Intelligent Creative in Action

Atlanticus, a provider of financial solutions to the consumer credit market, successfully uses direct mail to promote their credit cards. They recently entered the digital advertising space to market their cards using an ITA (invitation to apply) process for new customer acquisition. To further refine their digital marketing strategy and determine if this channel is viable for customer acquisition, they partnered with d.trio to develop a benchmarking test using controlled programmatic digital ads.

We started by using our consumer intelligence platform to research and create a target audience segment using first-party data and AI-enhanced learning. The criteria included known cardholder attributes (age and self-reported income and credit status) and intent (likelihood of applying in the next 12 months). Then, we used the behavioral and attitudinal data about this audience segment to develop intelligent creative that spoke to their beliefs and preferences.

Finally, we selected the Denver, CO geographic region to conduct a one-month test based on density of the targeted audience in that region, opportunity for multiple exposures across devices without over saturation, and set media budget parameters.

The results were promising. With clickthrough rate (CTR) as the primary performance indicator, we achieved average and above performance for most ad sizes and ended with an overall CTR of .05%. We identified the best performing sizes and established baseline results that will be used for future refining and testing that will be part of the long-term strategy to make this a viable marketing channel.