Overview
Cost-per-lead (CPL) is a common performance benchmark in digital marketing, but it doesn’t always tell the full story. At TAB Bank, I discovered that our lowest-CPL channel (Facebook) for a B2C deposit product was also delivering the highest rate of low-quality and auto-declined applications. Relying solely on cost-based metrics was obscuring inefficiencies in our acquisition strategy.
My Role
As AVP of Marketing, I was responsible for supporting and monitoring the deposit acquisition campaigns developed by TAB’s Growth Marketing Manager and acting as a cross-functional partner to leaders within the Deposit group.
What I Did
- Integrated customer data from the bank’s Core with marketing data from Google Analytics through a first-party cookie and tracking ID captured within the online application.
- Coordinated with Business Intelligence to create a full-funnel customer journey report in Tableau to show funded, unfunded, and declined applications by marketing channel.
- Identified that Facebook ads generated the highest volume of leads but also had the highest rate of applications flagged for fraud, missing information, or auto-decline.
- Compared cost-per-application submitted vs. cost-per-funded account to revealing that Facebook’s low upfront costs were masking poor ROI.
- Recommended a diversified media strategy—limiting the rate at which Facebook Ads were scaled in order to test additional channels with potential for higher lead quality.
Impact
- Enabled the marketing team to move from volume-based optimization to quality-based optimization, improving downstream lead performance.
- Secured budget for testing alternate channels—such as local billboards and a regional Super Bowl ad—which increased application volume by nearly 20% in the target locations.
- Avoided over-investment in poor-quality leads and maintained auto-decline rates within the target range for the product line.
Tools & Skills
- Google Analytics + Tag Manager
- Paid and traditional media(Facebook Ads, billboards, TV)
- Marketing attribution modeling
- Campaign analysis & stakeholder reporting (Tableau)
- Conversion quality analysis