This document discusses how Smart Zones, an online advertising platform, provides targeted advertising for financial services companies. It describes several case studies of Smart Zones campaigns for credit cards, banking services, brokerages, and credit unions that achieved click-through rates well above industry averages, with lifts of up to 133%. Smart Zones uses predictive modeling of household demographic and financial data to identify and target qualified audiences at scale across devices, without using cookies which limits targeting accuracy and reach.
1. Financial Performance of Smart Zones
American Express Fidelity
Associated Bank Summit Federal Credit Union
CITI Northwest Savings
City National E*Trade
Bank of America Chase
Financial Services companies are active advertisers across multiple platforms – print, television, radio,
and the Internet. With over 85% of households online, financial services advertising budgets have
moved aggressively online in part because the favorable cost of digital over print and broadcast. When
it comes to reaching a large qualified audience, online advertising is proving to be a key tactic. For
national bankers the challenge they face is how to balance scale with targeting. For the local credit
union it is reaching qualified households in the right trade area markets with the right product
offering while controlling cost.
Any online strategy of identifying qualified target individuals and households at scale also involves
being present on multiple devices – PC’s, smart phones and tablets so that when the consumer is ready
for a home mortgage, a line of credit or personal banking services their brand is front and center.
The Right Audience
Identifying the right consumers for each financial product is best defined by the consumers who have
an invested in that product. They exhibit certain qualities related to affluence, home ownership, age,
education and any number of other attributes. These factors are often similar, but not identical. In
order to reach the maximum qualified audience it is best to mathematically measure through
Predictive Modeling these attributes and score all the potential households. Financial services
organizations can then balance the scores against the desired reach.
Scale
One of the challenges in national and local financial marketing is that the current targeting methods
using cookies are only able to identify one out of three active unique Internet users at any given time.
The reason - with more consumers concerned about privacy over 50% of users now knowingly or
unknowingly blocking cookie placements on their browsers. Those users that do allow cookies often
have many cookies assigned to them which according to Yahoo is an average of 12 cookies for every
unique user. In addition, more people are going online with tablets and mobile devices – most don’t
support 3rd party cookies at all. Logically selecting an audience using cookies would leave bankers
with an audience of unique users that could be as low as 30% of households.
In Financial Services access to Unique Users is the key. Smart Zones is not based on cookies or
tracking of any kind. It is also device independent – desktop, cell phone, tablets, radio – all are
available for any selected audience. Smart Zones is like Micro-Targeted Broadcast Online – we do
Audience Targeting through Real-Time Bidding so the cost is always within your control. Each Smart
2. Zone is also supported by predictive modeling and robust selection of known households with known
audience profiles. There is also no duplication of users from cookies or any wasted impressions.
Smart Zones is a relatively new entry in the online advertising field but it has already been tested and
is being used by many of the top brands in retail. Some of these recent campaigns tell the story:
Top Premium Credit Card
121.5 MM Impressions
60 - Days
357.6 K click through events
CTR Rate – .294%
Industry Avg. for Financial Services .15%
Lift – 96%
Unique Value Proposition: For the premium credit card vendors the value of a new credit card holder
is measured in the thousands of dollars. This market, however, is well served by a variety of vendors
and in order to be successful the offer has to be compelling and the audience outreach has to be
prequalified for their affluence profile. Using Semcasting Automated Predictive Modeling capabilities
the audience was identified by score across the top 18% of households who were home owners with
incomes over $150K and who were of a favorable age and family composition. Using this scoring
methodology we increased the pool of unique users and converted them to anonymous Smart Zones
for targeting using real-time bidding. The advertiser received their reach goals across multiple
platforms including tablets ad mobile with excellent lift versus industry averages.
Top Private Banking Services
58.3 MM Impressions
60 Days
203.6 K click through events
CTR - .349%
Industry Avg. Financial Services - .15%
Lift – 133%
Unique Value Proposition: Private Banking Services is targeted at households where there is evidence
of emerging affluence and high discretionary income. Using the Semcasting proprietary data on home
ownership and affluence the advertiser was seeking owners whose homes were in the top 10% of the
each local market in value and where those owners had purchased the property more than five years
ago. In addition the advertiser was looking for incomes in the top 5% of the local market. The key
differentiator for Smart Zones was the ability to identify households in the local market. The reason –
is to identify higher discretionary incomes by offsetting the cost of living for certain values and
incomes – like New York or California versus Ohio or Tennessee. Using Semcasting data we were able
to identify neighborhoods of home owners by market value, purchase date, age of home as well as
rank them by discretionary income. We then converted these offline audiences to Smart Zones
prioritizing the highest ranking discretionary income households in neighborhoods that met the
criteria.
3. Top Two Retail Brokerage Firms
122.4 MM Impressions
90 days
386.4 K click through events
CTR - .315%
Industry Financial - .15%
Lift – 97.9%
Unique Value Proposition: Retail Brokerage firms advertise online in order to attract self-directed
investors who have investable assets and who are looking for potential deals. The advertising of the
brand is also important because there is historically a great deal of client churn in the retail brokerage
market. Using Semcasting automated predictive modeling we were able to identify the right
combination of age, income and invested assets that fit the profile of these two retail brokerage firms.
For one it was higher net worth and for the other it was younger professionals with more aggressive
trading tendencies. Scoring these audiences the advertisers were able to maximize the targeted reach
and meet their ROI goals.
Top Three Regional Credit Unions
25.8 MM Impressions
60 days
30.1 K click through events
CTR - .12%
Industry Local Retail - .09%
Lift – 33%
Unique Value Proposition: Credit Unions have specific goals and objectives for online campaigns. The
first is to drive audience engagement of the brand in the local marketplace. The purpose – to be
identified within the local market as a resource for loan services with buying a car, home equity lines
of credit or refinancing a home. Trade are targeting was used by Semcasting with Smart Zones in
order to identify the neighborhoods that would be the best possible mix for the advertisers in terms of
long term deal flow. This involved targeting in the middle of the affluence marketplace and within
households that were viewed as financially balanced but without being overly established. Smart
Zones successfully reached the maximum qualified target households at a neighborhood level.
In Financial Services it is all about creating maximum access or reach to the qualified Unique Users.
Connecting with them with the appropriate offer for their level of affluence and life style is critical.
Across nearly 450 Financial Services campaigns in the last six months Smart Zones has delivered over
765 million real-time impressions.
The industry average click through and engagement rates for Online Financial Services campaigns was
reported at .15% - according to a 2013 Annual Mediamind study.
Over the last six month Smart Zones Targeting solution has generated 2.2 million click through events
at an overall rate of .294%. The performance of Smart Zones in Financial Services has delivered an
average of over 96% lift in the category.
4. The Smart Zones – Semcasting Positioning
We Know Data Better than Anyone Else
We build audiences that exist in the real world as households and business
establishments. With coverage of 250 million people, 18 million businesses, and over
750 known attributes for each home, nothing is inferred or projected as it is with a 3rd
party cookie. Once you select your audience offline – we use Smart Zones to instantly
convert that audience to online with 100% reach and no onboarding charges.
We Can Reach Everyone Whenever & Wherever they are Online
We are device independent – desktop, cell phone, tablets, radio – all are available for
the same audience. Smart Zones is like Micro-Targeted Broadcast Online – we reach
everyone on any device with no guessing, duplication from cookies, or any wasted
impressions.
Transparency: We have done it before – You will know exactly what you are buying and who
you are reaching. You are in control.
We’ve completed over 2,500 campaigns for hundreds of top brands in virtually every
category in the last year. Smart Zone results speak for themselves with an average of
over 125% lift over conventional online targeting techniques. Integrated free profile
reporting with multi-variable targeting you always know the location, demographics,
and media affiliation score of every audience segment before the campaign starts. At
the end of the campaign you get full reporting and attribution so you know what
worked for next time.
Smart Zones is like Direct Mail or Micro-Targeted Broadcast Online
How it Works..
1. BIG DATA
The best campaigns start by matching your customer to the audience. With Smart Zones you
are able to reach every household and every business that you want to target. We build
audiences from a database of over 250 million people and 15 million businesses. You can even
automatically match to your CRM platform or log files from website visitors. We link online
and offline automatically.
2. REAL PEOPLE & FREE PROFILES
Like Direct Mail or TV we use location, demographic, psychographic and predictive models to
narrow your audience to just the prospects that meet your goals – you do this based on real
people so everyone you target is identifiable by name and address and multiple variables all
summarized in FREE Profile Reports.
5. 3. FLEXIBLE SELECTION
You finalize your prospect list by selection criteria or by predictive models based on response
or conversion rankings. You can select by age, income, and political views. Like direct mail
any combination of selection criteria can be applied. You can even suppress current customers
or select businesses by revenue and NAICS code.
4. 100% OFFLINE TO ONLINE CONVERSION
You can convert prospects into online audiences through Smart Zones without any onboarding
fees or any use of cookies. It identifies homes or businesses – even schools, hospitals and
coffee shops. Home addresses become Smart Zones with 2 to 15 households. Businesses are
often targetable at a rooftop level. It automatically generates segments by user type and
rankings.
5. AUDIENCE VALIDATION & ROI METRICS
Once converted to Smart Zones you audience can be profiled again by segment. These reports
will confirm the count of unique users you will reach and allow you to build your ROI case. You
build segments by affluence, ethnicity, device type, site category or any one of dozens of
variables. We automatically generate a “white list” of recommended media sites. We can
execute and optimize your campaign as part of our turn-key managed services or we can
transfer the Smart Zone audience to your existing DSP.
6. MAXIMUM REACH & TRANSPARENCY
Smart Zone’s unique technology was designed to provide maximum qualified reach. It uses the
same methodology of audience building that direct marketers have been using for years. No
more cookies and no more inferred interests or guessing! And because there is no use of
cookies there is no possibility of over serving or duplication of impressions. Finally - Smart
Zones is device independent – PC, laptop, tablet or cell – it is all the same, and all available, on
Smart Zones.