N26: Aligning the Message and the Medium

How was the messaging on the marketing channels different across channel and user?

There are some channels that are more relevant for the beginning of your marketing funnel, which is the lead generation part. The most classic example is display. These are the banners that you see on a website, like a publisher, your favorite sports website. I might be technical now, but there are two types of display. You can just show it to whoever goes on the website. You show it to whoever is on the other side. There is also programmatic display, which is the classic thing, how is it possible that Amazon is showing me that shoe that I looked at yesterday and it’s still following me, on another website. That’s different, of course; that’s called remarketing.

As a lead generation, you can really see it as the first beginning of your interaction with a client. As I said, display but, as well, simply on Google Ads, if someone is looking for a bank account, they don’t know you, but they write, ‘open bank account online’ and then you beat on that keyword. So for the first time, they will see N26, bank account, online. You need to increase that part, as much as possible, in a very efficient way, because that’s the beginning of the fun. But not everyone that sees you will really be interested in you. Those type of messages are much more broad. We are a bank, because they don’t even know what N26 is. Instead of going into the fact that we offer best rates – best rates of what? They need to understand, first of all, what we are talking about. That’s the first layer and the messages are bit more brand like; brand awareness that you might create.

The second one is nurturing. You may, already, have collected the email of the customer because they visited you or they gave you their phone number, so you might send them newsletters, which are more informative. How do you even open the bank account? The response is very detailed. Or why are we better for foreign transactions, when you travel? You give them the information required for making a decision. This can be done, as well, through campaigns, even on social media, because you have a bit more space, especially on Facebook. At the time, Facebook was much more used and much more relevant than it is now, where there is also Instagram that is quite strong. It was pre-Cambridge Analytica. Also, you were able to do many more things with Facebook itself, but it got restricted, so that is a different type of message.

As a third one, it’s really just someone that is already really interested in a bank account and, the most classic one, it’s in the comparator websites. It’s a mix of being very informative, because they want to compare you with the other bank accounts, but you just show there, this is the price, this is what you have to do. Click and then you go on the onboarding. Usually, these are the most expensive channels, as well. These clients, that have already made up their mind, at least in their intention. They want to open a bank account.