I tend to waffle on about the lack of a comparison rate in advertising, and It’s not because I think the comparison is overly important, and it’s not simply because it’s against the law. It’s because I see it as a deliberate means to deceive consumers. Failure to abide by such an entry-level and seriously basic obligation – particularly when
There are a few big-ticket compliance SNAFUs in this ad (the exclusion of the comparison being the most obvious), but usage of the Coat of Arms in a black and white ad designed to emulate a Government document is the focus of this rant. The use of the mark is regulated under federal law, and its use in any advertising
The relevance of the screenshot is because it was taken when our broker attracted 50 leads – the typical number of ‘leads’ delivered by leadgen charlatans at a cost of around 8k. Leads delivered by leadgen crooks convert under 3%, and usually closer to zero. You would literally enjoy more success if you parked your ass at a bus stop
Shad of the Day, 15th November 2024. More of the same nonsense with *multiple* compliance issues. This gem comes to us from ‘Finance Group AU’ (aka ‘Finance Scanner’ among other fake brokerage brands), and it’s operated by a typical leadgen crowd called Biz Focused. If you’re ever in need of some finance humour you simply need to sit yourself down
Shad of the Day, 7th November 2024. Just another example of somebody using trickery to bait consumers into a phone call (by failing to disclose a comparison). Note the second comment. The subscription experience celebrates the same commitment to compliance and ethical marketing. It’s probably unfair to point this group out since non-compliance is now the rule rather than the
Pictured are some recent domain name sales, although the big-ticket sales are normally protected by an NDA. The purchasers of these names understood the value of online real estate. I’m selling the website and leadgen facility behind what I believe to be the best domain in the industy. It comes with trust, appeal, socials, and traffic. You’ll take ownership of
You’re going to see a string of brokers refer to the linked study for the next week or so. Data will further fuel the war on trail, but please remember that results are consistent with numbers published in ‘The Conversation’ well over a decade ago, and certainly consistent with a study sanctioned by a steering committee I participated in during
The company managing the advertising for the group pictured on the right have simply copied Macquarie’s logo, creative, and general formatting. There’s generally no rule against leaning on recognition, but it will always come at the expense of your own brand. It’s always a shame to see such a lazy advertising effort (the copy, landing page, and everything that comes
Shad of the Day, 11th October 2024. It’s been a while since I’ve posted a Shad. After the first couple of thousand I started to bore myself with the repetition. However, while we’ve had an impact on dodgy pay-per-lead leadgen, this has shifted many into selling their ‘magic broker flow pipeline accelerator unicorn’ systems, all of which aren’t worth having
This is a note for clients, and it’s important. As per our deprecation schedule, and in line with Telstra’s own retirement timeline, we have ceased all support for V2 of their API and diverted all functionality to V3. This change introduces some significant updates and a large number of improvements. Pictured is the Voicedrop panels which have seen some updates,
There’s a Facebook group called ‘Mortgage Brokers Australia’ that I get banned from all the time. Unlike others in my field, I don’t start conversations, but I’ll often call out marketing pretenders on their ubiquitous BS. One such example is ‘Jessica’. I only know of her because I inherited somebody that had worked with her, so I’m familiar with her
This is a very important note for clients. You’ll be hearing more from us via email as recent and pending Yabber changes will impact everybody. The number of brokers that use more than one CRM, or multiple pieces of software, is quite staggering, and any tool or process that duplicates data will impact productivity and potentially compromises compliance. This has
