By Actionable Insights – August 24, 2023
Episode Four: Credit Cards & Compliance
Overview
Titled “Credit Cards and Compliance,” host Kerry Curran speaks with Jason Steele, a renowned financial services writer and founder of CardCon, a conference for credit card marketers. The discussion focuses on the significance of credit card content and compliance in the affiliate marketing landscape.
They cover various aspects, including the importance of expert reviews and trustworthy information, the impact of affiliate links and commissions on writing, evaluating credit cards for content, compliance rules, the evolving trends in financial services and affiliate marketing, and the value of attending CardCon.
Episode Resources
Transcript
Kerry Curran:
Hello and welcome to the Gen 3 Marketing Podcast, Actionable Insights, where we share thought leadership and key educational information for performance and affiliate marketing. Today’s session is called Credit Cards and Compliance. We’re speaking with Jason Steele, the legendary financial services writer and the founder of CardCon, the largest conference just for credit card marketers.
Kerry Curran:
So today on the podcast, we have Jason Steele, who is an industry renowned writer for the Financial Services and Travel. space. And Jason recently participated in the research for the Gen 3 original research paper, High Performance, High Demand. So, in the paper, interestingly, we have learned that consumers reported financial services to be the second most researched category of all consumer-facing categories in the paper.
And so… One of the reasons, one of the biggest touch points, there are the professional editorial reviews and websites. So, 88% of those surveyed said that they use expert reviews and websites and editorials, or that those sources are important to their decision journey. As a continuation of our financial services research, wanted to kind of touch on that and bring Jason’s insight more into the picture. I will add that for Gen 3, financial services are one of our leading areas of expertise. And our clients typically see 30% to 60% of their new account opens coming from the affiliate. channels, including articles like those that Jason writes. So, with that, I would like to have Jason introduce himself a bit more. So, Jason, who are you? Tell us a bit about yourself and why anyone should listen to you today.
Jason Steele:
Well, I have been obsessed with credit cards and travel rewards for over 15 years, but about 15 years ago, I began writing about it professionally. I have contributed to over a hundred outlets in that time. Among them, I was the first contributor to the points guy, and I have written for just so many outlets that I lose track. Over those 15 years, I eventually about halfway through that journey, I started the Card Time Conference. which is the conference for credit card media, for people who do what I do. And in addition, I also consult for everyone ranging from individuals to websites that want to get into affiliate marketing, get into financial services. I have spoken at dozens of conferences, and I know my way around credit cards and affiliate marketing well.
Kerry Curran:
I get that you are an expert, but how do you explain what you do to somebody who has no idea of the industry? What do you say to them?
Jason Steele:
First, I tell them I am a writer, and that always gets them excited. Before I was a writer, I used to work in computers, and that just put people to sleep. You would say, oh, I work in computers. They would say, oh, what kind of dog you have? Yes, they did not care. But then I tell them I write about credit cards and points and miles and things like that. If they dig a little bit further, usually they would just want to know how they can travel for free, but they dig a little bit further, and they say, well, how do you make money doing that? I say, well, it is extremely complicated, and it goes like this. I write, they pay me. A complicated business model, which is, I am sure, a lot easier to explain than the people who run a blog or a website that use affiliate marketing. I think your aunt or uncle does not grasp that as quickly as I write their payment.
Kerry Curran:
Jason, as we were saying, we’ve seen a huge shift towards writers developing content for publishers that are including affiliate links that are either commission or cost per action based. Has this had an impact or how has it had an impact on your approach to kind of writing your expertise?
Jason Steele:
Yeah, I mean, I think when I first started doing this, I had a mixture of clients who wanted content that was focused on affiliate marketing and some of them just wanted content that would draw the readers in.
And they felt like once the readers got to their site, they would eventually become fans and somehow, they would make revenue off that advertising, affiliate marketing, some blend of the two.
Over time, though, especially the last few years, they’ve started to really laser focus on SEO and affiliate marketing. I’m seeing a lot less demand for articles that are just, hey, I think the readers really want to see this, and more, hey, we have this credit card. There’s something out here that we want to get, commissions for, to get conversions for. Why don’t you write about that? And oh, by the way, here’s the SEO keywords we’d like you to use, or here’s the links, internal links within our website that are going to make this article do well with SEO and help the rest of the site.
So, they’ve gotten really, especially post pandemic, sometimes the marketing budgets were slashed during the pandemic, especially with credit cards. And they’ve gotten really focused on, hey, let’s get some conversions here.
The industry just continues to be incredibly competitive. There are all these hundred outlets that I’ve written for, they all compete. And there’s probably a thousand more that I haven’t written for.
Kerry Curran:
We were saying that the trustworthiness and the accuracy is incredibly important as you’re writing. So, talk about how you evaluate and write about the cards for your content.
Jason Steele:
I have to be very impartial, and it comes as a surprise, and some people probably came as a surprise to me at one time, that the outlets I write for, they don’t tell me what to write. They don’t tell me, hey, make this card look good because it’s a big commission. They’ve never done that. They’re relying on me as an expert because I have credibility with the reader. In the same way, you’re not going to trust a review that’s 100% positive or 100% negative, frankly. You’re going to trust a review that says, hey, there’s some good sides and some bad sides. And that’s what I try to do with the products I review.
A great rewards credit card that I use all the time every day myself. I’m still going to say, hey, you know, this card does have a high annual fee. The interest rate is higher than a non-rewards card. If you’re carrying a balance or spending modestly, this isn’t the card for you. Likewise, if it’s just a really poor non-competitive card that has a lot of fees, I’m going to have to come around and find something. This, it’s got a beautiful design. The card looks good. If you don’t mind paying a lot of fees, this card could help you build credit. I’m not going to just trash it and say, you know, you’d have to be crazy to apply for this card. Even if that’s, not really a card that I would recommend anybody.
So, when I do that balance, I think that builds credibility with the readers. Everyone’s sceptical. No one wants to believe that something is all good or all bad. And that’s largely true.
Kerry Curran:
Do your descriptions ever include, like you’ll look like a major baller if you drop this one at the restaurant?
Jason Steele:
I mean, I’m not I’m not really up on a lot of the lingo. You know, not really my style. I have had some outlets who wanted me to be a little more personal. But, I say, look, a credit card is a financial product. And it’s an important one. And choosing one is an important decision. My personal philosophy is, you know, the terms, the rates, the fees, the benefits, the rewards. That’s what’s important. If it looks cool, so much the better. But. I would take a plain card that had a fantastic offer over an uncompetitive card that looked beautiful.
And that’s saying that as a person who has a credit card as a business card. I have a business card. So, and I think it looks beautiful, but it is a bonus when the card looks nice, but it’s not something I would rate cards on in terms of appearance.
Save that for your clothing, your jewellery, maybe your car. Most of the time using the credit card, you don’t even see it, right? You’re using a mobile app, you’re doing it over the phone or online. I guess when you go out for dinner, it’s the big time when people are plastic.
Kerry Curran:
You talked about a lot of the fact finding of research that goes back to kind of your background as a history major and looking at the resources and the facts. What other sources do you use to find that information?
Jason Steele:
Yeah, well as someone who studied history in college, we learned that the most important sources are primary. We got to get it right from the horse’s mouth. So, if I am researching a credit card, I will go out to that card issuer’s website, look at the landing page, I’d look at the Schumer box, which of course is the standard format for terms and conditions that all credit cards have to, all credit card issuers have to display, and that tells me exactly what the terms are.
And if they changed yesterday, or a month ago, or a week ago, that’s okay, because I have the current information from the card issuer, no question the validity of that. If I were to rely on say secondary sources, such as other websites, reviews of those cards, then I’d be opening myself up to being inaccurate. And of course, that would run afoul of compliance. That’s probably the worst kind of compliance problem you have is maybe I’m listing an offer that no longer exists or a benefit that’s since been removed. But it also allows me to form my own opinion. kind of devoid of maybe the conventional wisdom. Certainly, on some more obscure cards, I might read what others have to say about it, but I’ll always rely on the primary source for the terms, conditions, rewards, benefits, things like that.
Kerry Curran:
You mentioned compliance, and that is such a critically important aspect for the card marketers as well as for what you’re writing. So just can you explain or expand upon that a bit?
Jason Steele:
It was a famous football coach. I want to say, Joe Lombardi, maybe somebody else, or Vince Lombardi, who said, winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing. Well, I say compliance isn’t everything. It’s the only thing, meaning the game’s over if you’re not complying.
It’s not that you’ve won or lost, it’s that you don’t even get to play. You write something about a card that runs afoul of the compliance rules and the outlet you’re writing for is no longer going to host those links and making revenue. And I’ve heard of situations where it could be years or virtually forever.
So, I don’t want to be the writer who handles that. I don’t think I ever have been. But you I mean, you don’t want to call points miles and miles points. You certainly don’t want to get any numbers wrong. Some card issuers want you to call it a welcome bonus instead of a sign-up bonus. These are all the nuances that you have to be aware of when you’re writing about credit cards and the accuracy. is ultimately the most important thing. After that can be driving conversions, entertaining the reader, even grammar and spelling are not as important as accuracy. I’d rather have an embarrassing typo than have the wrong terms and conditions.
Kerry Curran:
It’s critically important. Definitely, as you said, it’s the relationship between the publisher, the customer, you, the card issuer.
Jason Steele:
It’s all on the line. And when you make a major compliance violation or many minor ones, they just send you a letter saying, this relationship is over and there’s no appeals. There’s no, please, can I have another chance? It’s just, they’ve already moved on by the time you got that letter. And there’s a long, long line of other outlets waiting to give it a shot.
Kerry Curran:
One of my favorite quotes of yours from our paper where you talked about you need to write high quality content and as we already talked about very trustworthy content because otherwise it just kind of devalues the whole industry and value of the channel.
Jason Steele:
We’ve all had this experience, I think, where we’re shopping for, I don’t know, a mobile phone or a dishwasher or television or whatever it is. And we go out to websites and they’re not providing us with valuable information where they’re just saying, yeah, this is the greatest product ever. You should buy it right now. And how long does it take till our finger clicks next and moves on to the or back goes to Google search and tries to find a different website that’s offering a human voice, that’s reviewing it, that’s giving positives and negatives.
So, I want the sites I write for to be that site that readers land on when they’re trying to evaluate a new credit card. Oh, this person knows what he’s talking about. He’s giving me positives and negatives. He’s telling me how I can use this card. Who this card is for. I love Ferraris, right? But would I use one to pick up my kids from school? Probably not.
They’d make a mess of it, and they couldn’t all fit in the backseat with their backpacks. in the same way, credit cards are the same way, right? I’m not going to take my credit cards and my wallet and say that you should have them. The city you live in, how you use your cards, what’s your financial situation, all those things could affect if this card is right for you.
Kerry Curran:
I think that just ties again to the trustworthiness and the goal of affiliate strategies and publisher strategies as well is to have it be a trusted source. What I thought was interesting to me was kind of the process before and as the assignment gets to you. Right? So, if a… In our case, if the agency… for our clients will reach out to the publishers and talk about what we want promoted on behalf of our clients. And then it gets to you. So, talk about kind of how that, I know you talked about the research, but the relationship between you and the publishers.
Jason Steele:
Yeah, well, I won’t be part of that dialogue between the client and the publisher. But what I do know is the publishers do a lot of SEO keyword research. I’m sure they look at; they have affiliate marketing managers. Ultimately, the editor comes to me, and it could be that or it could be I’m pitching the story to the editors, and you have what I sometimes call a balance of idea origination. Meaning it’s a common question I get asked. Well, do you pitch all your stories, or do they give them to you? And the answer is yes. You know about half and half and some outlets they give me a hundred percent of the stories other outlets I’m pitching a hundred percent of my stories, but almost everyone else You know is in between somewhere.
Some will give me some strict SEO guidelines others will give me you know like I’ll pitch them one sentence best credit cards for whatever and they’ll say okay and that’s it. Give me a thousand words have it done by Tuesday So, it varies pretty dramatically.
I mean certainly I enjoy writing the ones where I get to pitch the ideas or, up to a point, because sometimes pitching is the heavy lifting, right? I mean, I could write hundreds of articles a year. It’s pretty hard to come up with hundreds of ideas. But other times I feel kind of, it’s relaxing when someone gives you an article that has an outline and everything.
Sometimes it feels like the outline is almost as long as your article. I’ve had that before. It’s like, oh, this is easy. I just go, it’s like, color by numbers, you just go step by step and before you know it, there’s your article. So, if I’m having a long exhausting day, that’s pretty easy to do at the end of the day. But it doesn’t really get my creativity going.
Kerry Curran:
Yeah. And I think too, it’s important to reiterate, as you were saying, they might say, right about these five cards, but you don’t know which one might have commissioned the article.
Jason Steele:
I’ve even had outlets tell me that they have to, basically enter a contract or an agreement with the merchant saying that I will not, choose articles for anything other than my expert opinion.
There have been outlets in the past that even want me to use some sort of objective criteria to say, okay, I need you to rank the rewards, the benefits, the rates, the fees, and come up with an objective analysis. Thankfully, I don’t see that too often because the weighting of each category spoils the objectivity. And just the same way, a busy parent like me might look at trunk space as the most important thing in the car and choosing not zero to 60.
Whereas our driver might choose horsepower as the most important thing. Well, we’re both going to choose different cars that we find to be our favorite.
Kerry Curran:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, maybe you can get one with both just to check all the boxes.
Jason Steele:
I mean the credit cards I use have really high interest rates. Why? Because they have lots and lots of rewards and benefits and they’ll necessarily have high interest rates. Someone like half of Americans who have credit card debt would say, well this is a horrible credit card. Why should I get a credit card with a 30% interest rate when I can find one with 18% and they would be correct for their situation.
Kerry Curran:
You’re just reiterating as well the, when it goes back to that data point of the heavy research that occurs when someone is choosing a card or other financial product. And yeah, like why all of the different types of publishers and comparison sites exist so that people can find that specific card.
Jason Steele:
Sadly, what I find is a lot of these comparison sites are basically just giving you the rates in terms of the car. They’re not giving you an expert opinion. So, you might not go out and buy a television, by saying, well, it weighs 26 pounds and it’s 32 inches high and 60 inches wide and consumes, you know, 12 and a half watts. You want to read, oh, it has a vibrant picture with all the technology and remote control is easy to use. And, the same way I want to tell that story, that kind of a story about credit cards. And not just say, well, this is the interest rate, and this is the annual fee and blah, blah. Hopefully I can intrigue the reader to whether they get that card or different.
Kerry Curran:
What are you seeing? Again, you’ve been in the card analysis and affiliate space for a while. So, what do you see are the trends for financial services and affiliate marketing? Kind of what’s most prevalent today?
Jason Steele:
Well, yeah, the ongoing trend, which is nothing new to anyone who’s been in here, but just keeps getting more and more is that card issuers are being more and more restrictive on the outlets they want to work with. If we could go back in time 15 years and start up our own websites, we would, all the major card issuers and they would all be thrilled to work with us. And if we did well, we would be one of the remaining large outlets that has all these direct relationships.
That ship sailed a long time ago, and many people went to the secondary affiliate marketing platforms where you would, your website would link to their website, which would link to the card issuer. But even that ship is slowly moving out of the harbor, as I hear more and more of the smaller websites are no longer able to establish that kind of relationship.
So, it just keeps getting tighter and tighter. Everyone wants, everyone sees the success of Brian Kelly and the points guy, and everyone wants to be like Brian, who wouldn’t? But the card issuers don’t need hundreds and hundreds of websites competing with the points guy kind of cannibalizing their revenue and the same is true for other niches in this field.
So, we do see card issuers and other financial sites wanting something unique. Now, okay, what are you giving me that this other popular site doesn’t have? It’s a question I hear a lot when outlets apply for a relationship with a card issuer.
Kerry Curran:
That’s incredibly interesting. Is it the publisher that’s providing that unique differentiator, or is that coming from the card issuer as well?
Jason Steele:
Well, the publisher has to offer something unique. Why is my site different than the points guide? Why is my site different than NerdWallet? Why is my site different than anyone else’s? Because when the card issuer’s evaluating who they want to work with, they want to reach new, potentially new customers that they’re not reaching for other outlets. Obviously, they want compliance, they want sales, right? They don’t want to invest the time of doing the compliance work and… and all that in an outlet that’s not acquiring new customers for them.
Kerry Curran:
That definitely makes a lot of sense. So, we like to kind of make sure, and all of our listeners are getting some actionable insights from the podcast. So, what would be your recommendation for financial services that want to kind of expand on their affiliate program?
Jason Steele:
You need great content. I think, people like me, hopefully, content creators can do that. Don’t be taken in by claims that, oh, we’ll just put something out there and the readers will flock in, and we’ll get these conversions and make lots and lots of money because that’s just not how it works. You do have to offer something different. You do have to offer a voice. You do have to drive readers to your site. You could do that a little bit through SEO and good SEO practices, but it has to be through good content, good writing to make it there.
You do have to work hard to build these relationships with the card issuers. You almost certainly have to start with one of these secondary markets out there, like Quinn Street, that does these, you link to their site and they… generate the conversion and give you a code of the commissions. And so, it is hard. Again, time travel would be a very valuable tool here to go back before there was such a test competition. But of course, I haven’t seen that invention yet in reality. You have to be doing it better than your competitors in order should the card issuers and the brands be thinking about as well?
I would say, is this outlet a trusted source? Do they have insights? Do they have credibility? Are of course they going to keep up with compliance? There’s a lot of readers that you could acquire by offering shady non-compliant advice. An example of that would be, sign up for this credit card you get the sign-up bonus cancelling. That’s like telling people to walk into the grocery store and saying, instead of going out for dinner, just go to that free sample, just grab all you can. I mean, it’s just, it’s not ethical, it’s not right, it doesn’t make sense, it’s extremely not compliant, and your days as an affiliate will be extremely short.
But you might acquire a lot of readers doing that, but then what are you going to do with them? when you don’t have any revenue on the telemarketing. You want to chart a straight and narrow path. You want to comply with the rules. You want to be able to tell the merchants, the financial services companies, how and why you’re going to be compliant. And, but then you want to offer great content. If you could personalize it a little bit, readers get to know. Your authors, that’s great. Within some people’s brand, but other people have that brand, you can’t build that.
It’s also a get rich slowly. You can build up this, your readership over time. And thankfully it has a long tail, meaning articles that I’ve written are still, you know, five, ten years ago are still out there. They’re still hopefully generating revenue for the publisher who paid me for them.
Kerry Curran:
No, that’s excellent. And you were talking about as well for like the merchants and card issuers that you need to let the writers write and make sure they’re using the consumer language and kind of not controlling too much of the narrative.
Jason Steele:
I mean, if anything, I think sometimes I fall towards being a little bit more institutional than I should. I think I should probably show more of my personality, joke around with the reader a bit. But it’s like, if I’m writing for maybe now that was once a legacy news source, right? You know, a major news magazine or, news channel or something like that. And this is the online component. I don’t know. I’m worried one of my editors is going to kind of say, no, that’s not our style. This is a major company, and you have to speak like our brand. But then again, I sometimes get outlets that want me to write more informally and more. You’re going to be a baller if you have this card, like you said.
Kerry Curran:
You’re going to use that now.
Jason Steele:
I mean, look, I’m 51 years old. I probably don’t. speak the same way people have my age group. And maybe that’s my disadvantage going forward, I’m not sure, but yeah, I mean, get me in a room with my fellow credit card experts and we’re slinging cards and having a good time and say, ah, this is the greatest thing ever. Oh no, it’s terrible. We have very strong held opinions on various credit cards.
Kerry Curran:
Yeah, I have to tell you, you and I were talking about a specific card earlier this week, and then I got an email promotion for that specific card. So, you never know.
Jason Steele:
Use the link on my website if you’re going to sign up.
Kerry Curran:
You mentioned CardCon and I know we’re, Gen3 is very excited to participate in November. So, for the listeners, why should people sign up and what are the great benefits for both publishers and the card issuers?
Jason Steele:
I’ll tell you something that I said when I announced the first Card Con back in 2017. I said, I once read that George Lucas created Star Wars because he wanted to see that movie, and no one had made it. It was back then, when I started Card Con, I figured, well, someone else must have created a conference for people who write about credit cards. And if I wanted to go to that conference. So just like George Lucas creates Star Wars, I created CardCon because I wanted to be at that conference. I wanted to have a couple of days where I could hear about the latest trends in credit cards, consumer credit, and credit card affiliate marketing.
Those are the three things we talk about. I also want to network and interact with my fellow experts. I mean, there’s some really fun people in this business who get to be freelance writers, who get to travel around the world for free with their points and miles, who are part of the credit card industry, which is both… highly profitable and very competitive, two real qualities. So, the people, even at competing card issuers are often friends with each other. I tell my fellow credit card writers that we’re not competitors, we’re colleagues.
It always comes back to me, people who I go out of my way to help, and mentor come to me years later and say, hey, I have this new client, I need some help, would you like to join us? And it feels good to be, I’m hoping to as the person who hosts this conference to set a tone for industry of, hey, we all get along, we all enjoy working together.
We might switch companies every now and then, switch jobs, switch outlets, but we still have this relationship that transcends that. And I consider a lot of people in the industry to be my friends. So, for example, we’re going to have, last year we did it in New Orleans, this year in Nashville. The day before the conference we’re calling the Fun Day. Federal Credit Union sponsor last year and this year. And we’re in Nashville, we’re going to have tours, we’re going to have networking, have lunch, get to know everyone a little bit before we start the conference, have a good time. So hopefully those are good reasons to join if you want to learn more about credit card, customer credit and affiliate marketing, and you want to have a good time and see Nashville, which is the most energetic city I have ever been to.
As someone who has travelled a tremendous amount, I’ve never seen a place like that that’s just popping 24 hours a day.
Kerry Curan:
I’m definitely looking forward to it, but I’m also looking forward to the content and you’re saying there’s three kind of major topics you’ll be covering.
Jason Steele:
One of the things I always tell people when we talk about credit card affiliate marketing, and certainly those who have been doing this know this, credit card affiliate marketing is so different than any other area of affiliate marketing.
You go to the big event in the industry is Affiliate Summit, both East and West and International, and there you’ll have the meet market and you’ll stroll up and down and people will practically almost literally grab you and ask you to be an affiliate for their travel company, their… dating website, their apparel website, their dietary supplements, things like that.
And they’re begging for your website to become one of their affiliates. Credit card people are almost nowhere to be found. And in fact, we’re trying to find them. We’re scrolling through the list of attendees. We’re trying to Google them. We’re trying to call them. We’re trying to get five minutes with them because it is a privilege to be one of their affiliates. and to work with them and you have to convince them of your worthiness. And we talked about compliance.
So those are the kinds of things that I’m trying to illuminate, bring out to the open. I don’t think anyone’s written a book about credit card affiliate marketing. I’m sure that the people who are doing it really, really well are very reluctant to share their secret sauce, but every year I’m able to coax a few people, a few really good people on the stage to give us some highlights. And I think people get a lot out of that. But you also learn about, of course, the credit cards, the products from the people like me who know them best.
We also talk about affiliate marketing. So, it’s, or talk about consumer credit, I’m sorry, consumer credit being kind of a purposefully mysterious concept because of course the FICO and Vantage score, they don’t disclose the formulas. So, that’s always an area where attendees are eager to learn more.
Kerry Curran:
Yeah, so talking about actionable insights, it sounds like CardCon is going to be a very valuable experience.
Jason Steele:
The industry is constantly changing. There are always new insights to be discussed. It’s not, a very static field. I can’t speak for other fields, but it’s one of the more dynamic fields out there. There was legislation this year that did not pass that we’re going to be discussing and debating, so-called Credit Card Competition Act.
A lot of very, very strong feelings on both sides about this. AI is a very, very big thing when it comes to content. Affiliate marketing is where all our money comes from initially to the outlets and to me. So yeah, people go because we get almost everyone coming as a professional, they’re full-time professional in this field. I discourage people from coming who are just interested in learning about credit cards, but otherwise aren’t in this field. So, it’s a pretty high level of attendee.
Kerry Curran:
Yeah, that’s great. Well, Jason, thank you so much. We’ll be sure to include a link to the CardCon registration in the description. But yeah, thank you for your time. This was super interesting, and I learn more every time we talk.