How the Good Get Punished: Online Marketing
“Turn left in 100 feet-”
“Make a U-Turn-“
“Recalculating…”
Sound familiar? We’ve all been there. As thralls to technology, we tend to put our faith in the ‘GPS machine’ when going somewhere, now low and behold you didn’t make it to Grandma’s house. Instead, you ended up at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere and the pump doesn’t take cards.
Similarly, you have probably put your trust into online technology as well – and ended up in the wrong place, and now it’s too late. They’ve got your information. The phone calls have started. You might even be wondering why you’re getting several calls from people that you never remember giving your information to in the first place.
Chances are, you’ve encountered what the industry is terming, “Black Hat SEO tactics” which utilizes different techniques designed to trick not only search engine crawlers but consumers too. This results in the visitation of sites that you think are what you want. In reality, someone has mimicked the site you wanted, collected your information on their contact form, turned around and sold your information to any number of businesses. In that same way, as you would plug a location into your GPS to find a destination, you do a similar practice when you enter for a certain phrase or term in an online search engine.
You may be asking yourself: Why does Black Hat SEO exist? Is someone policing these sites? Why did this happen to me? Well, it all comes down to one simple, cliché fact: There’s money to be had.
Three main goals for Black Hat SEO:
- Drive traffic onto a specific webpage.
- Collect your information.
- Sell your information.
Utilizing these sneaky techniques allow these “Black Hatters” to drive you to the pages they want. Not the site you intended. Oftentimes, their tactics are so covert, it makes them almost unrecognizable as anything except what they’re trying to portray and what you’re looking for.
How to Spot a ‘Black Hatter’ – Methods to Their Madness
- Hidden Text/Keywords/Links– This is when some web copy is made a text color that can’t be seen when viewing the webpage, as it blends into the background. These instances can cause you to click on hidden links as well.
- Cloaking– A website owner creates certain information in their code which allows you to see it on a search engine, but does not actually display on the webpage you are visiting.
- Social Network Spam– This is when web owners put multiple links on social media pages and posts.
- Link/URL Buying– A website owner purchases links and industry branded URLs to syphon off more traffic from the original brand.
Can the Real Brand Please Stand Up?
All of these techniques make it difficult for the average prospective consumer to feel good about whom they’re sharing their information with, and which sites are legitimate. While Black Hat SEO techniques are not recommended and viewed negatively, some web admins will do the unthinkable and go the extra mile to include hidden techniques to gain more views and traffic on their webpage! The end resulting in the consumer being mislead, their private information sold many times over, and often the real brand losing credibility to their prospects. Having the man power to locate, research, find and nail these culprits aren’t typically within a brand’s personnel bandwidth. Therefore, the trend to combat them has been to contract with third parties who do this on their behalf, and on a continual basis. After all, new content is created every day.
Surfing the web can get pretty dicey nowadays. *In fact, since 2016, on average in education for every 12 websites found, at least 1 of them contains a violation under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Education (ED) or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). That ratio is even higher within the finance industry where 1-in-4 sites contain a FTC, CFPB violation – all of which are deceptive to consumers and eat away at the integrity of legitimate brands.
If you have a site, you think warrants investigation, let us know by emailing: verify@integrishield.com.
*Information based on total client data.
EDU Compliance for Email Marketing
(As originally published in Career Education Review)
Email marketing is an important strategy to maximize your marketing ROI. Unfortunately, many schools don’t adequately monitor authorized and unauthorized email traffic. IntegriShield hosted a recent compliance webinar with guest speaker Adam Schimsa of LashBack. Our conversation explored regulations and best practices surrounding email marketing.
In a recent webinar survey, only 29% of respondents reported feeling very confident that their organization and its affiliates are following CAN-SPAM regulations. While there are plenty of ways to run into fines and litigation for compliance violations, this article will explore the important layers of email compliance that can help protect your brand and bottom line – plus we’ll share other elements to monitor.
What is CAN-SPAM?
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 outlines rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, and gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them. What it does not do is require prior express consent. This makes email an extremely viable option for marketers who did not receive consent for text or calling. If your school’s email marketing campaign violates CAN-SPAM regulation it could quickly add up to costly fines.
Basic requirements:
- Don’t use false or misleading header information. Identify the person or business who initiated the message.
- Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
- Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
- Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address.
- Tell recipients how to opt-out of receiving future email from you. Again be clear and conspicuous on how the recipient can unsubscribe from your emails.
- Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days.
- Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The advertiser is responsible.
Regulations, Obligations, and Common Misconceptions
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. So any agreements you have with third parties will not protect you, even if you don’t know what those third parties are doing. Penalties for FTC violations could cost you up to $16,000 for each email.
Many schools that use lead generators tend to think of these as domains where they have a branded page or directory listing. They don’t often consider how the lead was generated on the back-end. Unless the affiliate you are working with does not use email, you probably average about 10 email publishers working with each of your affiliates. Some have more or less and there are always those who generate strictly through organic or paid search advertising. It should be a question you ask during the vetting process.
There are several misconceptions that schools have about email. Many don’t believe they are using much email marketing to be at risk mainly because they are not shown or seeded on the emails that contain their brand. But the odds are you are probably using more than you think, and putting yourself at risk of more exposure than you may be aware. For example, if you’re running a traditional lead generation program with an affiliate and are delivered a genuine, quality lead that is interested in attending your school, he or she may have been driven to the initial lead form by a deceptive brand email generated by one of the affiliate’s publishers. In this case, there is legitimate exposure for the advertiser, the lead generator and all parties in-between.
On the other hand, many schools believe they are protected because they only use trusted partners and practice seeding, which eliminates their concerns. While seeding is important and necessary, it’s important to note your visibility is eliminated once that seed is deleted and you can’t monitor what you can’t see. It’s not worth the risk to rely on assurances.
Regulations to consider when sending email:
- CAN-SPAM Basics
- Content Compliance
- Unsubscribe Compliance
- Sending and Data Compliance
- California Business & Professions Code
- Other State-Based Regulation
- Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
- EDU Standards and Best Practices
- GE statements
- Corporate Policy/Specific Advertiser Requirements
- Obligation to Monitor Your Partners
Reasons to Love Email
There are several reasons email marketing should be making a come-back in your school’s marketing program. Year-after-year email has dominated the top spot for marketers in terms of median ROI and usage. According to McKinsey & Company, 91% of all US consumers still use email daily and email prompts purchases at a rate that is at least three times higher than social media.
No required prior consent is another benefit mentioned previously, but remember to keep your unsubscribe list up-to-date.
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
When marketers are found in violation of CAN-SPAM law, the following are issues that appear frequently in these SPAM cases:
- Misused “from” domains, which include third-party domains like @gmail.com prohibit spamming
- Misleading friendly “froms”, don’t use generic or misleading friendly from lines such as “Approval Department”
- Proxy-registered “from” domains, brands can’t use not-readily-traceable domain names
- Misleading subject lines, don’t use subject lines like “Approved” or “Your request has been accepted”
Remember to always consult your legal counsel for advice on how to protect your brand from compliance missteps. The following are common sense steps from non-lawyers.
Do not allow the use of major email provider “from” domains. Misleading subject lines – such as “Approved” or “Your request has been accepted”— are among the most common claims, closely followed by friendly “from” issues. At a minimum do not allow the use of the most egregious, frequently cited terms. Do not allow the use of proxy-registered domains because they are easily identified and addressed.
Compliance vs. Delivery Performance
According to LashBack data, analyzing more than 200 million email messages, the following chart illustrates trends and observations on email quality.
Messages with no compliance issues are 12% more likely to reach the inbox than those with at least one; emails with three or more issues are 34% less likely. Clean, relevant content gets delivered. This may be a shift in mentality for many tenured publishers. In fact, LashBack cites messages that are only missing a postal address makes your content 59% less likely to reach the inbox.
Take a look at the different violation subsets and observations on how often they occur among email marketers.
For Higher Education marketers, the data provided by LashBack in our recent webinar should be enlightening as to how much email is really being successfully delivered in the EDU sector – compared to other industries such as auto, loan, etc. Education messages ranked second by inbox percentage, meaning emails containing the keyword “education” experienced 74% delivery to recipient inboxes. Dating made up the greatest number of messages sent, but not necessarily delivered while Health led with the greatest number reaching the inbox.
- Across LashBack’s data since August 2016, mail being delivered to the inbox of Gmail users averaged 31% as compared to 56% for Yahoo and 53% for all other email providers.
- Looking at delivery, since August 2016, based on 6 keywords:
Can We Really Monitor?
Yes, we can. Monitoring email requires access to millions of emails daily across numerous internet and email service providers. Outsourcing is really the only way to go. An email monitoring company would have access to pull these emails into a database and filter in various ways allowing you to see what consumers are receiving from your brand. From there you would need to identify violations and research to identify the publisher who sent the email. To make your email monitoring process most effective, look for a vendor that has access to the most email service providers.
Most emails will link out to domains, such as landing pages or other lead gen sites. Publishers often exclude their name on an email which makes it challenging to identify who sent the communication. If you are already monitoring the web through a compliance monitoring company, they should be able to help you tie the publisher back to the affiliate. The benefit to this is not only speedy remediation, but it also gives you insight into your affiliate networks and their publishers.
Conclusion
Email marketing is an important strategy to maximize your marketing ROI. Fortunately, advertisers are becoming more aware of the risk involved with the use of third-party affiliates and publishers. Affiliates themselves are becoming increasingly persistent in their efforts to curb bad actors in their own networks. With businesses’ self-regulation efforts increasing, some marketers are just now getting a glimpse at the infringement and brand violations that exist.
The good news is there are tools to mitigate your exposure and risk, better manage your brand and reduce compliance costs by automating monitoring and remediation. As advertisers, we work hard to build brands. Driving a higher standard, for not only your proprietary marketing, but also for your third-party marketers is crucial to maintaining a positive brand image.
Hopefully you’ve gained new insight to help you better monitor authorized and unauthorized email traffic. As you work to implement more compliance email marketing practices it’s important to keep an eye on other channels that could be putting your brand at risk. Compliance and policy risks are manageable. Practicing a closed-loop compliance process will help protect your brand and bottom line. The information provided does not constitute legal advice. Contact your attorney for more information on the topics presented.
Source: IntegriShield and LashBack (Producer). (2017). Are you ready for a costly lawsuit? Compliance for Email Marketing [Video Webinar]
Employment Verification: Going the Extra Mile
[As published in Beauty Link Magazine by AACS]
Student outcomes are an increasing focal point for accreditors and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). The final chapter in the student life-cycle now demands more detailed reporting than ever before. If collecting accurate information from recent graduates has become a challenge for your team, then you are not alone.
This article will share insight on how your institution can prepare for the changing environment and improve your employment verification process.
Regulating Accountability
Back in late 2016 Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced new legislation aimed at improving the college accreditation process.
The Accreditation Reform and Enhanced Accountability Act (AREAA) would address strengthening accreditation standards and requiring accreditation agencies to be more responsive to allegations of misconduct. Under the act, the Department of Education would be empowered to require accreditors to consider a variety of student success metrics when determining eligibility — including “retention rate, graduation and payment rate, transfer rate, student earnings after graduation, and job placement rates.” —. The DOE is currently prohibited from setting such standards. Accreditors would also be required to respond more quickly when their certified colleges come under federal or state investigation or face lawsuits for “fraud or abuse, deceptive practices, or material harm to students enrolled.”
AREAA would also restrict “conflict of interest” in the accreditation process by prohibiting individuals holding administrative and other roles, or individuals with financial stakes in an institution, from being involved in the certification process of that school. The bill also bars federally registered lobbyists from participating in that same certification process.
Increased pressure on accreditors may result in increased pressure on your school team to produce more detailed graduate data. To help simplify the process, consider dissecting your employment verification into three phases.
Phase One – Preparing for a Changing Environment
The Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) website provides federal regulatory context when gathering your placement rates. For details, you can do a search of: IFAP Consumer Information Disclosures at a Glance, CFR 668.41(d) and 34 CFR 668.14(b)(10). Schools must make available to current and prospective students information regarding the placement in employment of, and types of employment obtained by, graduates of the school’s degree or certificate programs.
Also, schools must identify the source of the placement information, plus any timeframes and methodology associated with it.
When an institution advertises job placement rates as a means of recruiting students to enroll, it must make this data available to prospective students; at or before the time the prospective student applies for enrollment. Here are a few items that need to be made available:
- The most recent data regarding the graduate’s employment if relevant to the field in which they obtained their degree.
- Remember to include any applicable methodology in obtaining this information
- The most recent available information regarding the types of employment obtained by graduates, such as full-time, part-time, contract, etc.
- Must also include any applicable methodology in obtaining this information
- Any other information necessary to substantiate the truthfulness of the advertisements from the point of view of the “reasonable” consumer, including, but not limited to:
- Applicable Student/Graduate Testimonial Affidavit
- Express vs. Implied Claim substantiation
- Privacy Policies and Terms
- Sufficient Evidence to Support the Advertising Claim (i.e. survey results, etc.)
- Consumer Disclosure Information
- Applicable Student/Graduate Testimonial Affidavit
- Relevant state licensing requirements for the profession which the course of instruction is designed to prepare students.
Phase Two – Third Party Verification
With an understanding of the regulatory environment, the next phase explores four simple ways to go the “extra mile” in providing detailed reporting of employment verification. While assisting in placement can be a struggle, proper reporting is just as important to validate the hard work it takes to assist individuals after graduation. Whether you work in-house or with a third-party verifier, remember to record all follow-up attempts and verifications of the following areas:
Job Description
A job title is not always enough to collect. Titles can sometimes be vague; even when they are not, they cannot completely define an individual’s role in employment. For example, a cosmetology graduate working at a beauty salon does not necessarily prove the individual is utilizing the skills learned during his or her program. Identifying the graduate’s tasks or responsibilities can more clearly relate education to professional status.
Hire Date and Duration
A hire date can validate the education an individual received. Showing that hire dates are within a reasonable amount of time following program completion offers relevance in the education choice made by the individual.
Contact Information
Always cite your sources. If you are meeting with a supervisor that is verifying the employment of one of your graduates, get their name. If you are talking to them on the phone, be sure to record the phone number that you used to reach them. This information is crucial in the event of an audit, as the auditor will most likely be utilizing that same information you collected during your graduate employment verification process.
Get Employer Feedback
Employers may offer some constructive criticism on your modules. For example, maybe there are newer standards employers seek during the hiring process. This feedback can help enhance your programs, keeping them up-to-date with the trends of the industry, and keep your graduates best prepared when trying to enter the workforce. Feedback can also help with maintaining employer relations, especially being alerted to any potential openings that employers may have that can be filled by your graduates.
But what happens when you have an unverified graduate? One major obstacle when it comes to graduate reporting is actually finding them. Some third-party verifiers can help with this process and expand on your own efforts with access to new employment databases. On the other hand, if you encounter a graduate with an “unemployed” status, it is important to have a process for following up with these individuals. Whether the communication is done in-house or through a third-party, you may consider providing placement assistance or additional time to seek employment.
Occasionally you will find graduates who are not going to work in their field for a valid reason, such as active military duty or continued education. A Waiver of Placement, indicating that said graduate does not wish to OR is unable to pursue employment in regards to the field in which they obtained their degree, should be recorded for these individuals. An example to consider: If a massage therapy student graduates with a certificate in Massage Therapy, but later is steadily and happily employed in accounting, then a waiver of placement would apply because he or she would most likely not be using the earned certificate in Massage Therapy. Remember to collect details on timeframe and written & electronic signatures for your records.
Phase Three – Data for Institutional Improvement
Finally there are several changes you can make in this phase to improve your graduate data. Start with refining graduate questionnaires to address report “buckets”. Layer questions to collect as much information as possible. Offer multiple choices and prioritize most important information at the beginning.
If you are using a third-party, make sure this relationship is clear to all graduates and develop a formal methodology statement on how you gather graduate information for your accreditor. Obtain signatures of approval for contacting a graduate’s employer during the exit process. Explain the “why” to help improve your process for confirming and processing your graduates. Be openly communicative with students on the information you want to collect, why it will be collected and any confidentiality requirements.
As regulators and accreditors focus more on the final chapter of the student life-cycle it is important to start optimizing your process now to gather more accurate graduate data. Hopefully these three phases will serve as a starting point to help your team navigate through the challenges of employment verification. Whether you manage this process in-house or through a third-party vendor, it’s time to prepare for the changing environment and be vigilant with your compliance.
Trump Administration vs. Student Loans
Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States. Now what? Well, one thing people keep questioning: “What does this mean for education?” Those who have followed the debates know Trump has been vague over what his major actions might be, but plans to mention his intentions in the near future. Answering most of the questions, his co-chair, Sam Clovis has taken over information regarding higher education, college costs, student loans, and accountability.
Student loans remain a major concern with many Americans. Trump believes local banks should be lending to local students. Therefore, he wants to move the government out of lending and restore that role to private banks. He wants colleges to play a role in determining loan worthiness on factors beyond family income, ensuring that colleges and universities have “skin in the game” when it comes to student loan default. For example, under this plan colleges should not be admitting students without confidence they will graduate in a reasonable time frame and find jobs.
One question that keeps arising: “How can borrowers save under Trump’s student loan repayment plan?” If campaign promises are upheld, some borrowers who took out federal student loans and use an income-based repayment plan may come out on top. No plan is ever perfect; the administration’s proposal comes with trade-offs. Additionally, borrowers will have higher monthly payments under the new repayment plan, but would have their student loan debt forgiven sooner. Here are some of the details:
- Borrowers contribute 12.5 percent of their income if they chose a repayment plan instead of 10 percent required under current repayment plans.
- After 15 years in a repayment plan, borrowers could have their debt forgiven.
- Currently, borrowers in repayment plans have to wait 20 years or 25 years to have their loans forgiven
Now, this plan may sound like an amazing idea, but how will he be able to succeed? Trump can do this without Congress. When it comes to creating a new repayment plan for federal student loans, this doesn’t require Congress to act. The Department of Education created new repayment plans under the Obama administration, Ex. Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE). “This could be implemented entirely through the regulatory process,” said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher and vice president of strategy at Cappex.com, which connects students with colleges and scholarships.
Trump’s campaign plan is to encourage colleges to focus on serving students who can succeed, but there are always risks. He has noted student loans must be significant enough for the lenders changing the way colleges decide whether to admit students and what programs they offer. This is what Trump’s co-chair had to say on the situation: “If you are going to study 16th-century French art, more power to you,” Clovis said. “I support the arts. But you are not going to get a job.”
The President-elect’s plan comes in to help higher education. The Republican platform calls for new systems of learning, including technical institutions, online universities, lifelong learning, and work-based learning in the private sector. Although Trump has been vague when it comes to this topic, there is a plan and his plan is to succeed.
Conversions vs. Compliance
Today, regulatory scrutiny, politicizing industries and consumer activists have brought significant changes to how we market to and sell our products. Lead flow is down in many industries, conversion from third-party marketing has dropped and compliance expenses are up.
So how do we pivot away from this story line and connect the gap between lead conversions and compliance data?
- Put compliance first to confidently work all leads.
- Collect detailed lead data.
- Remediate instead of wasting a lead and/or source.
- Make integrated marketing decisions.
We dive into the strategy behind each of these points in the latest April 2017 issue of FeedFront Magazine.
Click here to continue reading the full article on “Conversions vs. Compliance”.
You’ll learn how to integrate and have both because being compliant with marketing regulations doesn’t mean your lead generation should suffer.
Web Auditing Checklist for Higher Education
Your website is your front door. Is it inviting to compliance infractions? The following suggestions are offered as general advice about how to comply with the requirements in the Higher Education Act (HEA) and the regulations set forth by the Department of Education (DOE), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and various accrediting bodies for content provided on institutional websites. As you update your website with content in the following categories, remember to keep these items in mind:
Accreditation
- Accreditation statement must be easily accessible
- The term “accredited” may only be used if the institution indicates by which agency or organization it is accredited
- Include names of associations, agencies, or governmental bodies that accredit, approve, or license the institution’s programs
- Procedures for obtaining or reviewing documents describing accreditation, approval or licensing should be present
Admissions
- Provide all required criteria expected to be completed by students prior to enrollment
- Include all educational requirements
- Ensure contact information is provided for prospective students
Career Services/Employability
- Detailed and clear explanation of offerings that the Career Services department provides
- Clearly indicate that education, not employment, is being offered
- Omission of banned terms, such as “career placement”
- Any references to employment or salary predictions must be accurate, sourced and never guaranteed
Consumer Information
- Easily accessible link, preferably on homepage, containing HEA disclosure information
- Use consumer-friendly labels and language, when possible
- Use a common set of content titles
Gainful Employment Disclosures
- Clear presence of disclosure information
- Present information in the required Gainful Employment Disclosure Template developed by the DOE
Financial Aid
- Qualification rules
- How applicants can learn about qualifying
- Full references to financial aid availability must include the disclaimer “for those who qualify”
- All scholarship offerings must be sourced
Job Availability and Placement Claims
- May only provide information pertaining to potential salary that accurately portrays the normal range and starting salaries in the occupation for which training is provided
- Salary information must also include the source of the information, which is valid
Net Price Calculator
- Tool that students can use to estimate their “net price” to attend a particular college or university
- Must use the template provided by the DOE or an institution may develop a customized version that must include, at a minimum, the same elements as the Department’s version
Program Descriptions
- Timeframe for completion listed correctly
- Program length disclaimer
Program Listings
- Listings are accurate and approved by the DOE
- Acceptable States for admissions
- Citations provided for statistics listed on the page
Statistics
- All statistics listed in website copy must be accurately sourced with current year
TCPA Requirements
- Consent language present on lead forms
- Language must include all components within the FCC definition
- If opt-in box is present, it should not be pre-checked
Testimonials/Endorsements
- Must be actual statements
- Some accreditors do not allow institutions to use testimonials from current students on their website
- Prior consent of the author must be on file
Transferability of Credits
- Include any established criteria the institution uses regarding the transfer of credit earned at another institution
- Provide a list of institutions with which the institution has established an agreement
At the end of the day it is important to be diligent with your compliance process. We recommend auditing your content regularly to ensure it meets the industry standards and guidelines you are expected to follow.
Minimizing the Impact of Debt Relief Scams
We’ve seen them popping up all over the Internet and we’re definitely not happy about it. Sites are promising students with college loan debt, loan forgiveness and complete debt relief. This all sounds great to a student who may be thousands of dollars in debt. However, what these sites are not telling students is that they are charging them hundreds of dollars to fill out government forms that the students can complete for free. Often times it is paperwork to lower monthly payments or to consolidate loans that will lower the student’s monthly payments—not to forgive student loan debt.
These sites have been using Social Media, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to drive traffic to their pages. They use the name of schools in their post to get users to click to their site.
In March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) put in a request to have a federal district court make a final judgement that would shut down a student debt relief scheme. With a ruling in place, this will set a precedent for other similar sites who are operating under the same process.
Here are a few actions you can take to ensure your students and alumni don’t get targeted:
- Educate
- Make sure students are familiar with any loans they are taking out for their education.
- Create documents to inform students of their options when it comes to loan repayment.
- Communicate
- Create an e-mail account where students can ask questions about loan forgiveness, debt relief, loan repayment and consolidation.
- Utilize Social Media
- Post helpful tips for students and alumni to be able to identify sites that may be scamming them.
- Post links to legitimate resources for students to get the information and help they need.
Resources for students and alumni:
Student Loan Repayment – https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans
Student Loan Consolidation – https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/consolidation
Student Loan Forgiveness Programs – https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service
The CFPB has identified student loan servicing as one of its priorities over the next two years. Don’t wait to put a plan in place that monitors your online marketing and ensure your institution is not being misrepresented by unauthorized marketers. Additionally, by being proactive and educating your students you can help minimize the impact of these “debt relief” scams.
Conversions vs. Compliance
What opportunities are you missing for them to work together?
Businesses have the opportunity to gather and analyze data at an increasing rate. Whether it is customer conversion data, compliance or call center functions, these databases are typically housed in separate locations and the data is rarely integrated. How do businesses tie this information together to find actionable intelligence and make sound business decisions? Let’s take a look at some opportunities you may be missing if you are experiencing the gap left between conversion and compliance data.
Years ago when leads were flowing in and volume was king, compliance wasn’t much of an issue—or at least one we spent much time on. Sales were up, reps could cherry pick, and most marketers didn’t have a real understanding of third party lead generation. They liked getting thousands of cheap leads. Skip to today, regulatory scrutiny, politicizing industries and public outcry have brought significant changes to how we market to and sell our products. Lead flow is down in many industries, conversion from third-party marketing has dropped and compliance expenses are up.
So how do we pivot away from this storyline? I spent nearly 10 years talking to businesses about how to improve lead volume and quality to increase sales. Many times the first response was “just shut it off”. As an owner or employee committed to doing what is best for the business, it’s easy to lean heavy on the compliance side, or toward what’s best for conversion. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Whichever way you lean, no one wants to continue a path toward extinction—so change we must. Change the way we think about, and act on, the data we have.
- Put compliance first to confidently work all leads you get your hands on. Check your audit process to see if it includes all aspects that would make a lead contactable and compliant upon receipt. IntegriShield found that 9% of an advertiser’s infractions are from missing, or non-compliant, consumer consent and disclosure language.
Waiting to see if a lead is compliant until after you get doesn’t really help you. Examine all the lead pages you own and are affiliated with to ensure they have compliant Opt-In language. Otherwise, you end up returning the leads or eating the costs. It could also result in a good traffic source being shut off for something easily fixed. If a lead slips by and you do work it, the fines and potential civil penalties could put you out of business.
- Collect all the lead data you can. Some of the basics include:
- Lead Type
- Vendor
- Affiliate Codes
- Referral URL
- Campaign
- Date
- Form or Call In
- Customer Data
- Status
- Price
- Consumer Consent Authorization
- Lead Integrity Data
You’ll need objective data to make good marketing decisions. If you don’t have all of your data aggregated, this will take more time, but it can still be done. Better yet, ask your service providers if they can integrate with other systems.
- Scrub and remediate instead of wasting a lead or a source.By this point you’ve been proactive and tried to ensure all your vendor pages are compliant. You may find many leads come from pages you had no idea exist. It’s not uncommon nor is it something that has to be shut down. You will likely never know all the affiliate, publisher, and traffic channels your lead generators enlist at any given moment in time. Audit the URLs the leads are coming from and if they are not compliant, make them compliant.
Keep your lead channels open if at all possible. If the site is misleading or you see any bait and switch tactics, that’s when you shut it down. Don’t mess around with bad actors. There is too much risk in the current regulatory environment. We have found that 28% of total advertiser infractions are due to misleading content on URLs and 6% contained banned terminology.
Beyond marketing content, it’s also important to maintain customer files. Scrub customer data to ensure contact compliance. Don’t just remove it. About a month before a lead would be scrubbed out, send a notice to see if he or she would like to stay opted in and if so, restart the clock on them. Even if only a small percentage opts back in, sales will know who is still engaged and you maintain as many leads active as possible.
- Make integrated marketing decisions.Direct Marketing is not a magic button. It’s a series of decisions based on metrics using good data and then repeating each day, week, month, and year. Combine the data to look at all channels and their outcomes—both conversions and compliance risk.
Tie conversion metrics to integrity and compliance scores to determine beginning allocations each month. And remember, you can control your risk. Keep the lead pipeline open by being specific and eliminating offending publishers, but keeping the vendor “live” for all the quality sources they use. If a vendor is not delivering, partner with them to adjust messaging to fit the types of channels they use to drive your traffic. One set of posting instructions is easy, but it’s not always effective.
Businesses depend on lead volume and quality to drive sales. The current trend of fear-based decision making needs to become strategic, educated decision making. Implement compliance processes, follow them, and seek solutions before eliminating potential sales. The tools, data, and ability to regulate your marketing exist. With increased vulnerability has come increased control if you don’t shy away from integrating strategies.
Gayla Huber
President, IntegriShield
When a Free Lead Can Cost You
Have you ever received a “free” lead in your inbox? Depending on your personal experience, you may initially think it’s a free lead to let you sample what a particular lead generator can do for you. Or you may not even know how you actually got the lead. What do you do? Do you contact this prospect? Your decision on how to handle the inquiry will determine how much the lead could cost you in the end.
There are a few variables to consider before deciding to contact a “free” lead.
- Do you know where the lead came from? Even if the lead source is listed, it’s important to know how it was generated to result in a consumer providing their information. Did he or she know they were inquiring specifically for a product from your brand? While you may not be able to track back the full path, at a minimum, check out the referring URL to ensure no bait and switch tactics were used.
- Did the consumer consent to contact, and in what forms? If you received a consumer’s contact information, it’s important that they consented to be contacted. Because the lead is free, let’s make the assumption you did not provide authorized consent language. You must be able to answer…
- What language was used?
- Did they consent to be contacted by your business or only the lead generator?
- Did the lead get to opt-in for TCPA consent specific to your business?
It’s important to have these answers because fines can add up quickly when it comes to consumer consent violations.
- Can you get access to the data collection of consent? You should also have access to opt-out data as it pertains to the consumer opting out on the lead generator side. This is just as important as knowing if consent language and opt-in were available on the inquiry form. Businesses are subject to fines and potential litigation for not observing opt-out requests. This would also be helpful in opening up the option to email the consumer. Email does not require prior consent, but once someone unsubscribes or opt-outs, a business can no longer email them unless he or she opts back in. Without control of the consent language and the data being collected, emailing could be risky as well.
Businesses hold lead generators to higher standards today and justifiably so considering the regulatory environment. Any source of a lead is subject to scrutiny and not knowing is not a defense. Before you decide to contact that “free” lead, calculate the possible fines and don’t let it costs your brand money or its reputation.
Penalties Increased and So Did Your Risk. How Exposed Are You?
[As published on LeadsCon.com]
On August 1, 2016, The FTC’s inflation increases for maximum civil penalty amounts go into effect. You can find the Federal Register Notice containing all of the statutes and amounts here. With penalties increasing, from $16,000 to $40,000 in some instances, it’s time again to look at your business objectively and determine what risks you are willing to take. Here are some areas, business owners and caretakers of brands need to evaluate for exposure.
Police Those Who Try to Exploit Your Brand
Your business is not responsible for what others do if you are not affiliated with them. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to keep us off the regulator radar these days. Whether you are the advertiser or the lead generator, understand the pitfalls that can occur when using third parties. Objectively ask yourself, do you know everything your affiliates or publishers are doing to market on your behalf? Take it a step further and question if you think they know everything their network is doing. No one is 100% error free online, all the time. The mere appearance of not “playing by the rules” could shine a spotlight on your business where infractions could be uncovered.
An unauthorized publisher can put you at risk for regulatory scrutiny or lead to an investigation. If a consumer can’t spot a fraudulent representation of your brand online, then regulators won’t be able to notice at first glance either. It’s critical right now to monitor and enforce standards for your brand’s presence on the Internet. Create a paper trail documenting your efforts to discover and remediate infractions.
Every business is unique, but here some things you can do internally:
- Keep an inventory in a database or even a spreadsheet of your proprietary and authorized third party URLs.
- Set up a monthly audit process to review all URLs for brand, regulatory, and consumer consent compliance.
- Review the user path to ensure nothing was misleading up to the form and consumer consent was collected in the correct places.
- Take screen shots with time/date of infractions.
- Email the screen shots along with a request for remediation to the third party.
- Store all emails back and forth concerning the remediation.
- Schedule a quarterly Internet audit looking for domains and URLs not authorized by your brand and follow the same paper trail and remediation process.
Be Proactive Against Those Who Seek and Exploit Violations
From consumer disclosures and consent language online to contact strategies and database maintenance, leave no stone unturned when it comes to ensuring compliance. There are opportunistic individuals who target certain industries and put themselves in a position to file a complaint or take legal action. You need to get ahead of them.
Look for and monitor all forms of disclosures, consent, privacy policies, terms and conditions, and any other industry specific data or content required. It’s a common mistake to only search for where it exists on the web. Yes, we want to make sure what we know and see is unaltered, but don’t forget to look for instances where these forms have been omitted—which is a tougher search.
Contact maintenance strategies need to be reviewed and followed. Reactive responses to violations will result in fines and suits. It may surprise you how easy it is for individuals to create the exact scenarios that equip them to file a civil suit against a business. Do Not Call (DNC) violations under section 5 of the FTC Act have increased to $40,000 per instance. If you weren’t following DNC best practices, it’s time.
Despite your efforts to maintain industry compliance on a daily basis you may feel exposed on many fronts. The regulatory scrutiny has found its way into many business operations and expense columns with seemingly no reprieve. To help mitigate risks everyone must take an active role and reduce exposure. Lead generation as an industry is strong. Remember, you are not only equipped to be successful while being compliant, but you are in a good position to write the narrative.