Researching the best financial calculators for you website? Searching for an alternative to Leadfusion? If you’re reading this, you’ve no doubt landed on two of the biggest names in financial calculators: Chimney and Leadfusion. Like a lot of marketers out there, you’re wondering how the two are different and which choice is right for you.
Some of the things we'll cover:
Who is Leadfusion
Founded in 1995, Leadfusion provides tools to financial institutions which engage, educate, and guide the consumer through the shopping process to conversion.
Leadfusion is one of the oldest companies making financial calculators, the product offering has evolved over the years and now Leadfusion offers a suite of products aimed at "financial experience management". Their calculators check some boxes in the design category and are used by many of the largest banks and credit unions, however the technology hasn't been updated in years and is built on iframes which makes connecting to existing systems and updating a challenge for today's digital team.
Who is Chimney
Founded two years ago from former SEO and Content Marketers, Chimney is building the next generation of financial calculators. A digital native, born in the era of digital transformation where the customer experience and customer journey sit atop the list of strategic priorities.
Chimney was built out of frustration with the lack of easy-to-use financial calculators on the internet. We started by evaluating the UX/UI of design-first companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Apple. We talked to product designers, attended conferences, researched user behavior, and held interviews to understand what makes best-in-class tools so easy to use and simple to understand.
Chimney is the fastest-growing company in the space with the highest reviewed calculators on the internet.
If you care about SEO, Chimney is the right choice for you. That's because Leadfusion implements their calculators via iFrames - in short you should not be using iFrames for display content on your website. Google recommends never publishing content using iFrames. Google’s Webmaster says, “we recommend that you avoid the use of iFrames to display content.”
In order for you to rank for keywords, Google needs to be able to crawl and index your calculators. With iFrames, they essentially cannot see anything - they're a black box. Your tools should be built and published using JavaScript to help optimize the experience and increase SEO traffic.
LeadFusion – One of the biggest drawbacks to Leadfusion is iFrames. Because Leadfusion was founded 25+ years ago, all of their financial calculators are reliant on outdated technology. You wouldn’t put flash on your website the same way you wouldn’t put iFrames on a modern website.
Chimney – Unlike other calculator companies, we don't believe in iFrames, we never use them. This means we provide real SEO value with calculators that are easily placed on your website via Javascript - no coding or dev team required. This approach means that the copy used is indexable by Google for SEO so you will increase your SEO rankings.
How Chimney increases top of the funnel website traffic via SEO.
Can I use CTAs and UTMs to generate and track leads in my marketing campaigns?
Leadfusion – Leadfusion allows you the ability to customize the code and build CTAs to send visitors wherever you want across the customer journey. The drawback with this approach of course is the complicated code that requires developers to update.
Chimney – Chimney allows you to easily swap out CTAs using the Calculator Management Platform and you can easily track how calculators perform in your marketing campaigns by easily adding UTM tracking.
Can I measure the results of the calculators?
Leadfusion – Leadfusion doesn’t offer any out-of-the-box solution for tracking how your calculators are performing. In fact, with iFrames this becomes even more challenging even if you have internal development resources to tackle this problem.
Chimney – Chimney provides a real-time dashboard of calculators - that modern technology also means that you can plug into Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager or other existing analytics systems.
What analytics come included with the calculators?
Leadfusion – Leadfusion does not provide any analytics to clients.
Chimney – Chimney designed real-time analytics dashboards for each calculator. Conversion rates, Click-through CTAs, and Pageviews so you know exactly how these interactive calculators are driving action through your funnel.
Is it easy to get the designs customized for my brand?
Leadfusion – In order to make updates to Leadfusion calculators, marketers need a deep understanding of JavaScript and CSS to make even basic updates. If you do not have the skills to make these code updates on your own, the Javascript deployment requires a technical resource and is bulky for each update on each calculator – ticketing requests to internal IT teams are often met with delays due to “limited resources”.
Chimney – Chimney enables marketers to whitelabel with your branding, colors, font, and logo on all of your calculators, without IT requests or learning how to code. Our flexible Calculator Editor makes it easy for marketers to make updates, edits, and changes to their calculators — all from a single platform.
“It was really easy for me to get started and get the information I needed. Unlike some other experiences, this felt more personalized — less of a sales pitch.”
Kassandra Martin
Brand and Digital Strategy Manager at Direct Federal Credit Union
How easy is it to make edits, updates, and changes?
Leadfusion – Typically requires an Application Administrator or an IT project owner who is responsible for the initial install, coding updates, consistently testing for bugs, and then fixing any bugs. This Admin is also responsible for finding any calculators that are broken or not functioning properly – sometimes this can take weeks or months before you realize a calculator has been down.
Chimney – Chimney handles the admin and updating responsibility as part of any partnership. We consistently QA test all live calculators for our clients proactively, identify any issues, and get them fixed with standard SLAs free of charge and automatically.
Do I need to have custom development work done?
Leadfusion – You need to work with your IT team or web development agency to launch and make changes..
Chimney – You can do everything easily using a simple platform, no coding required. Our Javascript snippet will inherit your website styling automatically.
Is it easy for me to get these calculators live anywhere on my website?
Leadfusion – You need to work with your IT team or web development agency to launch and make changes. This creates problems with speed to market and building out custom integrations on each page.
Chimney – Calculators will easily embed on any page of your website, see our publishing FAQ for any questions.
If I'm currently working with Leadfusion, is it easy for me to swtich?
We make switching incredibly easy - we’ll work with you to identify the calculators you want to switch and help you build out your calculator library so everything looks great. Most of our teams are live within 2 weeks of signing on with Chimney.
Am I locked into a big long-term contract?
LeadFusion – Because of the amount of work involved, Leadfusion requires long-term contracts with big up-front commitments. They charge for a full package of calculators which means you may be paying for dozens of calculators that people are not using.
Chimney – With Chimney, you only pay for the calculators you use and have full flexibility to swap calculators anytime. You choose from a bundle of 10, 20, or 40 calculators that you can publish on as many website pages as you want. The data is clear, you don't need 100+ calculators to be successful, we recommend you focus on the top 10-20 highest performing calculators across your business instead of publishing 100+ across your website just because you can.
Leadfusion – If you are a marketer at a very large company with access to a deep well of development resources, Leadfusion might be a good choice for you. Leadfusion is a relatively safe option given their roster of clients but they have not successfully made the transition to modern digital technology. This means digital teams working with Leadfusion are often frustrated as they are forced to go out of scope, budget, and miss deadlines during implementation and for any ongoing maintenance/updates.
Chimney – If you are prioritizing the customer experience and looking to increase conversions with a partner who will allow you to focus on achieving larger strategic objectives, Chimney is a wise choice.
Other tools don’t help win more customers and they’re a pain to manage. Our tools are built to match people where they are on the customer journey - at every stage of the funnel.
That means you get more people to your website with SEO-optimized tools, you engage the people on your site with tools that are beautifully designed and easy to use, and you generate more leads with compelling CTAs to increase applications.
We’re the only company on the market that doesn’t use iFrames, a completely outdated web technology that was built in the 1990s and provides no SEO value whatsoever.
As a marketer – your job as a marketer is made simpler with easy-to-use calculator templates designed to help you increase conversions, faster. Adding and updating calculators is a breeze with the ability to easily edit the copy, font, colors, calls-to-action – all in one place.
As a human – people have questions and the answers shouldn't be complicated. Our tools are professionally designed, have fewer inputs to increase completion rates, more accurate assumptions, faster loading times, and provide an overall better buying experience. People are looking to find personalized answers in the right place, at the right time.
Curious to see how Chimney makes it all happen?
Schedule a free demo here and we'll walk you through some live examples.
Best case, you may find your next favorite technology partner to make your life easier.
Worst case, you'll learn why so many companies are making the switch.
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