Better Way To Convert ING Referrals

July 13, 2006

We have come to milestone - we have now given away over 500 ING Direct $25 bonuses to people opening an ING account through us. We have been quite successful in making money with this program and I get emails from time to time on tips on how people can convert the invites they have (anyone that has an ING account has 25 invites they can give to others where the person will receive $25 if the make an initial deposit of $250 and the person sending the invite receives $10 for the referral). These are the steps we took that helped us convert a lot more than we initially were which also should help you convert ING invites if you have extras.

The typical way to convert ING invites is to have the person send you their email and name so that you can send an invite to them. You will likely have little success if you approach it this way. There are some fundamental problems with it that discourages people to complete the process:

The person has to send you their name and email. If they know you, this is fine, but if they don’t (just happen to come across your blog), they may be hesitant to do so.

If they do send you their email and name, the still may never get the invite. We found that it often got send to spam folders when sent.

Timing is against you. When the person sends the email, they are ready to complete the application right then and there. There will be a delay before they receive the invite through email and may never complete the application

When the application is sent, that invite can’t be used for someone else who may want it. You then have to decide whether or not to cancel the invite for someone who has been sent an invitation but has yet to complete the form.

All these issues mean that converting the ING invites through email can be quite difficult. The simple solution is to provide people with a direct link to the invite. That is exactly what we did several months ago. When we started to do this, our conversions increased dramatically on the ING invites. Doing this is quite simple:

Go to the referral invites you have and send an email to yourself.

When the email arrives, right click on the “Open!” link and copy it.

Place that link on your blog or site.

Anyone who sees the link can immediately sign up for an ING account through the link and receive the $25 bonus. This addresses many of the issues that makes it difficult to convert my email:

The person doesn’t need to send any information to you.

There is no waiting to get the invite as they can sign up immediately from the link.

The link can’t get lost like the email in a spam folder.

There is no need to worry about when someone is going to convert because they can choose from any of the links you have posted and not just the one email sent.

Once we started doing this, it wasn’t long before we ran through the invites available in both Nate’s and my accounts plus a number of our family members. The easy solution was to convert ING invites for others that weren’t having luck converting their own. We approached it as a reward for the active members at SavingAdvice. Those that have 100 posts can put their name on a list and we will convert their invites for them splitting the referral bonus 50%/50% ($5 each).

Doing this by email would be near impossible, but by placing direct links, this system is once again simple to implement. They send us all their invites and then we take their invite code (the exact same way as when sending to ourselves) and convert them.

In addition, we have been using this method to give bonuses to those who sign up for Emigrant Direct accounts through our referral link. Emigrant doesn’t have a referral bonus normally, but we can pay people $20 by converting 2 of their ING invites when they use our link which is a win/win situation for everyone.

If you have a blog or site and haven’t had any success converting ING invites by asking people to send you their email, try this method. It should be much more successful.

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Information: July 13th, 2006; 6 Responses

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Reader Comments

Comment Number:: 1
Written by:: junger
Posted on:: July 13, 2006 at 8:02 am

Great idea! I’ll have to see how that method plays out.

One question, though: despite it being completely legitimate, having a “sign up and get $25 free” link just sounds a little fishy. What’s the best way to package it so people won’t be afraid to sign up with ING?

Comment Number:: 2
Written by:: Andy
Posted on:: July 13, 2006 at 8:05 am

I just made a post about this same thing last week. I haven’t had near the success of you though. I’m still slowly making my way through my referrals at a rate of 1 or 2 a month. It isn’t too bad considering I still don’t have much traffic. One a month will pay for hosting fees at least.

Comment Number:: 3
Written by:: mapgirl
Posted on:: July 13, 2006 at 8:31 am

I was wondering how people did this. Thank you so much for spelling it out!

Comment Number:: 4
Written by:: pfadvice
Posted on:: July 13, 2006 at 10:35 am

One question, though: despite it being completely legitimate, having a â€œsign up and get $25 freeâ€? link just sounds a little fishy. Whatâ€™s the best way to package it so people wonâ€™t be afraid to sign up with ING?

ING is fairly well known due to the large amount of advertising they’ve done. If, however, you feel it’s necessary to expalin a bit more, I would go with the following:

Like regular banks that in the past gave out toasters or other small appliances to get people to open a new account, many online banks have adopted the same strategy. In order to get new customers, online banks sometimes will offer a small cash incentive for you to open an account with them to encourage you to open the account.

Putting it in those terms should help reduce the fears of people…

Comment Number:: 5
Written by:: samerwriter
Posted on:: July 13, 2006 at 12:57 pm

In my opinion, the part about it that sounds fishy is trying to objectively say it’s a good bank, and then disclosing that you’re being paid cash by the bank for referrals.

Presumably, if there were two absolutely equal banks, with the exception that Bank A gave $25 only to new accounts while Bank B gave $25 to new accounts and $10 to the referrer, Bank B would be recommended more.

Now what if Bank A is a tiny bit “better” than Bank B. It’s likely that Bank B would still get more referrals. It’s easy to rationalize; Bank A is only a tiny bit better; no one’s likely to notice the difference.

Then the question becomes, how much “better” does Bank A have to be than Bank B to convince people to refer new members to Bank A, which offers no money for referrals rather than Bank B.

That’s the question that makes these referral bonuses all seem fishy to me. I would never propose that any individual is doing this, but in aggregate, clearly it happens.

Comment Number:: 6
Written by:: pfadvice
Posted on:: July 13, 2006 at 1:19 pm

I don’t think it is an either / or question. A $25 bonus is an instant 10% return on your investment. Even if there are better banks, the money can be taken out immediately and moved to one paying a higher interest rate.

Of course, you have to come to your own conclusions on what you do and don’t want to recommend. I have absolutely no problem doing so and there are other referral programs I have chosen not to do because I don’t think they are a benefit.