Affiliate marketing for consumer lenders

Unlocking high ROI affiliate channels for consumer lenders

We helped Credit Karma build Lightbox into a $1B platform.
Now we help consumer lenders unlock 50K+ new customers a month.

$50–100M
Annual client spend across affiliate marketplaces
50+
Lenders advised over 20-year careers
8+ yrs
Inside Credit Karma

How do you stack up to the best players?

Leverage our relationships to grow in

Credit Karma
Experian
LendingTree
Bankrate
QuinStreet
Credit Sesame
WalletHub
Credible
MoneyLion
Bulldog Media Group
How we work

From insight to impact.

We guide you through discovery, strategy, execution, and optimization—removing friction and unlocking growth at every stage.

  • Conversion rates improve in 90 days
  • Outsized volume increases in 120 days
01. Discovery & Audit

Meet with marketing, product, partnerships, and credit teams to find funnel friction, underwriting gaps, and growth constraints.

02. Strategy Design

Deliver a 6+ month roadmap with priorities, volume upside, and CPA targets. Drive alignment with stakeholders, pressure-test the roadmap, and lock-in the execution plan.

03. Execution Sprint

Guide execution with weekly working sessions and direct 24/7 support on key decisions. We stay close to partnerships, pricing, and underwriting moves as the plan goes live.

04. Measure & Optimize

Track what's working, adjust what isn't, and optimize for stronger performance over time. The brands that build world-class affiliate programs are always on offense.

Results

We've delivered outsized returns for our clients.

40K+
Approvals/month within 12 months of engagement
Before

Strong product. Couldn't get Credit Karma to see the business case.

What we did

Brought the right relationships and got the conversation to a senior-enough level to tell the full story.

9K → 25K
Monthly new card accounts in 4 months
Before

Program was running. Approvals were suppressed. The lender didn't know why.

What we did

Underwriting model analysis surfaced a data vendor feeding incorrect information — suppressing approvals the lender didn't know they were losing. Fixed in 4 months.

2x
Volume so fast they ran out of capital allocation
Before

Personal loan program performing well below potential. APR positioning misaligned, application friction too high.

What we did

Fixed APR positioning and reduced application friction. Volume more than doubled — they exhausted their 2025 capital allocation ahead of schedule.

Why us

We learned the hard way, so you don't have to.

We've operated on both sides of the affiliate channel — inside Credit Karma building the partnerships team and the Lightbox team, and inside Capital One building products, marketing strategies, and underwriting models. That combination doesn't exist anywhere else in the market. It's why we can tell you what's broken in the first week — not six months in.

Carlos Caro
Carlos Caro
Founder & Managing Partner
Publisher side: Built Credit Karma's partnerships team from 3 to 25 and led the Card Business as GM (2016). Ran Lightbox's go-to-market through 2020.
Lender side: 7 years at Capital One in card marketing. Most recently SVP Customer Acquisition at Caribou.
Also: Hosts The Free Toaster podcast and newsletter.
Credit Karma·Capital One·Caribou·Columbia
Robert Cezeaux
Robert Cezeaux
Founder & Managing Partner
Lender side: 13 years senior data science at Capital One — predictive models across cards, auto, and home lending.
Publisher side: Led Credit Karma's Partner Decision Sciences team as Lightbox scaled across verticals.
Credit Karma·Capital One·Texas A&M·SMU
8+ years Inside Credit Karma's high-growth period. 50+ lender engagements since.
Active relationships With executives at Credit Karma, Experian, LendingTree, and Bulldog Media Group.
$50–100M Annual client spend in view across our portfolio. We notice algorithm shifts before any single client can.

There's only one way to get started, and it starts with the quiz.

Take our 3 min quiz

Ready to find out where you stand?

Take our 10-question quiz. It takes less than 3 minutes. We'll tell you where your program stands, what's ready, and where you might have more work to do.