iLending Case Study

Client Overview

iLending helps millions of people save on their monthly car and automobile payments each year. Unlike most refinance organizations that only focus on people with a clean credit history, iLending takes a full spectrum of consumers, taking pride in serving those who may have been taken advantage of by the financial system.

With the purpose of enjoying the thrill of empowering better lives, iLending is actively changing the way people can refinance their auto payments.

Client Project Goals

Create an updated digital presence that conveys the brand’s "You First Approach."
Increase loan applications and funded loans.
Increase search engine presence.
Create persona-based digital experiences that remove obstacles to refinancing.
Allow consumers to choose their journey when it comes to refinancing.
Create a custom landing page builder promoting different partners.
Set up systems to track overall performance across all mediums and unify agencies.

Challenges

Website and communications that did not reflect the current brand.
Non-persona-driven website that forced users down a common journey that often resulted in a long and drawn-out process.
Multiple vendors and programs in the market led to siloed reporting that lacked unified performance metrics.
The current website was not ranking well for primary terms around auto refinance.

Our Approach

Market Positioning Action Plan™

We implemented our exclusive Marketing Positioning Action Plan™ to discover a unique position for iLending amongst its competitors. Through this process, we developed:

Personas and their Unique Selling Proposition
Keyword Research to identify search engine ranking opportunities
Competitive Research and Analysis to determine the market’s competitiveness and critical differentiation messages.

This process, research, and analysis resulted in the creation of iLending’s unique core branding themes:

Offering: Customized Autorefiancing Improving Lives
Experience: Empowering Better Lives

Brand Platform

Utilizing and building off of elements from the Market Positioning Action Plan™, we created iLending’s Brand Platform. The Brand Platform included the creation of:

Purpose
Core Values
Unique Vocabulary
Content Strategy
Messaging Hierarchy
Unique Imagery
Overall Brand Story

The Brand Platform culminated in the unique positioning and messaging for iLending’s "Your First Approach™," creating an excellent auto refinancing experience for customers.

Website Design – UX and UI

Using our exclusive Websites Right Methodology™, we developed iLending’s new website UX and UI based on their personas and opportunities revealed through Keyword Research and competitive analysis. This methodology included:

Adopting findings and opportunities uncovered in their Marketing Positioning Action Plan™ to reverse engineer the website navigation to create better opportunities to rank for key terms.
Simplifying messaging based on persona insights while aligning to the new "You First Approach."
Better showcase testimonials, reviews, and customer stories to create trust.
Empower users to identify their own goals for refinancing to help iLending provide them with the best options.
A/B tests different calls to action to improve overall website conversions.
Implement a Tactical Content Strategy to engage and educate users while also aligning with SEO needs.

Website Development – Scope and Programming

The website was created using our industry-leading, custom-designed Enhanced WordPress Platform and following our proven Websites Right Methodology™. Highlights of this methodology include:

Clear documentation of website goals – allowing us to measure success.
Collaborative planning of the website homepage is key to defining the story.
Creation of detailed website mockups to ensure everyone on the team loved the new site design.
Detailed functional requirements documentation is needed to ensure alignment and understanding of how the specific functionality of the website will be displayed and managed.
The creation of a complete project plan and timeline with a visual Gantt chart.
Detailed weekly status touch-base emails and updates.
The incorporation of third-party tools to enhance website functionality.
Custom programming and development of advanced website functionality.
Comprehensive website testing for different browsers and devices (mobile & tablet).
Tactical Content Leadership to help communicate the story more effectively.
The incorporation of proven SEO best practices for better search engine rankings.
Post-launch testing and ongoing analysis to ensure the website’s success.

Given that the company purpose we developed with iLending is To Enjoy The Thrill Of Empowering Better Lives, the website demanded a different design approach from what you would expect from a typical auto refinancing company. As a result, the site depicts people enjoying life, spending time together, and more. The graphics and messages reinforce the "You First Approach™" by communicating how fast and easy it can be to refi your auto loan. The call to action on the website was present above the fold, providing users with quick access and easy-to-follow paths to get them going in their financing application.

iLending Digital Experience Enhancements

Landing Page Builder

iLending drives refinancing through multiple strategic partnerships and promotions. As a result, partners require unique and adaptable landing environments for the programs they are driving on iLending’s behalf.

To accomplish this, we created a landing page builder that would allow iLending to create these environments for each partner using a variety of established forms, content blocks, interactive calculators, and more. Each environment enables customization and flexibility for the partners, but we also ensure they are integrated with all of iLending’s tracking systems to ensure proper attribution for partner campaign efforts.

Choose Your Own Adventure

To truly bring the "You First Approach™" to life, we created a digital experience allowing potential customers to choose how they would like to engage with iLending when starting the loan process – putting them in control and working around their schedule.

Working with iLending’s teams and infrastructure, we integrated the website experience to allow customers to choose from the following application options:

Call me now
Schedule a call for a specific time
Do everything online

Ongoing Marketing Program

Performance Intelligence Dashboard and Reporting

We collaborated with iLending teams to determine key performance metrics and plans for ongoing program enhancements. Integrating several tracking systems and working with internal client teams, we established visual and real-time dashboards for convenient and actionable insights. To enable this, we worked with iLending teams and vendors to:

Establish UTM tracking standards
Create attribution across all media
Set up and conduct A/B testing for improved conversion rate optimization (CRO)

We can test and continuously improve results across all campaigns and touchpoints through Performance Intelligence. We can effectively try and measure website, ad copy, landing pages, email, calls to action, and more to create positive ROI.

Paid Search

Working in tandem with iLending and their partners, we created various paid search marketing programs. The ads included a mix of evergreen ads, seasonal programs, and promotions.

Through ongoing paid management, we optimized campaigns to maximize efficiency and ROI. This management included testing geographic parameters, ad copy, keywords, landing pages, and more to maximize conversions and tracking cost per funded loan metrics to meet and exceed specified goals.

Search Engine Optimization and Backlink Building

We identified specific targeted keywords and groupings as part of the website’s initial development.

One of the key takeaways from the keyword research was the need for an optimized and keyword-rich domain to compete effectively against other competitive websites. As a result, a new domain, https://ilendingcarloanrefinancing.com/, was selected, and it contained our primary terms, "car loan" and "refinancing."

While the website was built and optimized for those terms, ongoing SEO was required to remain competitive in search.

Utilizing a vast toolset, our team would audit the website monthly and track rankings, traffic, engagement, identity content gaps, and more. Our team would perform necessary on-page optimizations and work with our content team to ensure all new content was correctly optimized for search.

Our team also created vital backlinks from other contextual websites to strengthen the overall website’s domain authority and search rankings. Each month, we would identify 20 plus high authority domains and work with those site owners to have content that included a keyword-rich backlink pointing to a specific service page on iLending’s website.

Tactical Content Strategy and Implementation

Working with our search engine optimization team and iLending, we created an ongoing content plan to identify required content for better search engine rankings. As our
SEO team identified terms that could use additional content support on the website; our content would then create a plan to address the content and execute. This content would include developing and updating key service pages, supporting blogs, and case studies.

Results

We achieved excellent results with this website and ongoing marketing. Some highlights include:

Within one year of the site launch, increased ranking keywords from 133 to 3,318, an increase of 2395%
Within the first year of launch, the estimated traffic value increased by 28.25%
Organic search traffic experienced a year-over-year increase of 47.14%
Through the first 8 months of 2022, we generated 20,507 leads, leading directly to 1,187 funded loans.
Paid search attributed over $2.5 million in revenue with a 2.30 return on ad spend

Also, through our working relationship with iLending, we helped unify their reporting across the organization and vendors, providing unified reporting intelligence. Our working relationship also helped identify and vet new technologies, providing insightful recommendations to help our iLending client make critical business decisions.