Shows / Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
This Podcast is for consumer lenders who want to grow their affiliate marketing programs. It’s hosted by Carlos Caro, a successful marketing agency founder and former fintech executive. Prior to founding New Market Growth, Carlos was a General Manager and Head Of Business Development at Credit Karma, Head of Customer Acquisition at Caribou, and a former leader in Capital One’s credit card business. NMG focuses on helping lenders build and optimize affiliate programs, and Carlos is here to share…
Episodes
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E060 - Fewer Clicks, Higher Stakes: How AI is Changing Search in Lending, With Stephanie Briggs of Experian
Organic search traffic to top affiliate finance sites is down 65% since August 2024. Banks and card issuers are only down 3%. Stephanie Briggs says that second…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #33 - Experian Launches a Cash Flow Bureau, Plus Other News From This Week
Carlos & Nick discuss Experian's launch of a cash flow bureau. Expanding on coverage from this week's Newsletter (Oct 14 2026)…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E058 - Cash Flow Data at The Marketing Stage - How Engine by Gen & Prism Data Are Helping Marketers Unlock Cash Flow Underwriting
Today we sit with James Brandon, Head Of Product at Prism Data and David Friermor, Director Of Product Management at Engine by Gen. Together, they share their…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
Updates on the Summit in SF on Sept 23rd: Speakers, Topics, Other Logistics
You can learn more about the event and request an invitation here: The Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders & Publishers September 23rd San Francisco, CA…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E057 - Inside the Happen Bank Rebrand With Mark Elliot, Chief Customer Officer at Happen Bank
On June 22, LendingClub became Happen Bank. Mark Elliot, Chief Customer Officer, ran point on it. He joined the company 3 years ago and asked Scott Sanborn…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E056 - Nicky Senyard On How LLMs Have (Or Haven't) Changed Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
Nicky Senyard, CEO and Founder of Fintel Connect, has been doing digital acquisition since 2002. Her read on this wave: affiliate marketing is still a bottom…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #31 - NerdWallet's Q2 '26 Earnings Report
Carlos & Nick add color to the most recent article on The Free Toaster Newsletter. https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/nerdwallets-q2-26-earnings They discuss…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #30 - The Future Of Distribution (In Lending) Seems Obvious
Today, Carlos comments on the future of distribution in lending, how long it will take to get there, the key blockers along the way, and what CMOs can do now…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E055 - The Affiliate Marketing Summit For Lenders & Publishers (Reposted from the LendAPI Podcast with Tim Li)
Recently, Carlos sat on the LendAPI Podcast with Tim Li to discuss the Summit he's organizing on September 23rd in San Francisco. ***** The Affiliate Marketing…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E054 - Paid Search 101 (For Lenders) - With Ross Cohen, Former COO (Field Productivity) at New York Life
Search is often just 10% of a lender's marketing mix — but Ross Cohen makes the case that it's the most powerful channel for experimentation and the best…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E052 - Affiliate Marketing, Poker [Reposted from the "What's Your Wheelhouse" Video Podcast]
Carlos sits with Megan Bauer, Head Of Customer Success at Spinwheel, to discuss affiliate marketing & business lessons learned playing poker. ****** This…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #24 - How Lenders Win When AI Calls the Shots
Nick and Carlos discuss an Editorial piece recently published in The Free Toaster Newsletter https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/how-lenders-win-when-ai-calls-the…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E051 - Real Talk On How Long It Takes To Get Into Big Affiliate Platforms
Most lenders underestimate how long it takes to get onto a major affiliate platform. The honest answer is 6 to 12 months. Sometimes 18. If one of these…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #21 - Cash Flow Underwriting Distribution - Carlos and Nick Continue The Convo...
We've been writing about Cash Flow Underwriting lately. This week we continue the conversation. We expand on what we wrote this week in The Free Toaster…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #20 - What Would It Take To Scale Cash Flow Based Lending?
In an October 2024 article in The Free Toaster, Carlos laid out 3 things that would unlock distribution for Cash Flow Based Lenders. In today's episode, he…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #19 - With the New Plaid Integration, ChatGPT is Now a Distribution Channel for Personal Finance
ChatGPT just integrated Plaid, giving 200 million monthly users a personalized finance experience built on real account data. Carlos and Nick break down what…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E050 - Jeff Keltner on AI for Business Development, NerdWallet's Drop, and the Future of Affiliate Channels
Jeff Keltner was the first non-founder employee at Upstart. He spent over a decade there running consumer acquisition, building the bank partnership business…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
News Pod #18 - NerdWallet's Q1 '26 Earnings: Why Is The Stock Down 30%? [X-POST from The Free Toaster Podcast]
Carlos and Nick break down NerdWallet's Q1 2026 earnings, the first full read on the company since the stock dropped 32% post-print. Headline numbers look fine…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E046 - Deep Dive With Zak Ali, General Manager of Finder's US Business
Zak Ali runs the US business at Finder, the financial comparison site that started in Australia in 2006 and launched stateside in 2015. Lending now drives…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E045 - Q&A on Application Friction - Nick interviews Carlos
Free Toaster co-founder Nick Madrid interviews Carlos Caro live at the Fintech Summit in NYC on April 28th. On the heels of a Curated Table Event on April 27th…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E044 - Eliminating Friction in the Lending Funnel, with Rachael Olson, Former Head Of Product Strategy at Discover
Rachael Olson spent years running product strategy on Discover's $6 billion personal loan business, and she joins the show to walk through a real lender's…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E043 - Affiliate Marketing For Deposit Accounts - With Alana Levine, CRO at Fintel Connect
Deposits aren't loans. That sounds obvious, but the implications for affiliate marketing are anything but. Alana Levine joins Carlos Caro to break down how…
- Affiliate Marketing For Lenders
E042 - Rakesh Patel, EVP of the Experian Marketplace
Carlos Caro chats with Rakesh Patel, the Executive Vice President of the Experian Marketplace. For those of you not familiar with the Experian Marketplace, it…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersNews Pod #7 - TU's $56MM Purchase of Monevo - How's It Going?
In April 2025, Transunion completed its acquisition of Monevo (a UK-based credit prequalification platform). In today's News Pod, Nick discovers that TU paid…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE041 - Is My Application Experience Broken?
Today we walk through a list of questions to ask yourself to determine whether your application experience needs a tune up. ***** About The Free Toaster…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersNews Pod #6 - Guest Pod w/ Prithvi Prabhu + Mr. Beast's Fintech Acquisition
This week Prithvi Prabhu drops in to help us contextualize Cash App Borrow's metrics from this Edition…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersNews Pod #5 - Fiserv & Affirm Join Forces To Bring BNPL To Debit Cards
The Free Toaster hosts Carlos Caro and Nick Madrid add context to the story covered in the Newsletter earlier this week…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE040 - 7 Must-Have Traits For Your VP of Partnerships
Today we cover the 7 traits of successful VPs of Partnerships, why they matter, and how to assess them during interviews. ***** To support The Free Toaster…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersNews Pod #4 - Affirm's FDIC application and Credit Card Growth
Affirm is officially making a play to become its own bank by submitting applications to establish Affirm Bank through a Nevada-chartered Industrial Loan…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersNews Pod #3 - Cash App's "Invisible" Consumer Lending Business
Cash App Borrow is quietly building a monster (and seemingly highly profitable) consumer lending business under the radar. The Free Toaster hosts Carlos Caro…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersNews Pod #2 - Jenius Bank's Exit From Affiliate Marketplaces
This week Carlos Caro unpacks what Jenius Bank's exit from affiliate marketplaces could mean for other prime personal loan lenders. Sign up for The Free…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersNews Pod #1 - Apple & Chase Cobrand Deal
In the News Pod, The Free Toaster founders - Carlos Caro and Nick Madrid - unpack select stories from the Wednesday news edition of www.thefreetoaster.com Sign…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE039 - Spinwheel's Network Token with Tomás Campos, CEO at Spinwheel
In this episode, Tomás returns to share what's changed since Spinwheel's $30 million funding round—including a strategic investment from Citi—and gives us an…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE038 - Behind The Scenes - Nick Madrid, Co-Founder at The Free Toaster
I sit with my co-founder Nick Madrid to discuss what we've learned in the last year of building this Podcast and Newsletter. About Nick Madrid - Co-founder…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE037 - Facing Credit: When AI Broke the Marketing Machine (Reposted from Fintech Takes)
I recently sat with Alex Johnson on the Fintech Takes Podcast. I hope you enjoy! ***** (Show notes below from Fintech Takes) Welcome back to the Fintech Takes…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE036 - Media Arbitrage vs. Brand Arbitrage
I was recently a guest on another Podcast, and the host asked me a question about what will happen to publishers' organic traffic that disappeared with the…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE035 - Compliance in Affiliate Marketing, The 6 Blind Spots - With Alana Levine, CRO at Fintel Connect
Alana Levine, Chief Revenue Officer at Fintel Connect, returns to break down the compliance challenges that affiliate marketers face. As AI reshapes the…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE034 - Organic traffic to affiliate publishers is getting smashed
We've all heard the rumors around SEO traffic drying up for publishers. Today I riff on what's going on, why it's happening, and what lenders should be doing…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE033 - The AI Finfluencers Are Coming
We explore how fintech lenders could revolutionize customer acquisition by partnering with AI-powered finfluencers, alleviating current concentration in…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE032 - Launching Affiliate Marketing Programs With Alana Levine, CRO at Fintel Connect
We sit down with Alana Levine, Chief Revenue Officer at Fintel Connect, to uncover what financial institutions get wrong when launching affiliate marketing…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE031 - Income Verification, With Kirill Klokov, CEO at Truv
We sit down with Kirill Klokov, CEO of Truv, to break down everything lenders need to know about income verification providers. Vetting Income Verification…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE031 - 10 Direct Mail Pitfalls That Kill Programs (with Rich Walker)
Rich Walker is back! After our first direct mail episode became the most popular episode on the show, we're back for round 2. The 10 DM Pitfalls We Discuss 1…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE030 - The State of Compliance In Lead Gen, With John Henson, Founder at Henson Legal
I sat down with John Henson, a fintech-savvy lawyer who formerly worked at LendingTree (both as an attorney and a general manager). He unpacks the regulatory…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE029 - Positive & Negative Select (Think Like A Recruiter)
I explain positive and adverse selection in lending using recruiting as an analogy. If you've ever hired someone, you'll instantly understand why your…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE028 - Marketplace Madness (Success in one affiliate doesn't guarantee success in another)
I talk about a surprising case study where a lending product thrived in one affiliate marketplace but completely flopped in another. We explore the key…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE027 - Playing The Game In Reverse
Marketers sometimes like to enter new channels gradually, conservatively even. This works in many channels like paid search, social, and direct mail. But for…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE026 - Colin Gardiner, General Partner at Yonder Ventures
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…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE025 - Jason Steele, Credit Card and Award Travel Expert
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…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE024 - Tim Li, CEO at LendAPI
LendAPI lets you create application flows, credit decision engines, and complete lending products through simple drag-and-drop tools—all without hiring…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE023 - Guru Sethupathy, Founder & CEO at FairNow
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…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE022 - Greg Cox, Group CEO at Quint Group (Monevo)
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…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE021 - Rich Walker, Direct Mail Deep Dive
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…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE20 - Congruence
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…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE019 - Kevin Bennett, CEO at Further
We chat with Kevin Bennett, a successful entrepreneur who helped grow Caribou to a billion-dollar company. Now, he's back with Further, a platform focused on…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE018 - The Free Toaster Podcast (and Newsletter)
I just launched a new Podcast at the intersection of marketing, lending, and fintech. It includes everything you get on this show, plus more. (PS - If you're…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE017 - How New Balance's CMO Turned Around A 15-Year Decline
Carlos shares what he learned about brand marketing from New Balance's turnaround. TL;DR - For 15 years, New Balance watched its revenues decline. Consumers…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE016 - CPA Negotiations
Carlos riffs on why CPA negotiations are a waste of time and 9 other things you should know about the topic as someone new to the channel. Timestamps: (00:00)…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE015 - Tomas Campos, CEO at Spinwheel
We sit with Tomas Campos, CEO at Spinwheel. Spinwheel’s product caught my attention because affiliate marketers could use their product to reduce the friction…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE014 - David Nohe - Unpacking the CFPB's Rule 1033 on Open Banking
We sit with David Nohe, CEO of FinGoal, to discuss the CFPB’s Rule 1033 on Open Banking and the implications it has for bank marketers. Timestamps: (00:00)…
Affiliate Marketing For LendersE013 - Personalization - The Case For Building Hyper-Niche Products
Personal finance platforms (like Credit Karma) are now at scale, with the ability to recommend products at the 1:1 user level. Further, they’re incentivized to…