
Sponsored by MDC and Corporate One, Baker Tilly and three select credit unions (Bethpage Federal Credit Union, Alabama Credit Union and Directions Credit Union) conducted a personalization test leveraging third- party data from various social media profiles to enhance existing insights about customer interests and spending habits.
The credit unions wanted to execute the personalization test quickly and optimize metrics. After assessing the digital marketing capabilities of each credit union, email was selected as the marketing channel for the credit unions’ campaigns.
Baker Tilly worked with a third-party data vendor previously selected by the participating credit unions to supplement their respective targeted members and prospects. Working within the data set provided by the third-party data vendor, Baker Tilly identified affinity/ interest segments for each of the credit unions. Individuals were divided into the following affinity/interest segments based on details gathered through their social media profiles and on their strongest affinities, interests and expressed spending habits. Collectively, the participating credit unions saw affinity/interest segments aligned to the following:
The credit unions used existing email campaigns not yet in circulation as their control emails for the personalization test, while variations of the existing email campaigns were developed leveraging the third party vendor data to include personalized subject lines, imagery, email content, and calls to action according to their assigned affinity/interest segment. The credit unions built their campaigns within their own branding and marketing guidelines and executed through their respective marketing automation tools.
Once the campaign were executed, members of the credit union marketing teams monitored and reported back with metrics. When the campaigns ended, the Baker Tilly team created an in-depth analysis of each email and campaign.
* Reduction in performance attributed to invalid A/B testing of subject line, with the control employing pre-approval messaging and the personalized version not maintaining that messaging.
Each credit union was able to see how the third-party data combined with personalization could impact data quality, segmentation efforts, and overall campaign success. The three credit unions concurred that the project:
Each credit union saw the value of using the third-party vendor data to improve their personalization efforts. Moving forward, the three credit unions are committed to:
For more information on this topic, or to learn how Baker Tilly specialists can help, contact our team.