We chat with Kevin Bennett, a successful entrepreneur who helped grow Caribou to a billion-dollar company. Now, he's back with Further, a platform focused on helping people afford their first homes. Kevin shares important lessons for early-stage founders and gives practical advice for growing a business.

We sit with Tomas Campos, CEO at Spinwheel. Spinwheel’s product caught my attention because affiliate marketers could use their product to reduce the friction in their application processes.

We sit with David Nohe, CEO of FinGoal, to discuss the CFPB’s Rule 1033 on Open Banking and the implications it has for bank marketers.

Personal finance platforms (like Credit Karma) are now at scale, with the ability to recommend products at the 1:1 user level. Further, they’re incentivized to recommend niche products that are highly customized to each user. Lending products, however, are designed for mass audiences. This disconnect presents a huge opportunity for lenders.

Today we chat with Tim Hong, the Chief Product Officer at MoneyLion. He walks us through a partnership they’ve built with Plaid and other data providers to offer cash flow data at the marketing stage to lenders in the Engine marketplace.

I’m starting to worry that we don’t have an economically viable way to distribute cash flow underwriting (CFU) products to consumers. In today’s episode, we discuss the opportunity and challenges CFU lenders will have in distributing their products through direct mail, paid search, and of course affiliates.

Today, we discuss the backstory behind my marketing agency, New Market Growth. I’ll share my background working in affiliate marketing at a connected home startup, my experience working on credit cards at Capital One, my 4 years at Credit Karma, and how my experiences came together to form a services business for lenders.

Today, we discuss high-level principles for your affiliate measurement (analytics) strategy. We’ll cover the 2 big questions your dashboards should be answering, we dig into 9 metrics you might not be watching, and we hit on the importance of connecting marketing stage and performance stage data.

Today, we discuss the most common reasons that lenders don’t hit their volume, account quality, and growth goals in the affiliate channel. Based on Carlos’ experience talking to lenders in his affiliate marketing agency, New Market Growth.

Today, we continue to discuss the 4 levels of Operational Maturity in affiliate marketing for lenders. We’ll go deep on 301 and 401 levels and wrap up with some tactical things you can do to land at the 401 level.

Today, we introduce the 4 levels of Operational Maturity in affiliate marketing for lenders. We’ll go deep on 101 and 201 levels. The 301 and 401 levels will be covered in our next episode.

Today, we discuss the marketing levers lenders have at their disposal to improve the performance of their affiliate marketing campaigns.

Today, we tackle two simple, but important questions. The first: “What affiliates should I partner with?” And the second, “Where should I host my targeting model?”

Today, we tackle a big, foundational question. “Why should I bother promoting my lending products in affiliate channels?”

In this episode, we describe affiliate marketing for lenders with tangible examples. From there, we talk through the dynamics of the affiliate game and how affiliate partnerships are structured. This provides a baseline 101 for anyone unfamiliar with the topic, and a recap for those who are more familiar with this space.

For 15 years, New Balance watched its revenues decline. Consumers saw its sneakers as “dad shoes”—safe, comfortable, but uncool. Traditional direct-response marketing wasn’t reversing the trend. In April 2020, a new CMO, Chris Davis, arrived with a bold idea: flip the marketing mix from a 70% reliance on direct-response ads to a brand-led approach. It was a big gamble that took nearly 19 months to pay off, but when it did, New Balance emerged as a revitalized global brand.