Custom Lead-Generation System
CreditNinja Cuts Acquisition Costs 4×
- Client
- CreditNinja
- Industry
- Consumer Lending / FinTech
- Service
- Custom Platform Development|Python Backend & Reporting|Data Vendor Integration|Marketing & Risk Tooling
Overview
CreditNinja was founded in 2017 with the mission of providing hard-working Americans with financial solutions during unexpected circumstances. Built by veteran serial entrepreneurs formerly from leading FinTech company Enova International, the company ensures consumers with less-than-perfect credit can still access the money they need. Based in Chicago, CreditNinja has disrupted consumer finance with innovative underwriting and online loans — without requiring a home or car as collateral.
CreditNinja initially used a third-party platform to receive leads as part of its marketing strategy. As the company grew, fine-grained control over lead processing and purchasing became strategically important — and CreditNinja decided to build an in-house system instead.
Why Build In-House
Reduce Underwriting & Marketing Cost per App
"Building out our own internal lead system was strategically important because we could reduce our own underwriting and marketing costs per loan application," said VP of Engineering Lee Ebreo.
Quick Lead-Processing Changes
The team needed the ability to quickly make changes to lead processing and purchasing — including integrating new data vendors and adjusting purchasing criteria based on internal analysis.
Custom Control for Marketing & Data Science
CreditNinja needed custom control for the Marketing and Data Science teams to operate the system day-to-day — without engineering being on the critical path for every change.
How We Solved It
CreditNinja consulted with Sphere to partner on a strategy and augment development capabilities, while CreditNinja’s own staff focused on other core parts of the business. Sphere worked alongside CreditNinja to develop the UI for the new platform and integrated the improvements that turned lead acquisition into a controllable, data-driven process.
1. Backend in Python with Automated Reporting
A Python backend powered the platform and an automated report-generation process — giving CreditNinja’s teams visibility into lead performance without engineering overhead each cycle.
2. Marketing-Owned Lead Strategy UI
The new customized system enabled CreditNinja’s marketing team to adjust their strategy for purchasing leads directly. "We want to pull data that provides us with enough information to decide whether a lead is not for us. In this way, we save money," said Ebreo.
3. Data Vendor Integration
Data vendor integration is key for making the right lead-purchase decision and controlling marketing costs. Sphere helped build a system that allowed risk and data-science teams to have full control of the data they extracted from each vendor.
Key Outcomes
4× Savings on CAC
With the new lead system fully deployed, CreditNinja saw an overall 4× savings on Customer Acquisition Costs.
75% Drop in Underwriting Costs
Underwriting costs dropped substantially — by 75% — once the new platform was live.
50% Marketing Cost Savings
Marketing costs were cut by 50% — better lead quality, fewer wasted dollars chasing applicants who weren’t a fit.
Embedded, Long-Term Expertise
"Sphere’s developer was an expert in the new system, and continues to be an expert as we evolve it," said VP of Engineering Lee Ebreo.
The Results
"These things would not have been achievable if we did not build our own in-house system. We augmented our development team capabilities using Sphere’s developer, who works very well with our Dev Lead in Chicago. Sphere’s developer was an expert in the new system, and continues to be an expert as we evolve it." — Lee Ebreo, VP of Engineering, CreditNinja.
