"Benchmarking Research Traffic and Revenue Potential" Reveals Peer Statistics and Best Practices for Financial Service Web Sites

SAN DIEGO (Tuesday, May 3, 2005) - Leadfusion, Inc., the financial industry's source for online lead capture, cultivation, and conversion, has released its most recent research report, "A Peer Comparison of Financial Service Websites: Benchmarking Research Traffic and Revenue Potential." This report will enable financial marketing professionals to determine their organization's market standing and improvements necessary to compete with top-performing websites in their peer groups. Additionally, marketers may use this report to estimate the value of online visitors and the potential revenue they represent.

Leadfusion's report demonstrates how the majority of financial services providers can experience a greater return from existing investments in their websites. Further, the report concludes:

Significant revenue - an average of $169,000 per month for all financial websites - is overlooked at sites that do not capture leads as online visitors research.

Within industry segments, there are typically two sites that attract the vast majority of researcherss, and these two top performers outperform the average researching traffic level at all other competing sites by over 400%.

While the majority of total research occurs at the largest banks, one-third of auto loan calculations are performed at insurance websites, and one-third of home loan calculations are performed at consumer lending sites, indicating stiff competition for banks.

The report also outlines how financial services organizations can set goals and benchmarks for acquiring this additional revenue, as well as how to implement a strategy for reaching suggested industry benchmarks.

According to Sherri Neasham, Leadfusion CEO, people researching financial products online are on a self-driven mission to investigate a purchase decision and are highly likely to complete a sale. "Online visitors are initiating the sales process and presenting themselves as potential customers to banks, insurance companies and lending institutions with each site visit. These are 'hot' leads that the vast majority of financial service websites are overlooking," Neasham said.

Leadfusion's report compares a sampling of over 200 financial websites categorized in 13 industry segments over a three-month time period (January - March, 2004). The study was conducted because more consumers are using the Internet to research their financial decisions. Forrester Research previously concluded that at least half of all consumers shopping for lending and savings products visit between two and four sites for research purposes. Forrester also reported that online visitors found financial calculators to be the most helpful website content in their decision-making process.*

This Peer Comparison Report delves further to compare the visitor sessions for financial calculators for 17 distinct topics, including lending, saving and financial planning, investments, insurance and small business topics. It compares tools most offered, as well as those most preferred by online visitors.

Leadfusion is offering this report, "Benchmarking Research Traffic and Revenue Potential" free to financial service marketing professionals. The report may be downloaded at www.leadfusion.com/bestpractices.

* How Consumers Buy Financial Products, Forrester Research, Inc., January 2004, Leadfusion, Inc.

About Leadfusion, Inc.
Leadfusion, Inc. is a privately held eMarketing software company serving financial service providers since 1995. Leadfusion software solutions capture, cultivate and convert online leads that facilitate the sale of financial products and services. Over 250 financial institutions, including 36 of the top 50 banks, two of the top three insurance companies, and two of the top three portals use Leadfusion eMarketing solutions. Formerly known as FinanCenter, the company name was changed in 2005 to Leadfusion to reflect the expertise and focus on online lead conversion. The company has corporate headquarters in San Diego, California and maintains offices in Tucson, Arizona.