Perform[cb]’s insights on the financial vertical and it’s growth potential
A well-known fact in the industry, financial and fintech advertiser affiliate marketing budgets are on the rise as more financial brands hop on board with digital marketing opportunities. In fact, according to a recent PMA study¹, financial brands accounted for 35% of total advertiser spend across all major verticals.
With money on everyone’s mind in a hectic 2020, there couldn’t be a better time for financial companies to take advantage of affiliate marketing to acquire new leads, touch untapped audiences, and maximize their ad dollars. Perform[cb] has been working with and guiding fintech marketers in the affiliate space for years, and through that experience has come crucial insight for fintech and financial marketers to know.
Current Fintech Advertiser Players
Whether referred to as the broader financial vertical or as the common industry moniker fintech brands, the majority of financial players in the space are aiming to compete with the way financial services have traditionally been delivered (i.e. through brick and mortar establishments or via manual spreadsheets).
Some sectors of the financial vertical have been around forever, with insurance and credit card advertisers being long-time players. But for the most part, fintech is an industry that’s really started to blossom over the past few years, with advertisers in categories like personal finance, real estate, investing, banking, and lending entering the affiliate marketing space in higher numbers than ever before.
At Perform[cb], we saw the vast potential of the Fintech space when it was only just emerging, leading to what today is one of our largest vertical categories across both our Network and Agency, with a consistent third of our offers being in the Finance category. Our end-to-end affiliate marketplace, and the industry as a whole, is undoubtedly primed to help financial advertisers succeed.
How Financial Marketers Find Growth with Affiliate Marketing
When done well, affiliate marketing can provide financial marketers with numerous benefits that traditional marketing methods cannot. Because of its flexibility, affiliate marketing can help financial marketers reach a plethora of different performance goals, be it increasing revenue, collecting leads, or any other performance-based KPI.
The Perform[cb] affiliate partner team has extensive experience scaling finance and fintech campaigns. By evaluating the quality and KPIs behind affiliate traffic, Perform[cb] has helped financial marketers to not only scale, but excel in the affiliate channel. Given the affiliate marketing process is cyclical, affiliate campaigns need regular optimizations in order to remain relevant and successful. Perform[cb] helps brands evaluate and understand the performance of their campaigns on a granular, individual partner level. With the help of our proprietary tracking platform, PerformLEAP, marketers are able to determine which partners’ performance is aligned with their desired KPIs, such as incrementality, brand standards, and acquisition goals.
Fintech Partners
The affiliate space is one of the few channels in the digital marketing world that offers niche partnerships vertical by vertical. Financial marketers have the ability to work with a variety of partners throughout the buyer’s funnel to promote everything from brand awareness to sign-ups, sales, and installs. By working with a reputable and established Network partner, marketers are able to ensure the affiliates they’re working with align with their brand and conversion goals.
The affiliate channel offers marketers increased agility by drawing from a large pool of affiliate partners to increase consumer engagement throughout the buyer’s funnel. Given affiliate partners are only paid once the marketer’s desired action has been made, affiliates are more motivated than the traditional marketing partner because their earning potential linearly increases as traffic quality and performance rises. Fintech affiliates in particular have a larger job because many financial marketers require bank account linking or the first-time deposit prior to payout. Affiliates with established, relevant audiences within the finance vertical typically provide the most consistent performance, providing marketers with the best traffic and highest conversion rates. The importance of a Network partner rings true here again, as networks maintain strong industry relationships with hundreds, if not thousands, of such affiliate partners.
Learn how Perform[cb] helped Acorns increase affiliate partner diversity and drive 52x more installs in six months!
Fintech Compliance Considerations and Solutions
Although compliance is a popular subject throughout the affiliate marketing space, it is especially important for the fintech industry. FTC and FCA compliance, in addition to brand assurance and fraud protection, are crucial elements of campaign management for financial and fintech marketers because their consumer data is extremely sensitive and personal. A breach of this data is not only bad for the marketer and affiliate, but for the consumers who have entrusted their personal information to that brand.
Perform[cb] maintains a deep understanding of the rules and regulations in all markets that our marketers’ brands are promoted in. In collaboration with our marketers, the Perform[cb] team actively audits and proactively communicates the expectations of all industry compliance standards, such as FTC and FCA regulations, to all affiliate partners prior to every campaign launch. Additionally, Perform[cb] ensures all brand standards and guidelines are enforced by every active affiliate partner.
Finally, Perform[cb]’s internal compliance and fraud protection experts ensure the safety and security of each of our marketers’ campaigns with 24/7 monitoring. Our proprietary anti-fraud technology, PerformSHIELD, employs several rule-based and machine learning algorithms to provide our marketers with the highest level of privacy and protection.
Is your brand well protected from the face of ad fraud? Download our guide Ad Fraud and Compliance: A Guide for Performance Marketers to learn more about Perform[cb]’s practices and procedures to stop ad fraud in its tracks.
Wrapping Up
The affiliate channel has much to offer all marketers, but fintech marketers, in particular, continue to define a niche in the space. In addition to being cost-effective for new user acquisition, affiliate marketing allows marketers and brands to remain agile and adapt to new consumer trends on the fly. By working with a Network partner with vast experience in the vertical, fintech affiliate marketers maintain the ability to control the types of partners that run their campaigns, the content that’s being promoted, and protect themselves from fraud in one fell swoop.
Looking for a trusted Network partner? Perform[cb]’s team of industry experts are here to help you launch and scale your affiliate campaigns. Apply to be a Perform[cb] marketer now!
Sources:
1. https://thepma.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2018-PMA-Performance-Marketing-Survey.pdf