How Axix Bank Achieved a 5% incremental lift in new accounts through Facebook Marketing?

Read this case study to know how Axix Bank achieved a 5% incremental lift in new accounts through Facebook Marketing.

Sneak Peak:

Brand: Axis Bank

Industry: Banking

Tools Employed: Facebook Marketing

Outcome: 5% incremental lift in new accounts

Business Type: B2C/ B2B

The Brand

One of India’s most trusted banks; Axis Bank is third-largest of the private-sector banks in India. Headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, the bank offers a comprehensive suite of financial products. As reported on 25th March 2019, the bank has 4000 branches.

The bank aims to become India’s preferred financial solutions provider by standing out in delivering banking services through insight, empowered employees and the smart use of technology.

The Story

With an objective of generating awareness of its new digital savings account and increase new account opening, Axis Bank collaborated with digital marketing agency Performics.Convonix and employed Facebook marketing. The bank ran 2 simultaneous Facebook ad campaigns for boosting the account openings. As a result, Facebook campaign successfully earned new customers for the bank and drove up the account openings.

The Objective – Speeding up account openings

Axis Bank wanted to generate awareness of its new digital savings account, Axis ASAP among a wider audience and encourage more people to register for account opening. .

The Implementation – Running Two Campaigns Together

Axis Bank had already tasted success through Facebook marketing before however this time they turned to the social networking platform to generate awareness and open new accounts for Axis ASAP. With an objective to beat the challenge of audience saturation, this time the bank wanted to reach out to more prospects bringing in better returns on investment.

To achieve their goals the bank collaborated with digital marketing agency Performics.Convonix that used a “full-funnel” strategy for running ad campaigns. They approached solution by running multiple campaigns simultaneously, either in sequence or in parallel guiding the potential customers from product discovery to purchase intent to finally the conversions. Of the 2 campaigns that the team ran, one targeted brand awareness for product discovery by the prospects and the other targeted conversions & new account openings.

Awareness Campaign

The awareness campaign ran by them included video ads that presented the key features and benefits of the product to the audience. The ads were displayed keeping Facebook’s best practices for mobile video in mind i.e. they kept the ad short & crisp. The ad communicated the brand & message in its first few seconds. Superimposed texts were added to the videos so that the viewers could understand the message even if they watch it without sound.

The bank made use of reach & frequency buying in order to make sure that the ads were served often enough to potential customers to have an impact. The team set the reach at 40% and frequency at 8 times during the campaign period. The bank launched the ad sequence with the most lucrative offer and presented the videos in Facebook News Feed as well as in Instagram Stories.

Conversion Campaign

The conversion campaign ran by the team included building audience by using information from the Facebook pixel installed on Axis Bank’s website. Then, Custom Audiences of people who had already engaged with the awareness ads was created and targeted by them and based on it lookalike audiences was also used for reaching more potential customers.

Axis Bank then ran a range of News Feed-friendly photo & video ads in carousel format to both – Custom Audiences & Lookalike Audiences, presenting the various benefits of the product. All of their ads contained a clear call to action to compel the potential customers to visit the bank’s website and open an account.

For both campaigns, the Bank used automatic placements for running ads across Facebook and Instagram.

Products used

  • Carousel – for showing multiple images or videos in a single ad
  • Photo ads – for inspiring the audience with photo ads
  • Video ads – for capturing the attention of potential customers with engaging video ads
  • Custom Audiences – for reaching the customers & contacts on Facebook page
  • Lookalike Audiences – for finding consumers who are similar to the customers & contacts on facebook page
  • Facebook pixel – for measuring the activity and conversions for the ads

The Outcome – Amplified ROI

The full-funnel Facebook campaign for Axis Bank’s could effectively earn new customers for the bank and drove up account openings.

Highlights of the campaign that ran between May 9–June 9, 2018:

  • 5% incremental lift in new account openings with brand campaign
  • 4% lift in purchase intent from audiences reached by the brand campaign
  • 83% incremental reach over performance ads that had been running for the previous 6 months

Words by Manu Monga, Vice President, Digital Product, Portfolio and Marketing, Axis Bank

“Facebook demonstrated through measurement that its platform is able to deliver full-funnel impact for our business, from driving consideration and intent, to getting accounts opened for Axis ASAP. This approach also helped us to grow demand from newer audiences and thereby augment the campaign’s performance.”

Words by Arjun Sood, Associate Director, Performics.Convonix

“Facebook’s unique capability to address the entire marketing funnel was key to the success of our campaign. It gave us the power to seamlessly strategise our marketing campaigns all the way from generating brand awareness down to obtaining last-mile account opens, all while maintaining greater efficiencies given the prowess of its algorithms.”