Think Beyond the Clicks: Bank & Credit Union Marketing Demands Holistic KPI Analysis
Financial marketers who steer by early metrics alone risk undermining their campaigns. Here's why a balance of metric types over a range of time periods best enables real-time optimization that achieves long-term strategic goals.
By Erinn Steffen, EVP-Operations Mower
Bank and credit union marketers often focus on immediate, quantifiable metrics like click-through rates, cost per click and conversion rates. But does this really make sense?
Such indicators do provide a quick snapshot of campaign performance. They offer real-time data that is often irresistible. However, overemphasizing these surface-level metrics can obscure a deeper understanding of a campaign’s true effectiveness, especially when it comes to long-term business results.
To genuinely gauge success, financial marketers must adopt a holistic approach to key performance indicators.
The Pitfalls of Singular Focus on Marketing Metrics
Consider this scenario: Your financial institution has launched a digital campaign aimed at attracting new customers for high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit.
As the campaign progresses, you notice that your click-through rate (CTR) is lower than anticipated. Further, the cost per click (CPC) is higher than industry benchmarks. At first glance, these metrics might suggest the campaign is underperforming. Very likely this will raise concerns among stakeholders, leading to pressure to adjust tactics.
However, it’s essential marketers step back and consider the broader picture. Focusing solely on immediate metrics can lead to an incomplete assessment of your campaign’s impact, especially when the true value might emerge further down the funnel.
Uncover the Value Beyond the Initial Metrics
While your CTR might be lower and CPC higher than expected, the customers who do engage with your campaign could be precisely the high-quality prospects you’re hoping for.
These individuals might not only open new high-yield savings accounts or CDs but do so with substantial initial deposits. If the average balance of new high-yield accounts opened through the campaign is considerably higher than your institution’s baseline, this indicates that the campaign is attracting the right customers, even if engagement metrics like CTR are lower.
This point underscores the importance of evaluating all campaign KPIs along the value chain. This includes lagging indicators such as average account balance, customer lifetime value, and retention rates.
Finding Better Understanding of Lagging Performance Indicators
One of the challenges of relying on marketing metrics is that some essential measures often lag initial campaign data. Meaningful measures such as average account balance, customer retention rates, and lifetime value, by definition, are not immediately visible. In fact, they may take weeks, months or longer to come together.
Yet marketers face pressure to optimize campaigns in real-time, especially when significant investments are at stake.
The key is balancing real-time optimization with a long-term perspective.
Monitoring and adjusting campaigns based on immediate feedback from CTR, CPC and conversion rates is crucial. But it’s equally important to keep an eye on the ultimate business outcomes that matter — and to set and agree to what you’re trying to accomplish in the longer term, so all stakeholders are aligned.
This requires developing a robust framework for tracking and analyzing KPIs across the entire customer journey, from the first click to long-term engagement.
Two Paths to Marketing Success Via Metrics
Here are two strategies financial marketers can employ:
Strategy 1: Implement a multi-tiered KPI dashboard. A dashboard that displays both real-time metrics and projected long-term outcomes can help financial institutions achieve this balance. For example:
• Tier 1: Real-time metrics (CTR, CPC, conversion rates). These are the ones you measure in comparison with other campaigns and industry benchmarks to put ongoing performance in perspective.
Action: You might aim to achieve a CTR of 2.5% and a conversion rate of 5%.
• Tier 2: Short-term outcomes (account openings, initial deposit amounts). These are the early indicators that tie your campaign to business performance.
Action: You might set your goal as maintaining an average initial deposit of $10,000 for new accounts.
• Tier 3: Projected long-term outcomes (estimated customer lifetime value, projected retention rates). These are the indicators you watch over time, and leverage for deeper analysis.
Action: You might set your goal to achieve a 75% retention rate after 12 months.
You could take this a step further by aligning with stakeholders on the allowable variation with each KPI — with a range, you can decide the minimum and maximum values that would trigger action in your marketing activities.
Strategy 2: Develop predictive models. Use historical data to create models that predict long-term outcomes based on early indicators.
For instance, a model might show that customers who engage with educational content within the first month are 30% more likely to maintain higher account balances over time. This allows for more informed decision-making even when working with real-time data. In addition, it allows marketers to make quick adjustments based on immediate data — while keeping the bigger picture in view.
Keeping Metrics Aligned with Business Goals
Ultimately, the goal of any marketing campaign is to drive meaningful results. For financial products like high-yield savings and CDs, this means attracting customers who not only open accounts but also make substantial deposits and remain engaged over time. By considering all KPIs along the value chain, financial marketers can ensure their campaigns align with broader business objectives, such as customer acquisition, profitability and long-term retention.
This comprehensive approach enables more strategic decisions about resource allocation and campaign optimization.
For example, if a particular channel drives high-value customers despite lower engagement metrics, investing more heavily in that channel could be beneficial.
Conversely, if a campaign attracts a large number of low-value customers, refining targeting or messaging may better align the campaign with your desired audience.
Real-Time Optimization Meets Long-Term Strategy
Financial marketers must navigate carefully the tension between real-time optimization and long-term strategic goals.
While it’s important to adjust campaigns based on immediate feedback, keeping an eye on the bigger picture is equally critical. This means setting up systems and processes that allow you to track and analyze a wide range of KPIs, both immediate and lagging, to ensure that your campaigns deliver results.
In the complex world of bank and credit union marketing, where stakes are high and margins for error slim, adopting a holistic approach to KPI analysis is essential. By looking at all metrics along the value chain — from CTRs to customer lifetime value—you can ensure that your campaigns are truly driving the results that matter most to your business.
