Marketers sometimes like to enter new channels gradually, conservatively even. This works in many channels like paid search, social, and direct mail.

But for fintechs, entering new affiliate channels like this can have catastrophic consequences.

In today's Podcast, I share why entering into new affiliate marketplaces "cautiously" can be dangerous for new entrants. As an alternative, I'll walk you through how to play the game in reverse.

Note: If you want to hear more about this in future Podcasts, email me at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com with your questions.

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A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com/

We chat with Colin about how AI is changing marketplaces.

His thesis: “The rise of agentic AI will transform marketplaces from passive aggregators to active facilitators of transactions.”

To learn more, check out Colin’s take on how AI will revolutionize marketplaces: https://www.gardinercolin.com/p/ai-and-marketplaces-agent-led

About Colin Gardiner

Former economics/statistical researcher that now loves building sticky consumer facing products via iterative data-driven methods. Built products for both large corporations and seed level startups, always with a primary focus on acquisition, conversion and monetization.

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A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com/

We sit with credit card expert Jason Steele about what's happening behind the scenes in the industry. Jason shares how he went from tech work to becoming a respected credit card authority who writes for major publications and runs CardCon, the credit card industry conference.

We discuss:

1. The "Coupon Book Problem" - Premium cards are becoming more complex with endless small benefits ($6 at Dunkin', $10 off wireless) that frustrate consumers. Jason explains why this creates space for simpler card offerings that deliver clear value.
2. What Drives Card Choices - Discover why exclusivity and status perks (like early access to products or "skip-the-line" privileges) might be more powerful than cash back for attracting high-value customers.
3. Will shopping for cards change in an AI future? - The conversation explores whether consumers are moving away from traditional comparison sites toward trusted influencers and whether AI could personalize recommendations based on spending patterns.

Also:

• Why metal cards might affect spending behavior
• How credit unions approach card benefits differently
• The power of word-of-mouth in card marketing
• What makes people share positive card experiences

And remember:

Jason conference — CardCon — happens May 6-8 in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Use code "TOASTER" for $50 off registration at cardconexpo.com.

Where to find Jason:

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-steele/

*****

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com/

Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Find him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

LendAPI lets you create application flows, credit decision engines, and complete lending products through simple drag-and-drop tools—all without hiring engineers or spending millions.

You can build and launch lending products quickly and efficiently, then use a working product to raise venture capital. Even non-financial businesses like boat dealerships are using it to replace clunky Excel-based applications.

Tim in unsually transparent as an early stage founder. He shared:

• $3.5 million in seed funding raised just four months ago
• How many applications they process daily
• How many lenders use the platform
• The company’s ARR and target before raising more capital

LendAPI connects with all three credit bureaus, loan servicing systems, and identity verification providers that you work with daily. Tim's vision is to become the "WordPress of lending"—making it easy for your clients to launch financial products without technical expertise.

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothytli/

Substack (Tim’s build-in-public blog)

https://substack.com/@lendapi

LendAPI https://www.lendapi.com/

*****

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com/

Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Find him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

In this episode, I catch up with my old Columbia PhD classmate Guru Sethupathy, founder of FairNow, an AI governance platform for financial services.

About AI Governance:

• Involves three key components:
  • Monitoring AI performance, explainability, and bias
  • Ensuring compliance with financial regulations
  • Establishing clear AI policies and procedures

Why It Matters for FinTechs:

• Often viewed as a cost center but becomes a strategic advantage
• Becomes critically important during partner due diligence
• "Light touch" governance is better than scrambling reactively
• Risk of bias or compliance issues can be existential for startups

Explainability Benefits:

• Meets regulatory requirements
• Improves customer experience
• Enhances operational understanding
• Helps identify performance optimization opportunities

Resources:

• Learn more at fairnow.ai
• Contact: guru@fairnow.ai

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com/

Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Email him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

In this episode, we speak with Greg Cox, CEO of Monevo, to discuss their recent acquisition by TransUnion and how they're transforming credit offer distribution.

Greg explains how Monevo serves as a technology layer connecting lenders and publishers, allowing lenders to distribute highly qualified credit offers to third-party websites and aggregators. The platform helps lenders target the right customers across multiple digital channels while improving conversion rates. Highlights:

• How Monevo's technology handles model hosting and decisioning, with flexibility for lenders to host models with Monevo, TransUnion, or their own platforms
• Their extensive publisher network, including major players like Lending Tree, NerdWallet, Credit Karma, and Clear Score
• The company's bootstrapped journey from a £25,000 investment to a TransUnion acquisition
• How their solution dramatically reduces soft inquiry costs for lenders
• Different types of offers presented to consumers (pre-approved, pre-qualified, qualified)
• Future plans following the TransUnion acquisition, including expansion into new verticals beyond personal loans and credit cards

Greg shares insights on how Monevo makes both lender and publisher relationships more efficient by improving approval rates, boosting monetization for publishers, and delivering better-qualified users to lenders - all while maintaining flexibility in commercial agreements that align with good outcomes for all parties.

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com/

Want to chat with Carlos Caro, our host? Email him at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Rich Walker is a 35-year industry vet who’s been responsible for over 10 billion pieces of Direct Mail.

Rich has led direct marketing teams at Capital One, the Winterberry Group, Deluxe Corporation, 2nd Order Solutions, and more recently, Aven.

He also ran his own consulting shop - Pilot Performance Marketing - focused on helping lenders solve Direct Mail.

So we jumped at the opportunity to get his take on how lenders can leverage Direct Mail to grow their customer acquisition programs.

We Discuss:

1️⃣ Why Direct Mail still matters -$3B in spend per year -The power of pre-screened marketing 2️⃣ Who should explore Direct Mail -High response, low LTV -Low response, high LTV -Breakdowns by product category 3️⃣ Direct Mail vs. other channels -How does it compare to affiliate marketing? -Attribution and overlaps 4️⃣ Unit economics -Cost per piece at scale (and subscale) -How costs breakdown by postage, data, creative/printing -Typical CACs & response rates 5️⃣ The mechanics of a campaign -Checklist of how to go to market -Typical GTM timelines -How to go from 0 to in market in 8 weeks 6️⃣ Building or renting a Direct Mail function -Case for keeping in-house -Case for out-sourcing 7️⃣ Optimizing the 3 big levers -List (targeting and modeling) -Offer -Creative 8️⃣ Ways to solve attribution -Invitation codes, QR codes, vanity URLs -GEO holdout tests 9️⃣ The future of Direct Mail

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com

What is Congruence? Aligning messaging from your ad, to your landing page, to your final conversion steps creates lift in your marketing funnel, reducing your CACs and increasing your customer acquisition volumes. It sounds elementary. Yet many organizations forget to do it.

Today we dig into examples of marketing from Wells Fargo and Discover to illustrate what it means to be Congruent across your marketing funnel.

The visuals from our Newsletter will help: https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/congruence

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Streamline your lending application pages with 2-fields.

To see a demo, click below to chat with their Head of Growth.

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

Subscribe to the Free Toaster Newsletter:

www.thefreetoaster.com