Akbank’s business covers consumer, commercial, SME, corporate, international and private banking, as well as corporate investment, payment systems, treasury transactions and insurance agency operations. Knowing that every visitor to their app or website is searching for a specific banking need to be fulfilled, Akbank was looking for a way to be able target the most qualified audiences for their credit card.
About Akbank
Founded in 1948
More than 900 branches
Headquarters in Istanbul
Goal
Drive credit card applications
Approach
Adopted in-market audience lists
Served display ads to consumers likely to be interested in a new credit card
Results
10.7 million clicks
2.9 billion impressions
278,192 successful credit card leads
Campaigns using custom in-market audience lists produced 33% of total credit card leads at 12% better cost per lead than other credit card display campaigns in same period
Campaigns using custom in-market audience lists achieved 117% better cost per acquisition and higher conversion rate than other credit card display campaigns in same period
“Thanks to our new credit card application process, we are able to convert non-customers into customers more easily”, explains Oktay, Vice President Digital Marketing and Sales, Akbank A.S. “Nowadays, a new credit card prospect can apply for a Akbank credit card online, and then become a customer without contacting with Akbank call centre agents.”
With these capabilities in place, it made sense to promote Akbank’s various credit card products through digital marketing channels. The marketing team was looking for tools that could help Akbank reach people based on their specific interests as they browsed online.
Google’s custom in-market audiences enabled Akbank to define and reach audiences who were researching and actively considering products like their credit cards. The Akbank team entered keywords or URLs that best represented their audience, and then AdWords created a list of users that showed signs of intent in the product described by the inputs. The keywords allowed AdWords to have a focal point, while the URLs provided additional keywords to build a complete audience. In this way, Akbank was able to focus on getting conversions from likely buyers, serve relevant display ads to these users and drive performance.
“By leveraging custom in-market targeting, we managed to get the most valuable leads with the lowest cost compared to any other network.”
– Oktay Kalem, Vice President, Digital Marketing and Sales, Akbank A.S.
During a 12-month period, Akbank’s campaigns using custom in-market audience lists achieved more than 10.7 million clicks and 2.9 billion impressions, and produced 278,192 successful credit card leads. The custom in-market campaign contributed 33% of the total credit card leads at 12% better cost per lead than all other credit card display campaigns that ran in the same period. “So far the results are astonishing!” Oktay Kalem says. “Compared with the other campaigns with the same objective of obtaining new credit card customers, we got better 117% cost per acquisition and a higher conversion rate.”
Akbank is enthusiastic about the new approach. “We managed to pinpoint the turning point to maximise our sales while holding the cost per conversion at the minimum level”, Tolga Kuzdere, Performance Marketing Manager says. “This supported us in finding out the most lucrative channels for selling credit cards. Using custom in-market audience lists has helped us to find new customers to the bank and convert them as customers.”
