Marketing ROI is becoming a lead metric at ME Bank
Bank of Queensland Group GM for Retail Marketing, Melody Townsend, is using sharper insight from marketing ROI to redefine ME Bank’s marketing strategy. Since working with Mutinex GrowthOS, ME Bank is now moving away from lowest cost per acquisition as a metric altogether. As a result, the team are finding much richer value.
Quantifying marketing return on investment, or MROI, has traditionally been hit and miss. But now marketers are using dynamic econometric platforms like Mutinex GrowthOS to show CEOs and CFOs that marketing investments are driving business results. And to spell out the declines that would occur if they were to cut marketing budgets.
“There was a focus on acquisition volumes and cost. But that is actually not the right metric, because trying to drive the lowest cost per acquisition does not result in the best customer quality,” says Townsend.
“Instead, let’s focus on the ROI we’re trying to generate and optimise towards that. It may mean that we’re spending more to acquire a customer – but the quality and longevity of that customer is going to mean more to the business.”
Finding alignment with finance
Townsend anticipated “pushback” from the finance department when she presented the need to change tack and realign targets.
“I thought they would say ‘no, that is the number we agreed at the beginning of the year’. But the conversation about bringing in quality customers – albeit fewer of them – has been extremely well received,” adds Townsend.
Has it worked?
“A home loan customer is a multiyear [proposition], so we’ll need more time to prove that out,” she says. “But the early indications across our everyday transaction and online savings accounts suggest that is certainly holding true.”
Meanwhile, digital marketers are losing the ability to track people using cookies and online identifiers are being removed by platforms and regulators. So the ability to perform faster media mix modelling is rapidly climbing the CMO agenda.
As seen in Mi3
