Google Launches Own Mortgage Lead Generation Effort

First spotted today by search engine bloggers here, here and here Google is testing a new product (in the UK), called Google Merchant Search, which seems to offer lead generation for financial services directly. The system blends a varation of the click to call product they have previously tested, with a comparison rate-table offering most similar to Bankrate.com. Interestingly it does not include (but clearly could include) the qualification form approach of traditional mortgage lead generation, as practiced by companies like Nextag or LendingTree.

The click to call program works a little differently than expected by offering consumers a contact-me form, utilizing Google's technology to connect a call between lender and consumer not immediately, but seemly at a later time when the lender is prepared, yet anonymously, without passing on caller-id info to the lender.