Barclays Bank Kenya’s Universal App campaigns cut cost per install by 73% and grow conversion rate by 31%
ABOUT
About Barclays Bank of Kenya Financial services Operating in Kenya for more than 100 years Headquarters in Nairobi
Goals
Create awareness of Timiza
Drive downloads
Approach
Activated Universal App campaigns
Results
73% lower cost per install
31% higher conversion rate
Reached downloads target in five months, using only 46% of allocated budget
Developed by Barclays Bank Kenya together with Craft Silicon and Safaricom, the Timiza app gives people access to fast unsecured loans. Users can also use Timiza to pay bills, buy mobile minutes, deposit and save money, and get insurance cover. With the app available to both Barclays Bank customers and non-customers in Kenya, the bank needed to create awareness of the Timiza platform and drive downloads.
The Barclays Bank team and their advertising agency Squad Digital set a target to achieve 750,000 downloads of the app from all channels over the course of 2018. In March, they adopted Universal App campaigns for installs, aiming to gain 70% of the targeted installs – or 525,000 downloads – from the channel within 10 months.
Rather than designing individual ads, Barclays Bank and Squad Digital simply designated the languages and locations for their ads, and supplied ad text ideas, a starting bid and budget. Together with assets from Timiza’s app's store listing, Universal App campaigns generated a variety of ads across formats and networks. The system tested different combinations to show ads likely to give the best performance while automating both targeting and bidding.
By using the Google Ads SDK, the team found that Universal App campaigns recorded a 73% lower cost per install and a 31% higher conversion rate compared to other channels. But the success went further – Barclays Bank Kenya reached the targeted number of downloads in only five months, with 54% of allocated budget remaining.
“We were able to surpass our annual target within five months of the campaign launch, and have now increased the annual target as well as rolling out a drive to grow repeat usage from existing users.” – Andrew Mwithiga, Head of Timiza, Barclays Bank of Kenya
“I believe that combining a great app and strong selling proposition with an exceptional app install campaign – managed by our agency team working closely with the team at Google – led to our success.” – Alex Muriu, Digital Manager, Barclays Bank Kenya
“Timiza is the fastest growing virtual banking app in Kenya. I could not be more proud of the team and our partners.” – Caroline Ndung’u, Marketing Director, Barclays Bank Kenya
The results have propelled the team to roll out a new Universal App Campaign to increase repeat usage among existing users, and they’re also exploring the TrueView for Action format to drive further app installs through YouTube.
