Citibank breaks through noisy credit market and connects with consumers

Financial institutions often waste valuable media spend, focusing on customers unlikely to convert. With this in mind, Citibank challenged Quantcast to drive an uplift in applications across the consumer lending and credit card product suite by reaching only the most likely to convert audience.

Quantcast provided Citibank with a two-pronged approach–upper funnel audience reach coupled with lead-focused direct response. Working with Quantcast, Citibank was able to deliver online video to a niche consumer lending and credit card audience. By algorithmically reaching prospective customers based on the typical browsing behavior preceding searches for category terms (e.g., “best credit cards” or “loan interest rates”), competitor terms (e.g., Chase, Amex), and life stage/purchase terms (e.g., automotive, holiday, home-related terms), Quantcast promoted Citibank to consumers most likely to be receptive to financial product messaging–before they were even in-market. Quantcast also provided on-going messaging to these potential customers, ultimately driving them to action on the Citibank website.

Priming prospects with a video ad followed by direct response display resulted in users 2x more likely to convert than those only shown a direct response display ad, and 5.5x more likely to convert than those only shown online video—ultimately outperforming the CPA goal by 165%.