Synergent Blog

Running a marketing campaign is no easy feat. The sheer volume of data and consideration that goes into everything—from whether or not to include an offer to timing, messaging, tactics, flight length, user journey, and the socioeconomic considerations of the intended audience—is significant. Often, the last thing typically thought of is how to determine if it all worked.

We get it though. We have these conversations every single day. We dissect every element, determine the best path to understanding what worked, and sometimes—more importantly—what didn’t. Don’t worry, we’re not here to gatekeep.

Internal Conversations

Before you even start building out a campaign, ask your leadership and internal stakeholders what success looks like to them. We’re not talking simply, “we need more loans!” or “as many new members as you can get us!” While that’s certainly understood, we’re trying to define the goal we need to try to hit. Does success mean breaking even on marketing costs six months after the campaign ends? Or is it that you’ve onboarded 50 more members per month of the campaign beyond the benchmark for a non-campaign month? It is critical to set this foundation so you can put into place what to measure.

Measurement Favorites

Break-Even: This is typically what expense-sensitive credit unions like to see. (Though who isn’t expense-sensitive anymore!) They want to understand how long we expect it to take to make the money back that was spent on the campaign.

Benchmark: If you haven’t established benchmarks for application submissions, new members, loans, etc., now is the time to do so! This gives you a sense of what is “normal” and what can reasonably be attributed to sales and marketing activity. Don’t just look at one year for this. Try to go back at least three years and get an average for each month and season.

Evaluating Measurement Capabilities

Collaboration across internal teams and trusted partners is critical here! Understand what can be seen in your core for reporting back out. For example, if you’re working on deepening member relationships with an auto loan campaign, determine how you can see who was targeted by the effort and who ultimately opened an auto loan. That way, you can see a pretty clear 1:1 relationship for marketing impact.

If you’re on the prospecting side, leverage tools such as Google Tag Manager or Shopify to add pixels to critical event and application activity. This will help in sending marketing data to the core and back to the advertising platforms, so you’re being as efficient as possible with spend and tracking.

Account Opening Processes: These matter. We can’t say it more plainly than that. If your account opening process (online or in-person) takes more than five minutes, it’s already taking too long and will negatively impact your marketing campaign. It’s frustrating, but it’s also the reality of consumer expectations today. Don’t panic if you’re not there yet, but understand the friction that this can cause, especially for onboarding new members.

The Economy and Your Community

Consumer behaviors change, and the pressure your wallet is feeling at the pump and the grocery store is felt by your members too. Yes, we can absolutely get new loans and new deposit accounts in economic downturns, but there are also times to be mindful of when it may be better to run a campaign. For example, with gas prices going back up, now might not be the best time for a recreational loan campaign.

On that point too—certain products are evergreen. People will always shop for cars, not just on Presidents’ Day. Mortgages are also researched thoroughly year-round as the buying cycle (which includes research) extends out further. Don’t sweat it if you miss the traditional times to be running a campaign. There are great digital tools that will show you when people in your community are more likely to be searching for (and buying) certain products.

Strategizing for marketing campaigns has never been more complex, but there are things that you can do up front to help make the conversation about results easier. Not sure where to start? Give us a shout!