The year 2020 was marked by the explosive growth of the fintech industry and fintech applications. Mandatory restrictive measures worldwide locked people at their homes without being given access to banks, shopping malls and other public accommodations. This forced private companies and retailers to seek new contactless payment solutions, thereby benefiting multiple players in the fintech sector.
Since the advent of the Internet, the financial technologies have become ever-growing, which means a very high competition level. The digital space is replete with different fintech services already offering their products to online customers, so many startups in the field have to address efficient marketing campaigns to get a share of the market. This is evidenced by the most experienced internet marketing entrepreneurs including Denis Lagutenko, 35, founder of AdsProfit digital agency and ADSbase integrated communications agency and prominent Instagram blogger. According to Lagutenko, fintech and e-commerce are exactly the most evolving and promising verticals in terms of marketing potential.
The need for large-scale creative campaigns has led to the increase of marketing, creative, and PR departments along with the increase of advertising budgets. What is even more important, a full digitization of former offline businesses has required to redefine target audiences with a notable change in long-term marketing strategies. And, in the case of fintech, the main secret of attracting a loyal clientele was moving all the familiar operations to mobile applications.
Currently, most mobile installs in the USA go for trading apps, such as Acorns, Gatsby, and Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD). The data from analytical portal Adjust reveals that fintech app sessions have shown an impressive 85% surge throughout the past year. Moreover, they almost doubled from 2020 to July 1, 2021 as well. Fintech apps have great retention rates with the highest percent of returning users: 18% initiate another session on the seventh day and 12% - on the twelfth day. Lagutenko notes that fintech clients, in general, are more loyal than any other customer segments as they are usually reluctant to constantly look for better and more innovative choices. If a user is absolutely okay with his fintech app, he enjoys it on a regular basis.
How affiliate marketing works for fintech
The fintech niche implies a few sub-verticals, such as banking, trading, crypto, etc. The ways of attracting loyal customers are different for each of sub-verticals, as, for example, banking apps are totally distinct from trading or payment services. Digital banking app users, for example, are less likely to open them more than once a day similar to how it happens with social networks and messengers. But it’s a safe bet to assume that trading app users will check their portfolio and make trades quite often.
Thus, Denis highlights that those fintech companies that determine the right target audience, receive users with a high lifetime value (LTV) who will permanently interact with their products and pay for them.
At the stage of building up the base of users whose LTV will eventually start to pay off all investment, the return on the product may fluctuate significantly. But following the effective cost per install (eCPI) will help suggest at what point each new user will be turning profits and will give a proper understanding of what companies should invest in and how risk-adverse they can be. It works for every vertical but when it comes to the fintech apps, its in-built monetization models and loyal clientele enable them to initiate much bolder experiments.
Yet, the client’s experience is also important and necessary to take into account when making decisions on how to stay competitive. If users don’t want to return to the financial app, the problem lay at the introduction stage and, subsequently, causes the lack of motivation to launch the given app once again. In this regard, fintech projects should pay attention to the content sufficiency and identify whether the ongoing offers and campaigns work properly for new clients.
The prospects of affiliate marketing in fintech sectorALLY
A popular crypto investment platform StormGain and Libertex forex broker for online trading are two other largest brands of long life spans that collaborate with affiliate marketing networks.
The same is true for the largest Europe-based fintech Revolut. Being the EU’s most prominent digital bank, with the total value of the company estimated at 5 billion euro, it also creates affiliate marketing programs from time to time, rounding up a vast number of specialists with a decent sized online presence who are willing to promote its services.
Lagutenko talks about social media influencers, for whom affiliate marketing has become an important source of income. As a rule, they serve as providers linking users to the app and get rewarded once a potential client registers and performs a certain act in it. Unlike other verticals, where influencers usually receive a percentage of the profits, fintech companies prefer using fixed rates. Citing the recent investigation from Business Insider on how much online brokers pay to the fintech opinion leaders, Denis discloses that the basic cost per acquisition ranges between $5 (Acorns) to $100 for each made deposit of minimum $1000 (M1 Finance). According to various sources, commissions may even reach $1000.
And nonetheless, fintech companies may, of course, benefit much more from the affiliate marketing expertise and communication channels: top financial websites, influencers, etc. Combined with each other, these industries create some sort of synergy, whereby the fintechs can considerably save on boosting their promotion and marketers have more opportunities to reach an entirely new level of income.
Both fintech and affiliate marketing will keep expanding: spending in an app store on the former is projected to increase by 92%, whereas in the USA alone spending in the latter is expected to hit $8.2 billion in 2022.