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How much money does a company like NerdWallet, PolicyGenius, or Mint make off a credit card or insurance referral? And is it per-click, per-conversion, or some other way? Any other analogues across insurance, healthcare, credit cards, or student loan financing would be great too, along with any information about conversion rates, or other revenue streams of those affiliate/referral-based companies.
Hello! Thank you for your question about profit from credit card or insurance referrals for companies such as NerdWallet. The short answer is that NerdWallet, PolicyGenius, and Mint are built on the per-conversion profit model, and that these companies are paid an average of $47 per conversion. Similar companies in the healthcare field include Individual Health Quotes, and E-Health Insurance, while Credible and Lendkey are analogous in the student loan financing industry. Please see below for a deep dive of my research.
METHODOLOGY
For information on the three companies, I used each company's website. They do not publish the amount of money they make for each referral or conversion, but they do each mention that they are structured on a per-conversion basis. To find an estimate of the money made, I searched through industry reports and finance journals. Finally, to find analogues to these companies in other industries, I used the sources listed in industry reports that averaged the profit per conversion in different fields, and then verified on the company websites which structure they used.
COMPANY STRUCTURES
All three companies (NerdWallet, PolicyGenius, and Mint) are structured to receive money on a per-conversion basis with credit card or insurance companies. NerdWallet and PolicyGenius state on their websites that they do not have referral policies as they aim to focus on their customers' needs, "even if we don't make a cent". Instead, they receive compensation from their insurance or other financial partners when a user applies to an institution through their websites.
PolicyGenius is an insurance broker and NerdWallet offers a variety of financial tools from credit cards to mortgages to insurance advice and recommendations. Mint, however, has expanded streams of revenue that include referrals, advertising on its website, and sale of aggregate customer data.
RATES
The finance industry has been found to pay the most for referrals and lead generations such as those provided by these websites. The average payout to these websites per conversion is $47. Depending on the financial institution, rates can go upwards of $50 to over $100. While these companies do not publish their conversion profits, the industry standard of $47 is estimated to be accurate for all three.
Mint and a competitor, Thrive, report conversion rates of 12-15% by its users. Also, these users who accept the referrals or offers often sign up for more than one offer at a time (on average two offers). For those users in the higher income brackets, the conversion rate can rise to 25%. One estimate, using the industry standard of around $50 per conversion and a 15% conversion rate of a company's total customer base, places the average profit per customer at $15 for these websites on the whole.
OTHER COMPANIES AND INDUSTRIES
In the world of finance it is estimated that more than 80 companies "offer pay-per-sale commissions to bloggers through FlexOffers.com, one of the larger and more popular companies managing affiliate programs." These companies include Chase and Citi Bank, among others. Bank of America offers $120 per conversion, and Discover will pay $115 for credit card conversions.
The average conversion profit in the healthcare industry is estimated to be $37, and in education it is around $27. In the health insurance field, the structure is typically on a per-click basis averaging "$3.16 and an average Click through Rate of 3.86%". Two analogues to the three companies researched above in the healthcare field are individualhealthquotes.com, and ehealthinsurance.com. In the student loan financing industry, similar companies include credible.com and lendkey.com (both of whom have a pay-per-conversion structure).
CONCLUSIONS
The average payout per conversion for sites like NerdWallet, PolicyGenius, and Mint is $47. These companies are all structured on a per-conversion basis instead of per-click or other means. Finance has the highest per-lead profit as compared to fields like healthcare where the average is $37. Similar companies in other fields include LendKey and E-Health Insurance.
Thank you for using Wonder! Please let us know if you have any further research needs.