

LazyMan AutoFund:

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfrss.do?rss=lazymanautofund">
</iframe>


LazyMan 24H:

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfrss.do?rss=lazyman24H">
</iframe>


Under Appreciated:

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfrss.do?rss=underappreciated">
</iframe>


Homeowner:

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfrss.do?rss=homeowner">
</iframe>


1 Sigma:

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfrss.do?rss=onesigma">
</iframe>


2 Sigma:

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfrss.do?rss=twosigma">
</iframe>


3 Sigma:

<iframe height="410px" width="400px" src="http://www.proprosper.com/ProProsper/swfrss.do?rss=threesigma">
</iframe>


Display your Prosper Listing on Your MySpace Page

Now you can display your Listing on your MySpace Page. Or your blog, or website… The possibilities are endless.

Here is a random listing on Prosper.

$25 Bonus For New Lenders
How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other

Here is a link to my MySpace page… This page shows the listing in the interests section…
RateLadder on MySpace

It is very easy to use… there are 3 options. width, height, and the listing number…
Here is the code for a blog: listing #151656 with a height of 338 pixels and a width of 400 pixels.

<center>
<iframe src="http://rateladder.com/ProsperListing.swf?listing=151656&referrer=RateLadder_com" height=338 width=400>
</iframe>
<a href="http://www.prosper.com/lend/listing.aspx?listingID=151656&referrer=RateLadder_com"><img src="http://rateladder.com/images/BidNow.gif" border="0" /></a>
<a href="http://www.prosper.com/referrals/lender.aspx?referrer=RateLadder_com&utm_source=referrer-RateLadder_com&utm_medium=referral-link&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=referrals-lender"><font size="-3">$25 Bonus For New Lenders</font></a>
<a href="http://www.rateladder.com/2007/06/17/display-your-prosper-listing-on-your-myspace-page/"><font size="-5">How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other</font></a>
</center>


Here is the code for Myspace: listing #151656 with a height of 338 pixels and a width of 400 pixels.

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="never" allowNetworking="all" height="338px" width="400px" align="middle" data="http://rateladder.com/ProsperListing.swf">
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" />
<param name="allowNetworking" value="all" />
<param name="movie" value="http://rateladder.com/ProsperListing.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<param name="menu" value="false" />
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
<param name="scale" value="noScale" />
<param name="flashvars" value="listing=151656&referrer=RateLadder_com" />
</object>
<a href="http://www.prosper.com/lend/listing.aspx?listingID=151656&referrer=RateLadder_com"><img src="http://rateladder.com/images/BidNow.gif" border="0" /></a>
<br>
<a href="http://www.prosper.com/referrals/lender.aspx?referrer=RateLadder_com&utm_source=referrer-RateLadder_com&utm_medium=referral-link&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=referrals-lender"><font size="-3">$25 Bonus For New Lenders</font></a>
<br>
<a href="http://www.rateladder.com/2007/06/17/display-your-prosper-listing-on-your-myspace-page/"><font size="-5">How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other</font></a>

If you would like me to email you the code to put your listing on your myspace page please send me an email to kevin at proprosper dot com and tell me your listing number.

Prosper Releases Top 10 Referrers In Vegas Contest (RateLadder in top 10)

Prosper’s new referral program is great.  Not only do you earn $$$ for referring people, but if could also win a trip for 2 to Vegas. 

I have 4 borrowers (3 with listings) and 2 lenders (both with bids) and 10 others without a role yet.  I am in the top 10. Wow! I thought there would be big guns of the affiliate world coming after this program.  $25 per lender and .5% of loan amounts adds up to a lot of money. It is even a deep linking referral program so get the referral no matter what Prosper page your send the links to.

Here is the email that was sent…

Track Prosper Referrals with ProProsper Followup

Just a quick followup to the Prosper referral tracking with ProProsper. 

Here is the email sent to me this morning detailing my active listings…

Referral bepmike48
Listing: Guarenteed Money for Simple loan Amt=5000.0000(25.00) CG=A DTI=0.09 Open For Duration Lender Rate=0.0625

Referral bigdog1
Listing: deck and bills pay down Amt=13000.0000(65.00) CG=E DTI=0.21 Close When Funded Lender Rate=0.22

Referral ltanner97
Listing: Debt Consolidation Amt=20000.0000(100.00) CG=C DTI=0.48 Close When Funded Lender Rate=0.2425

Also the grid of your Referrals in ProProsper now has the following columns: Screen Name, Roles, Bid Count, Bid Amount, Lender Loan, Principal Loaned, Lender Referral Fee, Listings, Borrower Loan, Loan Amount, and Borrower Referral Fee.

Track your Prosper Referrals with ProProsper

ProProsper has added a Prosper referral tracking feature.

The basic idea is that when you get a referral you get an email with that person’s screenname.  You enter that screenname in your ProProsper User area appropriately named Referrals.

Once added to ProProsper you can quickly reference that members prosper member page (which has their role and any listing they might have).

In addition, on the loading of data every morning you will receive an email with any active listings by any of your referrals.

I am sure there will be some great ideas from the community on how to take this farther, but I felt this is a required first step…

Enjoy and please comment.

 

Rateladder Referral Listing: Debt Consolidation

Update: This listing has been withdrawn and relisted as an autofund  at 24.25% and is still missing a picture…  I think the 1st listing was better, but this one is still worth a bid.

Active Listing: Debt Consolidation

Original Listing: Debt Consolidation

I have bid (only bid if you want to do so).

A gem.  CLEAN C. 49% DTI. High Rate: 29%.

Purpose of loan:
I want to pay off several high-interest credit cards so I can to try to buy a home in the next 6-12 months.

My financial situation:
My payment history is very good, but due to increased expenses the last 4 months, I’m starting to struggle.  Making one loan payment instead of several credit card payments each month will be a great help in staying on top of things.  My expenses went up because my younger brother came home from the Army and is living with me until he goes to college in January.  When he moves out I plan to move to a smaller, cheaper apartment. 

I have a very secure job and am trying to live as simply as I can:  no cable, no home phone, no internet service, no new clothes, etc.

Monthly net income: $2760.00

Monthly expenses: $
  Housing: $1295.00
  Insurance: $85.00
  Car expenses: Loan = $275.00 Gasoline, etc. = $175.00
  Utilities: $30.00
  Phone, cable, internet: $0.00
  Food, entertainment: $375.00
  Clothing, household expenses $75.00
  Credit cards and other loans: $1060.00
  Other expenses: $90.00

This listing only has one problem: No picture.  It should make it to 100% funded anyway becasue it is so clean.

Comments? 

If you are interested in having your listing featured on RateLadder there are 2 ways to make this happen.  You can chose to do both, but only one is necessary for receiving a listing review.

1. Register with Prosper as a RateLadder Referee by clicking the link.
2. Join my group RateLadder — Borrowers Climb Down the Interest Rate Ladder

I cannot write about the extended credit of these listings as that data is protected by the Prosper Terms of Service.  If you are a lender then I encourage you to log in and look for yourself, but if you leave a comment please don’t talk specifically about the extended credit.  If you are not a registered user of Prosper and would like to be a lender I have a referral that will get you a $25 bonus when you make your first loan (click the link).

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