Improve Financial Customer Retention with Remarketing Campaigns

Perhaps you’re familiar with the marketing adage that acquiring a new customer costs more than retaining an existing one. And as we enter the fourth quarter of 2020, this rings as true as ever. Although optimism among the American general population has increased since the beginning of the pandemic, customer spending still remains low.

According to McKinsey, the consumer sentiment during the pandemic has led to five fundamental shifts, including a shock to loyalty. With pressures on household income, consumers are trying new brands and channels and seeking value and convenience. In fact, 73% of US consumers have changed stores, brands, or the way they shop.

As financial marketers who keep a close eye on ROI, this stat may be alarming (but perhaps not surprising). What this suggests is that customer retention may be one of the most important marketing tactics for businesses to focus on as we close out the year.

Customer retention vs. acquisition.

We get it. New customers may provide instant gratification. They validate our efforts and prove that investments have paid off. Plus, the success of many marketing teams is measured by their lead generation efforts, with common KPIs centering around impressions, reach, and click-through-rates (CTRs). But sometimes, the best opportunities are right in front of you.

If you aren’t focused on current customers, you’re leaving money on the table. Cross-selling is the technique of selling related products or services to existing customers. And in this market, it may be the quickest, most profitable avenue to incremental revenue growth. Cross-selling can improve a customer’s lifetime value, increase average order value, and boost your revenue. And it enables financial marketers to make the most of existing data. Let’s review.

Cross-sell relevant products through remarketing.

Remarketing campaigns across the Google Display Network—a group of more than two million websites, videos, and apps that reaches more than 90% of internet users worldwide—are based on the concept of delivering curated, separate messaging for customers and non-customers to ensure users are seeing the most relevant information.

Remarketing helps your financial marketing team to reach prospects who have converted on (or visited) your site in the past and are more likely to be interested in a similar product (or new product) you’re promoting. It leverages data you already have and allows you to market to prospects that actually have expressed interest in your product or service.

Sales cycles for loans and mortgages are longer than many other consumer products. However, through remarketing, you can cross-sell products to consumers who express interest across different product lines. Let’s say you have a current customer with a household income of $125,000 that has a credit card with your financial institution. And let’s say this customer has been shopping online for a new car. Through remarketing, your team can tie that customer intent (such as a search for “Honda CRV reviews” or “auto loans”) with prior demographic data.

Instead of serving ads to everyone under the sun, remarketing enables your team to deliver keyword-targeted ads to prospective buyers who have already done business with your bank and—in this scenario—express interest in financing a new vehicle. Basically, remarketing provides marketers the opportunity to personalize and customize conversations across devices.

Analyze and segment your customers.

We’ve written extensively about the benefits of data in financial marketing. From improving decision making, to better understanding your customers, banks that make the most of their data are set up to succeed. Smart financial marketers are able to use customer data to analyze the demographics, goals, and buying patterns of current customers, including:

• What campaigns inspired a purchase from your customers in the first place?
• What products did they purchase—and what messaging inspired them to do so?

Remarketing enables you to reach prospects who have not only visited your site but are more likely to buy a product (or additional product) by relying on data you already have. Understanding the behavior of your customers also sets the stage for cross-selling campaigns. Once you’ve culled through the data, it’s important to organize customers into segmented lists.

Make the most of your financial data.

Segmenting remarketing lists by behavior helps create even more targeted campaigns. It helps illustrate which customers are interested in which products. And it helps banks compare real-life behavior against the customer lifecycle. These highly targeted lists will be based on real customer data—so you can create and send personalized campaigns around each persona.

This has become especially important as we experience market fluctuations, economic downturns, and global instability. As competition ramps up—and consumer spending continues to flounder—paid marketing tactics like remarketing get you in front of paying customers that are most likely to benefit from your products.

Need help making the most of your paid search strategies? A digital marketing agency can help you incorporate remarketing tactics across your financial team. Contact Workshop Digital to learn more.