The report: Debunking the Short and Long-Term Myths of Marketing
Source: TransUnion
Why we picked it: The financial sector often struggles with balancing the need for immediate account openings and long-term customer value. This study — featuring a key bank example as the basis for the report — demonstrates how a Movable Middle strategy can significantly outperform traditional targeting methods in both short-term conversions and long-term customer growth (and explains what a “Movable Middle” strategy is).
For banks facing intense competition from both established players and fintech disruptors, the ability to efficiently allocate marketing budgets to reach the most persuadable consumers could be a crucial differentiator. Moreover, the study’s findings on how non-customers respond to advertising from brands with higher perceived market share offer valuable insights for banks looking to expand their customer base or enter new markets.
Executive Summary
Have you heard of “Movable Middles”?
Neither had we. It’s a segment of consumers — as found by TransUnion, MMA Global and Ally Bank in a new report — that, when targeted, can optimize both immediate returns and sustained growth. Challenging the long-held belief that short-term sales and long-term brand growth require different audience strategies, this finding turns decades of marketing wisdom on its head and offers a new path forward for brands looking to maximize their advertising dollars.
Their research presents compelling evidence that targeting consumers most likely to be influenced by advertising—those neither staunchly loyal nor completely disinterested—yields superior results across all timeframes. This strategy not only drives short-term sales but also cultivates future customers, effectively bridging the gap between performance marketing and brand building.
Key Takeaways
- Movable Middle audiences outperformed traditional targeting strategies by up to 2.6 times in driving account openings within three months of a campaign.
- At 18 months post-campaign, the Movable Middle strategy continued to excel, showing even greater effectiveness in generating new accounts and customers compared to standard approaches.
- The study found that non-buyers are more responsive to advertising where the brand has a higher market share, suggesting that targeting Movable Middles can influence future buyers.
- Implementing a Movable Middle strategy involves a four-step process: identification, audience building, activation, and ongoing refinement.
Why we liked it: Very rarely in the banking industry do we see tactical marketing methodologies like the ones outlined in this report by Ally and TransUnion. It’s another great way to break down marketing tactics based on individualized segments.
Why we didn’t: We didn’t expect this when we read the report. However, it would have been extremely helpful for the authors of the report and Ally to provide context into how much a survey and report of this degree costs. That important detail makes it difficult to provide our banking audiences all the details they need to see these results through themselves.
[nativaeds]
The Science Behind Movable Middles
The concept of Movable Middles, introduced by MMA Global and TransUnion in 2021, represents a segment of consumers who sit between highly loyal customers and those unlikely to choose a brand. These individuals are inclined to switch among a few brands and are particularly responsive to advertising efforts.
Case studies across various industries have consistently shown that Movable Middles outperform both high and low loyalty segments in driving incremental sales per advertising dollar. The performance boost ranges from 2 to 23 times, depending on the brand and category.
Ally Bank, once a smaller player in the financial services sector, put the Movable Middles theory to the test. Using survey data to identify Movable Middles and applying lookalike modeling, Ally constructed two audiences rich in these persuadable consumers.
The results were striking. Three months after the test campaign, these Movable Middle audiences delivered up to 2.6 times more account openings per dollar compared to a broad reach audience. They also outperformed six other common audience strategies, including a 120% higher return than an audience of category buyers, and 250% higher return than a standard demographic-based audience in the financial services sector.
What’s the Long-Term Impact of Defying Expectations?
While the short-term results were impressive, the real surprise came 18 months after the campaign concluded. The Movable Middle audience strategy not only maintained its effectiveness but showed even greater strength in driving both overall sales growth and new customer acquisition.
Sustained sales growth: At the 18-month mark, the Movable Middle audience continued to outperform standard demographic-based audiences, broad reach strategies, and category buyer-focused approaches. The gap in performance had actually widened compared to the three-month results, demonstrating the strategy’s ability to drive sustained growth.
New customer acquisition: Perhaps most importantly for long-term brand health, the Movable Middle audience significantly outpaced other strategies in acquiring new customers per advertising dollar 18 months post-campaign. This finding challenges the notion that broad reach is necessary for long-term brand building and customer acquisition.
This research challenges one of marketing’s most enduring beliefs: that maximizing short-term gains must come at the expense of long-term growth. By focusing on Movable Middles, brands can optimize their marketing spend to drive both immediate sales and sustained customer acquisition.
The findings have significant implications for how brands allocate their marketing budgets and design their audience strategies. It suggests that the traditional divide between performance marketing and brand building may be artificial, and that a more integrated approach focusing on persuadable consumers could yield better results across all timeframes.
For smaller share brands like Ally, with limited marketing budgets compared to competitors, targeting Movable Middles can even the playing field. It allows marketers to squeeze a higher return from advertising dollars, making every campaign more effective.
The Logic Behind the Success
The success of the Movable Middle strategy in both short and long-term scenarios may seem counterintuitive at first glance. However, it makes sense when considering that a brand’s future Movable Middles are likely to resemble its current ones. By designing audiences to reach today’s Movable Middles, marketers are simultaneously priming future buyers to be more receptive to advertising when they’re ready to act.
Additionally, the research revealed that non-buyers are more responsive to advertising from brands with higher market share. This suggests that by targeting audiences rich in Movable Middles — and where the brand is perceived as more prominent — marketers can influence today’s low-loyalty consumers who are most likely to become tomorrow’s Movable Middles.
How did Ally get this breakdown of its audience? Could a bank marketer conduct a similar study of their own consumers?
The study relied on a backbone of over 850,000 households designed to reflect Ally’s total addressable marketing universe, constructed using TransUnion’s identity graph. Ally collected surveys from approximately 10,000 consumers to assess each their likelihood of choosing Ally for their next bank account. Those with 20 to 80% likelihood were classified as Movable Middles.
A 10-week test campaign was run across Ally’s typical media channels without applied targeting. TransUnion monitored exposure to the test campaign and subsequent conversions for approximately 18 months after the campaign. TransUnion then matched these consumers to addressable audiences using its TruAudience® Consumer Insights segmentation framework to identify audiences rich in Movable Middles.
The results revealed a bimodality in Ally’s Movable Middles around older, established adults and retirees (Movable Middle Audience A) and young single adults and new families (Movable Middle Audience B), which respectively allowed for more nuanced targeting and messaging strategies.
How Does One Implement the Movable Middle Strategy?
For marketers looking to adopt this approach, TransUnion and MMA Global outline a four-step process:
Identify your movable middles: Use surveys, shopper panels, or brand tracker studies to capture consumers’ brand preferences within your category.
Build audiences rich in movable middles: Utilize a robust identity graph and segmentation system to match identified Movable Middles to addressable consumer segments.
Activate your movable middles audiences: Distribute these audiences to media partners for targeting, using the same identity graph used in the building process.
Convert and grow: Monitor your brand’s growth over time and periodically repeat the process to adjust your Movable Middle audience definitions as your market share increases.
What Does This Mean for the Future of Targeted Marketing?
While the results from Ally Bank’s study are promising, the researchers acknowledge that this is just the beginning. Additional work is being done to further challenge and expand these findings and applications across different industries and brand scenarios.
The implications of this research extend beyond just targeting. It suggests a need for a more nuanced understanding of consumer behavior and brand relationships. By identifying and focusing on Movable Middles, brands can tailor their messaging and offers to those most likely to respond, potentially leading to more relevant and effective advertising.
The marketing world stands at a crossroads, with the opportunity to embrace a strategy that promises to deliver on both short-term performance and long-term brand building. As more brands experiment with and adopt the Movable Middle approach, it could reshape how we think about audience targeting and the fundamental objectives of marketing campaigns.
Editor’s note: This article was prepared with AI language software and edited for clarity and accuracy by The Financial Brand editorial team.