Recently I sat across from a popular fintech creator/Podcaster (episode drops in December), and he asked me about the SEO Apocalypse article I wrote for The Free Toaster a couple of months ago.

In that article, I shared that publishers like NerdWallet and Bankrate are seeing their organic traffic evaporate like venture capital in a rising rate environment.

While pontificating about why the SEO Apocalypse happened and what publishers should do about it, it hit me:

Most of the fintech lending industry has only been playing 50% of the marketing game.

Let me back up and explain before you close this tab to go optimize your Facebook campaigns.

What Became Clear While Trying Not to Sound Like an Idiot on a Podcast

Here's what I realized mid-conversation (and then spent all evening refining because apparently I can't help myself):

There are only two ways to arbitrage attention in fintech marketing. That's it. Two. Not seventeen different growth hacks or forty-three channels in your attribution model. Just two.

Media Arbitrage: Buying attention for less than you can monetize it for. Clicks costs $1, but I can monetize them at $2, so I pocket the difference and update my LinkedIn to say "Growth Hacker Extraordinaire." This is asking for the close. Direct response. The instant gratification that makes VCs nod approvingly during board meetings and makes your CFO high-five you at the water cooler.

Brand Arbitrage: Giving so much value that people actually remember you exist when they're not actively shopping for financial products. This is the long game. The patient game. The game that makes your performance marketing team break out in hives. This “arb” is less popular with VCs and CFOs, at least in fintech lending.

Asking and giving. The only two ways to arbitrage attention.

And here's the thing that made me pause mid-sentence on this podcast:

Many fintech companies don’t invest at all in the second one (brand arbitrage / giving), and many aren’t aware of the liability that creates.

Why Your "Organic" Traffic Is Neither Organic Nor Yours

Let me drop a little bomb that the host's question made painfully clear:

—> There's no such thing as organic traffic.

I know, I know. You're looking at your Google Analytics right now, pointing at that beautiful green "Organic Search" segment. But that traffic? It's either:

• The compound interest from years of content creation (that you probably stopped investing in because "it doesn't scale")

• Brand spillover from your paid campaigns (people Googling you after seeing your TV or Credit Karma ads 47 times)

• A temporary algorithm blessing that's about as stable as the newest meme-coin’s stock ticker

The host asked me if SEO traffic would come back for these publishers. You know what I should have said? "Sure, right after WeWork becomes profitable and crypto becomes boring."

A Confession About My Own Business (That Should Scare You)

Here's something vulnerable I realized (but didn’t share on the Podcast):

If LinkedIn banned me tomorrow – just completely nuked my account – my consulting business might survive for six months to a year. And then poof it would be gone (unless I really hustled to regain the brand marketing I get done there elsewhere).

Why?

Because I've been accidentally building brand equity this whole time. The content I've been pushing out, the newsletter you're reading right now, the podcast appearance that led to the content here – it's all compound interest in the brand bank.

But if 95% of my business came from paid channels and five competitors showed up tomorrow willing to outbid me? I'd go to zero faster than you can say "CAC payback period."

That's the difference between media and brand arbitrage. One dies instantly when you turn off the faucet. The other has momentum. Durability. The marketing equivalent of a cockroach surviving nuclear winter.

The Two Types of Brand Arbitrage (Because Of Course There Are Subtypes)

During the conversation, I realized brand arbitrage isn't just one thing. It's actually two distinct plays:

Attention Arbitrage: People seek you out because you've provided so much value they actually like you. Crazy concept in fintech lending, I know. This is when someone tells their friend about your product at brunch without being incentivized. Without a referral code. Just because they want to.

Conversion Arbitrage: You've made yourself so familiar that when someone sees you in a sea of options, they pick you. This is why Chase runs those feel-good commercials with absolutely zero product information. They're not selling; they're familiarizing.

When I’m at my best (I’m often not), my content strategy should do both.

People find me AND they convert at higher rates because they've been marinating in my content. But here's the kicker – I didn't plan this. I stumbled into it.

I’m worried many fintechs won't stumble into because they're too busy optimizing their Google Ads or affiliate programs, and haven’t even contemplated their brand or “giving” strategy.

The Prescription I'm Writing for Every Fintech Marketer (Including Myself)

After sleeping on this conversation, I’ve distilled down some actionable advice for your marketing org (so that you can avoid a major distribution disruption some of your publisher partners are experiencing right now):

1. Crank Up Your Give To Ask Ratio - For long-term growth, many expert suggest a 3(give):1(ask) ratio. Even better at 10:1 if you can afford to do it. For every time you ask for something (email, signup, purchase), give value at least three times over. Yes, this means creating educational, entertaining, or inspiring content without a CTA. I can feel your CFO’s anxiety already.

2. Diversification Isn't Just for Investment Portfolios - If one platform can destroy your business with an algorithm change, you don't have a durable marketing strategy – you have a single point of failure. This one won’t be controversial with your C-suite.

3. Own Your Channels Like Your Life Depends on It - Because it does. Email lists, SMS, push notifications, carrier pigeons trained to deliver QR codes – do whatever you can to reach your audience directly without permission from the Platform Overlords.

4. Build A Duel-Threat Team - You might be amazing at performance marketing, analytics, and credit (and clueless at brand building). Many fintechs teams are constructed this way. There's no shame in admitting it. There IS shame in ignoring it until your CAC explodes and your investors start asking uncomfortable questions.

Closing Thoughts

I hope this article doesn’t read like I'm asking you to stop running paid campaigns. That would be like telling you to stop breathing.

But if you're building a fintech to grow for the next 10 to 20 years, I’d suggest playing both games (media + brand arbs). Now. Not next quarter. Not after your Series B. Now.

Because here's what I didn't say on the podcast but should have: The companies that win in fintech won't be the ones with the best unit economics or the slickest apps. They'll be the ones that figured out how to build a brand in an industry that thinks brand is just a logo and a color scheme.

The great SEO apocalypse wasn't just about search engines.

It's about what happens when any single channel decides they’re not that into you anymore. And if you're not building brand equity alongside your performance marketing machine, you're just one algorithm update away from becoming a case study in someone else's newsletter.

Maybe even this one 🙂 

🎧 Get More Color on the Podcast

We go into more details on this topic on The Free Toaster Podcast.

E034 – Media Arbitrage vs. Brand Arbitrage

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Want the full picture?

This article pairs with The SEO Apocalypse Has Arrived, our breakdown of how Google’s AI updates reshaped organic discovery.

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Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

Need help hiring key roles? Email Connie Buehler and mention TOASTER

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Need to win on other growth channels? Chat with FIAT Growth

None of the above? Share our Newsletter in your favorite Slack channel

About Us

Welcome to The Free Toaster! The newsletter for marketing pros at fintechs, banks, and lenders. 

Inspired by the free toasters banks used to give to each new customer, we’re here to help you acquire more customers at scale. We deliver fresh news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers, minus the breadcrumbs.

Want to follow the authors on social media?

Carlos Caro is the founder of NMG, an agency that helps lenders build affiliate programs.

Nick Madrid is the co-founder of Uncovered Media and a co-founder of Ghostmode (a media company that builds Newsletters, Podcasts, and communities in high-value B2B niches).

Source: https://www.svb.com/trends-insights/reports/fintech-industry-report/

TL;DR - We summarize SVB's October 2025 fintech report. The Fed is expected to cut rates by 100-125 basis points over the next year, potentially boosting consumer demand for loans. However, student loan delinquencies have surged above pre-COVID levels, with borrowers under 49 holding more student debt ($1.2T) than mortgages ($1.0T), signaling caution for lenders. The regulatory environment has become more favorable for fintechs with a trimmed-down CFPB, while companies have shifted focus from growth to profitability. Meanwhile, VC funding requirements have increased, with Series A companies now needing $4MM in revenue versus $1MM in 2020-2021.

1. The market expects the Fed Funds Rate to drop, but by how much?

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

This charts tell us what been circulating in the news for months - the Fed is going to cut rates.

But, by how much?

To measure this, we looked at CME FedWatch.

There, we learned two things.

CME FedWatch

First, it’s a near certainly (97.8%) that the Fed will cut rates by 25 bps at its next meeting on October 29th, 2025 (that’s tomorrow!).

CME FedWatch

Second, it seems like rates will decrease by 100-125 bps one year from today, with a 57.6% probability.

Additionally, CME FedWatch shows a 19.7% chance of a greater than 150 bps reduction, and a 22.7% chance of a reduction of 75 bps or less.

This could drive consumer demand to rate-sensitive lending businesses like personal loans, auto refinances, and mortgages, assuming macro credit health (delinquencies and losses) don’t change.

So what does SVB’s report suggest about that?

2. Delinquency rates look healthy (with one big exception)

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

The CFPB’s survey, though a little dated, is showing increasing financial strain among households less than 61 years old.

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

With that color from the CFPB survey, we look to the delinquency rate. There we see DQs more or less steady in the credit card, auto, and “other” categories, with mortgages showing an increase from 2024 to 2025.

What jumps off the page is the student loan data.

We’re now above pre-COVID era delinquency rates in student loans, with people under 49 (according to this chart) holding more student loan debt ($1.2T) than mortgage debt ($1.0T)! ¹

This implies lenders should be cautious, and the chart below supports that:

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

Lenders I speak with comment that the credit expansion that started in 2021 led to higher than expected losses in some cases.

Today, we’re seeing a more prudent approach reflected, which likely bakes in macro uncertainties (what will the Fed do?, will the consumer stay strong?) with a cool-off that you’d expect following a period of major expansion.

3. A more favorable regulatory environment for Fintechs

Setting aside your views about the current administration, investors have voted clearly in favor of the current environment for Fintechs:

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

For lenders specifically, a reduced-staff CFPB and a repeal of bank rate fee caps presents a more favorable operating environment.

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

4. Fintechs are prioritizing profitability over top-line revenue growth

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

I’ve heard it in board rooms for years. Profitability over growth. Profitability over growth.

SVB’s public fintech cohort data shows revenue growth notably down from the ZIRP era, and profitability notably up.

Looks like CEOs have been taking those boardroom conversations to heart.

5. The bar to raise VC money has increased

This chart says it all:

SVB’s The Future Of Fintech Report, Oct 2025

The median fintech raising a Series A in 2020-2021 had $1MM in the nearest monthly or quarterly financial statement. In the last 24 months, that number has increased to $4MM.

That chart above shows a similar pattern of increasing revenue bars for Series B and Series C companies.

With advances in technology and profitability/sustainability valued at a premium, investors can be pickier about which companies they fund.

Recap: Takeaways for Lenders

1. The market expects Fed rates to decline by 100-125 bps in the next 12 months, potentially boosting consumer demand for loans.

2. High delinquency rates (12%+) in the student category is a reason for lenders to be cautious with new originations.

3. The current government administration is creating a favorable regulatory environment for lenders.

4. Fintechs are trading lower growth for higher margins to meet investor demands.

5. The revenue bar for raising VC has increased, and may continue to increase as founding teams learn how to do more with less headcount (with AI and improvements in the fintech technology stack).

Footnotes:

1. Note that the SVB reports commentary said “Americans younger than 40 owe $1.2T in student debt, more than any other debt category.” Since this commentary is inconsistent with the chart we included that shows student debt outstanding, it is unclear which data point is accurate. In this article, we assumed was shown in the chart was correct.

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About Us

Welcome to The Free Toaster! The newsletter for marketing pros at fintechs, banks, and lenders.

Inspired by the free toasters banks used to give to each new customer, we’re here to help you acquire more customers at scale. We deliver fresh news, data, and insights, minus the breadcrumbs.

Want to follow the authors on social media?

Carlos Caro is the founder of New Market Growth, an agency that helps lenders build affiliate programs.

Nick Madrid is the co-founder of Ghostmode, a media company that builds Newsletters, Podcasts, and communities in high-value B2B niches.

For more than a decade, the digital economy operated on a beautifully simple premise: rank high on Google, get customers, and (hopefully) print money. Companies dumped billions into SEO like it was a reliable annuity.

Well, that annuity is past due and the foreclosure notice just arrived. It’s written in AI.

The most recent example?

In NerdWallet’s Q2 2025 earnings report, they shared that their credit card business is down 25% year over year, while the card category at large and competitors like Credit Karma have been growing.

Their explanation? "…more pronounced organic traffic challenges."

Source: NerdWallet’s Q2 2025 Shareholder Letter (highlighted text is the author’s emphasis)

The carnage is everywhere.

What many are calling an "extinction-level event" for content-driven businesses is a reality seen in traffic dashboards and earnings reports across Wall Street.¹

This doesn’t feel like another algo update that will blow over. This is structural.

Google is systematically burning down (and rebuilding) the ecosystem that made digital content marketing initially viable, and they're doing it on two fronts.

The "Helpful Content" Ground-Clearing

Starting in September 2023, Google launched its "Helpful Content Update" (HCU)—a series of algorithm changes supposedly designed to reward content that's "helpful, satisfying and original".² The stated goal was to reduce low-quality content visibility by up to 45%.²

Sounds reasonable, right? Except this wasn't just a spring cleaning. It was a strategic ground-clearing operation. The HCU introduced a brutal, site-wide penalty that could suppress a domain's entire visibility if Google deemed it had too much "unhelpful" content.³ This was Google curating the web for its true new customer: its own AI.

The move devastated independent publishers, with some losing up to 95% of their traffic.² SEO strategist Lily Ray put it bluntly: "Google's just committing war on publisher websites. It's almost as if Google designed an algorithm update to specifically go after small bloggers".²

The subsequent June 2025 Core Update only accelerated the chaos, introducing "widespread volatility" and further cementing the shift toward an AI-first world.⁷

The Birth of Zero-Click

With the web prepped for machine consumption, Google unleashed its endgame: AI Overviews.

These AI-generated summaries now appear at the top of search results, answering user questions directly on the page.¹ Why send users to your website when Google can just scrape your content, synthesize it, and present it as its own?

This is the "Great Decoupling"—the severing of the economic link between creating content and getting traffic.²³

Let’s check out the stats:

• Zero-click searches for news queries have surged from 56% to nearly 69% since AI Overviews launched.²⁴

• A Pew Research Center study found that when an AI summary appears, users are half as likely to click a traditional link, with the click rate collapsing from 15% to just 8%.¹

• One lifestyle publisher watched their click-through rate for a page-one ranking collapse from 5.1% to 0.6% in a year.²⁶

• An automotive publisher saw a 25% traffic drop despite ranking first in organic search.²⁶

It’s almost like Google is saying: "Thanks for creating all this content we can train our AI on. OK thanks, bye."

The Damage Report: Nobody's Safe

The SEO changes are hitting everyone from small blogs to publicly traded companies.

For smaller publishers, it has been an extinction event.

• The popular travel blog The Planet D was forced to shut down entirely after its traffic dropped by 90%.¹

• UK entertainment site Ready Steady Cut lost 50% of its traffic overnight and had to lay off its entire writing team.²

Even the giants are bleeding.

• CNN's website traffic has dropped by approximately 30% year-over-year.¹

• OprahDaily.com lost 58% of its search traffic.²

• New York Magazine dropped 32%.²

• GQ.com fell 26%.²

It’s showing up in the Q2 2025 earnings reports, too:

• NerdWallet (NASDAQ: NRDS)—a company that literally built a financial empire on search traffic—reported a brutal 25% year-over-year revenue decline in its Credit Cards vertical. Management didn't mince words, blaming “…more pronounced organic traffic challenges”. When an SEO-driven business tells Wall Street that SEO isn’t working anymore, you pay attention.

• HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS)—the company that wrote the playbook on content marketing—is now executing a massive strategic pivot. On their Q2 earnings call, the CEO revealed that a staggering 90% of the company's leads now originate from non-blog sources like social media and podcasts.²⁹

Source: Hubspot Q2 2025 Investor Presentation

That last point is worth repeating.

The company that taught everyone else how to do content marketing is actively de-risking its business away from the very search engine it helped everyone optimize for.

If HubSpot can't rely on SEO anymore, should you?

Where We Go From Here

Chasing Google's algorithm is like trying to solve a Rubik's cube that changes colors every time you touch it. The companies that survive this transition will be the ones that stop treating Google like a landlord and start building their own (media) real estate.

Action Item #1: Shift from SEO to GEO

Search isn't disappearing, but the optimization game has changed. The new discipline is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)—making your content discoverable and valuable to AI models.³⁰ The goal is no longer to rank #1 in a list of links; it's to become the trusted source cited within the AI's answer.

This means:

• Directly answering questions with structured data (think Q&As, bullet points, and schema markup) so AI crawlers can parse your stuff easily.³⁶

• Doubling down on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust). In an AI world, verifiable authority is the ultimate currency.⁶

• Building brand authority as a trust signal. When AI can't tell what's real, it will default to brands it trusts.³⁸

Action Item #2: Build Natively, Everywhere

Google isn't the only game in town anymore. People search on YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram²⁶ . A shocking 40% of Gen Z now prefers searching on TikTok or Instagram over Google⁴² . The smartest companies are optimizing for "Search Everywhere" instead of putting all their eggs in one increasingly fragile basket.⁴³

This requires platform-native content strategies:

• YouTube for personality-driven education and tutorials.⁴⁰

• Reddit for authentic community discussions and earning trust.⁴⁵

• TikTok and Instagram for visual discovery and reaching younger audiences.⁴²

Different platforms, different strategies. But all aimed at the same goal: reaching your audience where they actually are, not where Google used to send them.

Source: SEO.com

Action Item #3: Build On Your Own Land

The ultimate defense against algorithmic chaos is a direct relationship with your audience. The future belongs to companies that own their customer connections, building assets that Google can't devalue overnight.

• Email lists that can't be algorithm-nuked.

• User accounts that create switching costs.

• Mobile apps that bypass search entirely.

• First-party data that allows you to build resilient, personalized experiences without relying on a middleman.⁴⁶

The Bottom Line

SEO is changing quickly. The age of algorithmic dependence is ending. And that might be a good thing.

This painful moment is forcing companies to do what they should have been doing all along: building their brands, creating genuine value, and forging direct relationships with their customers.

The brands that survive this upheaval will be more resilient, more defensible, and less vulnerable to the whims of a single platform.

Support The Free Toaster

Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

Need help hiring key roles? Email Connie Buehler and mention TOASTER

Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

Need to accelerate your affiliate marketing? Chat with New Market Growth

Need to win on other growth channels? Chat with FIAT Growth

None of the above? Share our Newsletter in your favorite Slack channel

About Us

Welcome to The Free Toaster! The newsletter for marketing pros at fintechs, banks, and lenders. 

Inspired by the free toasters banks used to give to each new customer, we’re here to help you acquire more customers at scale. We deliver fresh news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers, minus the breadcrumbs.

Want to follow the authors on social media?

Carlos Caro is the founder of NMG, an agency that helps lenders build affiliate programs.

Nick Madrid is the co-founder of Ghostmode, a media company that builds Newsletters, Podcasts, and communities in high-value B2B niches.

Works cited

If you want a look into marketing-geek anxiety, go grab a coffee with a fintech lending CMO and ask about their distribution channels. Listen long enough, and many will quietly admit their growth is closely tied to the affiliate marketplace category. They mean sites like Credit Karma, Experian, NerdWallet, Bankrate, and a few others.

These channels have been great for growth, but concentration has been an unintended side-effect.

Our informal convos with U.S. fintech lenders suggest that anywhere from 30% to 70% of their new customer volume comes from affiliate marketplaces, with the remainder coming through direct mail, paid search, paid social, and some first party channels.

The global affiliate marketing industry (all categories, not just lending) is expected to reach $18.5B in 2025, while global affiliate revenues are set to hit nearly $32B by 2031. In U.S. consumer lending specifically, we estimate brands spent $4B-$6B per year on affiliate marketing.

As the category grows, lenders are left hoping they remain in good standing as marketplace platforms tinker with rankings, increase product/competitive density, and perfect their algorithms.

In parallel, lender innovation is accelerating.

Take Yendo’s vehicle-secured credit card, which lets subprime consumers unlock up to $10,000 in credit, by backing the card with an auto title. Or consider the upcoming Coinbase One Credit Card, which plans to pay a full 4% on every purchase for consumers that hold enough assets in their Coinbase accounts.

Product innovation will lead to more competition. And more competition will put increasing pressure on consumer lending brands to find new (and growing) sources of customer acquisition.

The Setup: Finfluencers Are Under-Monetizing

The global creator economy—spanning from YouTube to TikTok—has minted its own crop of “Finfluencers” who have established a level of trust with their audiences that lenders would kill for.

In 2024, the influencer marketing industry hit an estimated $24B, almost doubling since 2019. Influencers over-index on audience trust and engagement, yet only about 13% of them (across all categories) earn more than $100,000 per year in 2023.

With more than 400,000 followers and posts that average 100,000 views, Clint Brantley is a big creator. But he only made $58,084 in 2023 (less than the U.S. median pay for full-time workers).

Huge financial creators like Vivian Tu (aka Your Rich BFF) had an audience of over 5MM viewers in 2022, and pulled in over $3MM in revenue that year (paying herself $300,000).

Influencers have mastered getting attention, but are still in the infancy of monetization.

Social platforms own the rails, fintechs own the product, and creators are monetizing with one-off sponsorships or course sales rather than ongoing affiliate partnerships that pay them a percentage of the value they create for their brands.

How Much Money Could Vivian Tu (Your Rich BFF) Be Making?

Let’s study the $3MM in revenue Vivian made in 2022 from her 5MM audience. That’s 60 cents per audience member per year.

To make the analysis simple, we’ll look at Credit Karma and NerdWallet, two publishers who report their revenues and audience sizes publicly.

Credit Karma made $1.6B in revenue in fiscal 2023, with a member base of 130MM. That’s $12.31 per audience member per year—20X better monetization than Vivian.

NerdWallet made nearly $600MM in revenue in fiscal 2023, with an average of 24MM monthly unique users (MUUs). That’s $25 per MUU. That’s difficult to compare to Vivian’s performance since we only know her total audience, and not her MUUs.

If Vivian monetized at Karma’s $12.31 per audience member per year rate, she would have pulled in $61.5MM in revenue in what’s probably a 2 or 3 person operation.

Now she’d be Your Even Richer BFF.

And to make it crazier, I can think of reasons why Vivian’s monetization could be better than Karma’s (with the right infrastructure behind her). But that’s a rabbit hole for another day.

What I want you to take away is that even the best Finfluencers are severely underpaid, when you compare them to best-in-class monetization benchmarks in the traditional financial media space.

Lenders Will Continue To Funnel Advertising Dollars To Finfluencers

Consumer demand for trusted, direct financial advice keeps climbing. And the influencer channel is producing strong returns for the brands already investing.

How do we know that?

Businesses see an average of $6.50 in revenue for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, highlighting the yield influencers can drive as performance marketers.

The above data isn’t specific to the lending industry.

But our analysis above—showing how Finfluencers like Vivian Tu are severely under-monetizing relative to traditional publishers—help paint the picture that 2025 Finfluencer media could be an exceptionally good deal for lenders.

The Rise Of The Digital Twin

A technological wave is forming that will drag both lenders and creators—willing or not—into the future.

The global AI chatbot market is exploding, growing from under $14B in 2025 to a projected $46–47B by 2029. In financial services alone, AI-powered agents are expected to save the industry $80B in customer service costs by 2026, with chatbots automating between 30% and 80% of interactions depending on the institution.

But it’s not just big orgs that will benefit from this tech.

What’s coming is that any Finfluencer can deploy a “digital twin” at unlimited scale.

These “twins” will be 24/7 personal finance assistants that answer questions in the creator’s voice, recommend products from a curated affiliate catalog, and provide compliant, personalized advice.

And these twins won’t be just chatbots. They’ll be voice agents you can call and video agents you can chat with on Zoom. They’ll have the image, voice, and likeness of the creator. It’s going to be wild.

Imagine a creator with 250,000 followers who’s never been able to scale 1:1 advice suddenly mobilizing an army of “digital twins” that matches individual audience members with lending products, explains APRs, terms, fees, and handles application handoffs—with bank-approved compliance and reporting built-in.

This is what will get Vivian to $61.5MM in revenue per year (in practice it’ll be even more revenue, because she’ll have more resources to reinvest in content, distribution, and technology).

The Skeptics May Be Losing Sight of Consumer Behavior

When I chat informally with friends in the industry I hear:

“Lenders will never delegate distribution to creators and AI.” “Creators won’t trust bots to speak for them.” “No one really wants advice from an AI, right?”

But the facts are telling another story:

• Lenders are actively exploring how to diversify customer acquisition; the white space for new origination channels (especially B2B and embedded distribution) is a top boardroom topic. [CAIS Group]

• AI chatbots now resolve up to 80% of customer service inquiries without human intervention, with customer satisfaction scores increasing as implementation matures. [Kayako]

• Consumers are acclimatizing to AI-powered advice as trustworthy in their digital finance lives [CFP.net]

Early-mover lenders who figure out compliance and content governance will lead the next distribution land grab.

The Next Billion Dollar Distribution Platform

A platform is going to emerge—and fast—where Finfluencers can launch always-on AI assistants, seamlessly integrating with affiliate partners and full-stack compliance engines. Creators focus on building trust and content; the platform takes care of product matching, disclosures, compliance, and payments; lenders gain access to performance-based, customer origination at scale in a channel their competitors are ignoring.

The VCs and operators that power Finfluencer Monetization for the ecosystem at large will be drinking Cristal and flying private to the Maldives for their off-sites.

How Fintech Lenders Should Prepare

If you’re a fintech lender reading this, the playbook is coming into focus:

As reasonable as the above preparations sound, many lenders won’t take any action at all. Because combining AI with social media will be viewed with skepticism.

It will feel like a nightmare from a compliance perspective, and it will feel overwhelming from a partnership perspective (who’s going to go find, sign, and manage all these Finfluencers?)

But guess what?

Lenders were skeptical of internet-sourced loan applications in the early 2000s.

Lenders were skeptical of paid search in the mid 2000s.

Lenders weren’t sure if consumers would bank on mobile devices when the iPhone shipped in 2007.

Lenders weren’t sure Credit Karma was going anywhere in 2010.

Lenders weren’t sure social media ads would produce a return in 2012.

And, the list goes on.

By design, lenders are paid to worry and be skeptical. They manage risk for a living.

So you might be skeptical that AI Influencers will have any impact on your distribution strategy. And that’s OK. But what bets can you place today to keep a pulse on the market, so that you can lean in when it starts working?

Enjoyed this piece? Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter at www.thefreetoaster.com. We cover news, research, and insights at the intersection of marketing & consumer lending.

Support The Free Toaster

Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

Need help hiring key roles? Email Connie Buehler and mention TOASTER

Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

Need to accelerate your affiliate marketing? Chat with New Market Growth

Need to win on other growth channels? Chat with FIAT Growth

None of the above? Share our Newsletter in your favorite Slack channel

About Us

Welcome to The Free Toaster! The newsletter for marketing pros at fintechs, banks, and lenders.

Inspired by the free toasters banks used to give to each new customer, we’re here to help you acquire more customers at scale. We deliver fresh news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers, minus the breadcrumbs.

Want to follow the authors on social media?

Carlos Caro is the founder of NMG, an agency that helps lenders build affiliate programs.

Nick Madrid is the co-founder of Ghostmode, a media company that builds Newsletters, Podcasts, and communities in high-value B2B niches.

Income verification might not be the sexiest part of fintech, but it's arguably one of the most important. What's the point of having a slick lending app if you can't tell whether borrowers have the means to pay you back?

I recently caught up with Kirill Klokov, CEO of Truv, to get his take on how lenders should think about income verification in 2025. He shared his hard-earned lessons that every lender should internalize.

1/ The Waterfall Strategy Is Everything

Here's a stat that should make every lender's product team nervous: 35% of borrowers drop off when presented with bank credential verification (like Plaid).

The worst part? Those dropoffs might actually be your best customers – the ones with other options who leave at the first sign of friction.

Kirill's solution is elegant: the waterfall approach. Start with consumer-permissioned data (lowest cost option), then fall back to instant databases (more expensive, but lower friction), then finally manual document review (the failsafe). As he explains, "You want to subsidize the instant database cost with a very cheap solution upfront."

The key insight: present the low cost option first, but always give borrowers an escape hatch. A simple "skip verification" button can dramatically reduce funnel dropoff while still capturing the data you need from willing participants.

2/ Most Verification Vendors Are Selling the Same Commodity

This one might sting for vendors in the space, but Kirill doesn't mince words: "If you actually go ask five aggregators who they're using, you would realize that everybody under the hood is using roughly the same dataset."

The differentiation isn't in the underlying data – it's in the intelligence layer on top. Can you rebuild pay stubs from bank statements using machine learning? Can you spot expense patterns that indicate risk? Can you handle the complexity of gig workers, multiple income streams, and variable compensation?

For financial institutions evaluating vendors, this means looking beyond coverage statistics and focusing on the analytical capabilities that turn raw data into actionable insights.

3/ Fraud Is Everywhere (And Getting Worse)

Want to buy a fake pay stub? Google "pay stub" and add "$7.99" to your search. You'll find plenty of options that look completely legitimate. And you’ll find them on the first page of Google, not the dark web!

This is the reality lenders are operating in, and it's only getting worse with AI-generated documents. As Kirill notes, "If you run risk scores on your existing documents, most likely you'll find a bunch of fraud."

The solution isn't better document analysis – it's getting data directly from the source. Payroll data is much harder to fake because "you have to go through multiple cycles of somebody paying taxes on your behalf. No fraudster would do that."

Check out the full conversation with Kirill Klokov on The Free Toaster Podcast.

4/ Pressure Test the Sales Pitch

Sophisticated lenders don't just take vendor claims at face value – they demand proof.

Kirill's advice: "You want to actually ask to run the back test analysis on your own data." Give vendors your last 10,000 transactions and see how they perform. Then verify those results using their API.

This data-driven approach cuts through marketing fluff and gives you real insight into which vendor will actually improve your business metrics. Too many lenders skip this step and regret it later.

5/ The Complete Product Wins

The future belongs to vendors who can handle 100% of your traffic, regardless of employment type. W2 employees, 1099 contractors, government workers, gig economy participants, self-employed borrowers – each requires different approaches and data sources.

As Kirill explains, building a complete product is like airlines beating railroads: "Airlines were in the business of transportation. Railroads were always in the railroad business."

Lenders don't want to piece together five different vendors for different borrower types. They want one partner who abstracts away all that complexity and just delivers clean risk signals.

6/ Financial Alignment Matters More Than You Think

Here's the most interesting development in the space: some vendors are moving away from per-transaction pricing toward success-based models.

Truv's "per closed loan" pricing means they only get paid when loans actually fund. This creates economic alignment – the vendor's success is directly tied to the lender's success.

For lenders, this eliminates the anxiety around verification costs eating into margins on low-conversion funnels. For vendors, it requires much tighter integration and partnership, but also demonstrates real confidence in their value proposition.

The Bottom Line

Income verification is quietly changing.

The vendors that survive won't be the ones with the best coverage statistics or the lowest per-transaction costs. They'll be the ones that best understand the core problem: helping lenders make better underwriting decisions while minimizing friction and fraud.

For lenders, the message is clear: think bigger than just verifying income. Look for partners who can help you understand borrowers holistically, handle the full complexity of modern income sources, and align their success with yours.

With AI making document fraud easier and the gig economy making income patterns more complex, the problem just got harder. And with vendor prices rising in the category (so we hear in the industry rumor mill), the stakes involved in getting this right may be higher than ever.

Support The Free Toaster

Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

Need help hiring key roles? Email Connie Buehler and mention TOASTER

Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

Need to accelerate your affiliate marketing? Chat with New Market Growth

Need to win on other growth channels? Chat with FIAT Growth

None of the above? Share our Newsletter in your favorite Slack channel

About Us

Welcome to The Free Toaster! The newsletter for marketing pros at fintechs, banks, and lenders. 

Inspired by the free toasters banks used to give to each new customer, we’re here to help you acquire more customers at scale. We deliver fresh news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers, minus the breadcrumbs.

Want to follow the authors on social media?

Carlos Caro is the founder of NMG, an agency that helps lenders build affiliate programs.

Nick Madrid the co-founder of Ghostmode, a media company that builds Newsletters, Podcasts, and communities in high-value B2B niches.

As the Chief Revenue Officer at Fintel Connect, Alana Levine lives in the trenches.

That’s the reason we invited her for a chat on The Free Toaster Podcast.

She’s often the first call when a lender or financial institution wants to “turn on” the affiliate marketing channel—and the first to spot when they’re about to step on a rake. In our 1-hour conversation, she pulled back the curtain on what FIs get wrong in the early days (and how to actually get it right).

In today’s Newsletter, we share Alana’s unfiltered pre-launch checklist.

The Strategic Foundation

Alana looks for five key indicators that signal strategic readiness, and understanding these upfront can save you months of frustration.

Geographic Reach: If your product serves a limited geographic area, affiliate marketing might not be your best first move. "We find anything that's too narrow—if they serve five counties in their area, affiliate just isn't for you at that point," Alana notes. This isn't a permanent limitation, but it's worth addressing before investing heavily in affiliate partnerships.

Product Differentiation: This is where many regional banks and newer fintechs struggle, and that's completely understandable. "Me Too products are a challenge," Alana explains. The question isn't whether your product is good—it's whether publishers have compelling reasons to promote it over established alternatives. If you're offering a standard 2% cashback card, think about what makes your particular version special.

Application Experience: Your conversion funnel becomes everyone's problem in affiliate marketing. "If you’re paying your partner at the bottom of the funnel and the conversion is way off, it doesn't matter how much you pay them, no one's winning," Alana notes. The encouraging news? Most conversion issues are fixable with some focused attention.

Budget Alignment: Let's talk numbers honestly. Alana suggests "$50,000 in spend is pretty healthy" as a starting point. This might sound daunting, but remember—this isn't money you're throwing away. It's an investment in data and relationships that will inform your strategy going forward.

Realistic Expectations: Particularly for fintechs, CPA expectations often need calibration. "Fintechs often cite CPA as a sticking point, whereas on the regional bank side, geographic coverage tends to be the issue," Alana observes. Understanding market rates helps set realistic goals.

The Operational Foundation

The operational requirements might seem basic, but they're the foundation everything else builds on. Think of this as your pre-game prep. You need to make sure your team understands the rules, brings the right equipment, and understands the playing field, so when the whistle blows they’re ready to play ball!

Digital Marketing Experience: "Affiliates work best when they're not operating in isolation," Alana explains. If you've successfully run other digital marketing channels, you already have much of what you need. If not, consider getting some paid search or display experience first—it'll make everything else easier.

Dedicated Landing Pages: Your existing application page probably won't work as-is for affiliate traffic. "The end customer and what experience you're wanting to take them through [should be] the focal point," Alana notes. This means creating pages specifically designed for affiliate traffic, with clear calls to action and minimal distractions.

Tracking and Attribution: This is often the most technically challenging piece, but it's absolutely critical. "Sending them a spreadsheet at the end of the month with how many conversions they've driven, is unfortunately not going to cut it," Alana explains. Publishers need real-time, granular reporting to optimize their efforts. If this feels overwhelming, know that there are partners and vendors who can help you set this up properly.

Written Publisher Guidelines: "It's almost meant to serve as a way for your legal and risk team to kind of buy into what this engagement looks like with the partners," Alana explains. This includes everything from content approval processes to competitive restrictions. Having these documented upfront prevents confusion later.

Performance Reporting: Beyond basic conversion tracking, the real value comes from understanding long-term customer quality. "What that allows you to do is optimize your spend towards the partners that are delivering you really high quality customers," Alana notes. This can help transform the affiliate channel from just another source of leads to a fine-tuned profit engine.

A Common Stumbling Block, Defining Success

Here's where many organizations stumble, and it's completely understandable why. "Defining your success metrics is the biggest one," Alana emphasizes. "I want to know really clearly what success looks like."

This isn't about setting unrealistic expectations—it's about alignment. When everyone understands what you're trying to achieve, decision-making becomes much clearer. Consider these dimensions:

• Volume goals: What does meaningful scale look like for your business?

• Quality standards: How do you define a valuable customer beyond just conversion?

• Channel contribution: What percentage of your overall acquisition should this represent?

One of Alana's clients recently gave her something very clear and actionable: "affiliate we've experimented with and it really hasn't worked and it's been 2% of our acquisitions. I want it to be 15 to 20%."

Test your success criteria on an external party. If you handed them that one-line description of success, would it be obvious to them in a year whether or not they achieved it?

Making A 6 Month Commitment

Unlike other performance channels, affiliate partners require a significant “warm up” period.

"If you aren't willing to at least keep it running for 6 months, anything less than that, is a waste of everyone’s time," Alana warns. But this isn't meant to discourage you—it's meant to help you plan properly.

The typical journey looks like this: Month 1 involves program setup and initial partner outreach. Months 2 through four see campaigns launching and initial optimization. Around month 6, successful programs typically hit their stride. "One account turns into a thousand really quickly, but zero to one feels like an eternity," Alana explains.

For organizations that really commit to excellence, Alana notes that "18 to 24 months is how long this really takes if you really want to hit your potential." This assumes you're treating affiliate marketing as a priority rather than a side project.

The Scale Of The Affiliate Marketing Channel

Before you feel overwhelmed, remember that affiliate marketing represents a massive opportunity in financial services. Alana notes that for many successful fintech lenders, "affiliates [are] 45% or more of their acquisition funnel." The channel works because it creates value for everyone involved—consumers get better products, publishers get fair compensation, and lenders get quality customers.

[And according to The Free Toaster’s research, consumer lenders spend $4B - $6B per year advertising in affiliate channels, presenting an enormous opportunity for most lenders].

The preparation might seem extensive, but each element serves a purpose. As Alana puts it, "The more that we can dispel the myths of how this channel works, the more we can focus on doing the hard work that drives wins for the partner, the lender, and the consumer."

Your Next Steps

If this checklist feels manageable, you're probably closer to ready than you think. If it feels overwhelming, that's completely normal—and it's better to know now than discover major gaps in the middle of an important campaign.

Remember, you don't have to figure this out alone. There are experienced partners (like Fintel Connect and New Market Growth) who've seen these challenges before and can help you navigate them.

If you’re honest about where you are and are committed to doing the foundational work that sets you up for long-term success, you’re playing the game the right way.

Questions about how to get started? You can find Alana Levine on LinkedIn.

Support The Free Toaster

Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

Need a way to accelerate your affiliate marketing? Chat with New Market Growth

About Us

Welcome to The Free Toaster! The newsletter for marketing pros at fintechs, banks, and lenders. 

Inspired by the free toasters banks used to give to each new customer, we’re here to help you acquire more customers at scale. We deliver fresh news, data, and insights to help you acquire more customers, minus the breadcrumbs.

Want to follow the authors on social media?

Carlos Caro is the founder of NMG, an agency that helps lenders build affiliate programs.

Nick Madrid the co-founder of Ghostmode, a media company that builds Newsletters, Podcasts, and communities in high-value B2B niches.