Good vibes from Credit Karma
Posted by Brent Dixon on February 28th, 2008
Today Trey posted this message to Twitter (links added):
“Credit Karma friggin rocks. Go to netbanker, grab the code and get your account.”
He’s right, it rocks. Here’s how CK’s free credit score service works (from creditkarma.com):
Credit Karma™ shows personalized offers based on your credit profile. These offers are from partners who share our vision of consumer empowerment. Rest assured, Credit Karma™ will never share your personal information.
The “offers” interface is relevant, clean, and unimposing. Users can comment on an offer, vote it thumbs up/thumbs down, or pass it along to a friend.
Check it out. What do you think?
Per your suggestion, I signed up at CreditKarma and received my credit score. You are right, the site is easy to use and the fastest way to get your credit score—good work there.
Having said that, I don’t see the value proposition for users beyond getting your credit score quickly. The product offers didn’t feel targeted at all (in fact, the offers I received were no different than the ones on the main list accessible from the home page). Without a stronger connection between the process of getting a credit score and product needs, I don’t see the value for CK users-
or by extension its product partners-beyond basic PPC appeal. AmEx and Citi ads are already everywhere on the web, so I guess one more PPC opportunity can’t hurt.@Bryan: Great point – I’d bet that down the line the ads become more targeted. (Were I buying ads, I’d make sure they were. IMHO the offers are what the vendors make them.)
I love the context they give the score. If I have, say, a 720 credit score, what does that really mean? Credit Karma says (in simple yet sophisticated graphs) that lenders think that’s a good score, that it’s around the 50th percentile of all credit scores, and that it’s around the 40th percentile of users of their service.
The Netbanker code is “to kick the tires” so I’d bet they’re watching all these conversations to make sure they get the service right. Better targeting could make this the killer credit app.
I feel the same way Bryan does. It’s cool to get my credit score, but the offers mean nothing to me. I don’t need a business checking account, a new shiny mobile phone or another credit card.
I guess since I already have a handle on what a credit score is, the extra info on what it all means isn’t that helpful to me either. What is the value in knowing how your score compares to other CK users? I’m really wondering…that’s not rhetorical.
Agreed that the site is clean and pretty.
I think if you go into this site with the mindset “This is going to be like Wesabe, or my online banking – something I will ideally use often and be engaged in,” you’re going to be disappointed. This is not a “login regularly” kind of thing.
But as an ongoing tool you access once a month, once every two months, as a personal checkup – CK is awesome. Definitely more accessible and usable than any of the other (sometimes very shady-seeming) “free credit score” alternatives.
From the graph interface, it looks like it builds a visualization of your credit history, which I love.
And Terrell – knowing how your score compares to others puts your credit health in perspective. It moves it from a number (which doesnt always mean much to those outside of financial services) into something that makes sense in the real world.
In my opinion, “How Lender Might View You” is the most useful way that national comparison is presented:
I hope that made sense. I think I need to take a nap.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention -
As an ad-supported model, which, bottom-line, is what this is, its a really innovative approach. They have made their ads social and browsable (I spent a nice slice of time browsing the most commented-on and most popular offers).
And although their targeting might be off, by enabling comments and thumbs up/thumbs down reviews, they are essentially building a more qualitative targeting method. Driven by commentary, recommendations, and opinions.
Okay, I’m really done now.
thanks for your thoughts, brent! I agree that it is cool to know how lenders may view you and I like the graphs too. It’s easier to understand than the credit report I received from Experian last year, that’s for sure.
I guess comparisons to peers can help some people put their financial situation into perspective, but what if everyone’s credit sucks? Would it make you feel more comfortable with your own bad credit? That’s the only part I don’t really get.
Thanks for this update. i never did get clearly how the creditkarma works.
This is one of the more interesting discussion on our service.
At this point, Brian is correct. We need to build more relevance with the offers and users. We are currently in discussions with several brands to give offers that truly are distinct.
Keep up the interesting conversations.
While I do think credit karama is cool-I don’t think the scores are nearly accurate-I ran mine and then ran my real credit score-and they were completely off-it rated me higher-which was cool-but in reality, it’s definitely off.
@ Connie
Let me know if this blog post is useful.
http://blog.creditkarma.com/credit-scores/more-about-scores-and-the-differences/
I’d love to your feedback on whether the post makes sense.