Case Study | Zmarta Group

Zmarta uses multi-device, profit-driven optimisation to grow revenue by 111% Zmarta is a loan broker that launched in early 2015 with the goal of becoming a leading loan service as well as a leader in other financial services such as insurance, credit cards and savings. From the beginning, Zmarta took a mobile-first approach, believing in the importance of serving all users equally well on all devices.

About Zmarta Group

• Founded in 1999 under the name Freedom Finance • Brands include Zmarta, Freedom Finance, Lån för alla, Bankio, Freedom Rahoitus, Centum and Finansa • Headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, with additional offices in Ängelholm, Helsinki and Munich

About Precis Digital

• Founded in 2012 • Headquarters in Stockholm, with additional offices in Oslo and Copenhagen

Goals

• Develop accurate understanding of marketing efforts’ impact on bottom line • Refine optimisation techniques to attain competitive advantage

Approach

• Used Google Universal Analytics measurement protocol • Moved beyond single device attribution • Shifted from cost-per-acquisition model to profit-driven optimisation • Used multiple signals to understand mobile impact

Results • • • •

85% growth in mobile traffic 111% increase in revenue 59% increase in return on investment Mobile now makes up 59% of total revenue

Zmarta realised the consumer journey within the finance industry was becoming increasingly complex, with consumers using new ways of researching and finding information on products and services. Today, consumers seamlessly move between different sales channels as well as devices. This causes problems for marketers in understanding how different interactions with a consumer can be valued and how to effectively invest their media. It also makes it difficult to measure the impact of advertising across devices. By measuring the number of loan applications on Zmarta using a lastclick model, it seemed that different marketing efforts were not efficiently contributing to actual bottom-line return on investment. Meanwhile, simple cost-per-acquisition (CPA) optimisation did not reflect the differences in profit values, leading to under-optimisation of marketing across certain channels and devices. With mobile’s share of traffic increasing, there was a need to find a new approach to efficiently optimise Zmarta’s advertising. Zmarta implemented an attribution model across channels and devices, and also shifted from a CPA model to profit-driven optimisation aligned with the company’s overall business goals. This was possible through Google Universal Analytics measurement protocol, enabling a connection between the CRM platform and media buying. With this technical implementation in place, Zmarta, along with Precis Digital, could re-evaluate all their marketing efforts and focus on their core business objectives. The first step was to understand the new consumer behaviour and what part mobile played in this. Zmarta identified a number of signals, such as time on site before purchase and number of pages visited, in order to start building a more complete picture. For example, they identified that people that visited the site on a mobile first spend less time on a computer before converting, supporting the idea that mobile impacts conversions that happen on desktop. This cross-device behaviour was an important first step in order to see concrete evidence of the impact mobile has on the bottom line. The second part was to increase the share of media spend towards mobile to see the full potential of this channel.

“Before the implementation, we used to discuss how much our advertising with Google should cost. Now we are discussing how much we earn.” — Mattias Hallgrim, CMO, Zmarta Group

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“This case is a great example of the importance of challenging the status quo in order to optimise digital investments and take marketing efforts to the next level.” — Christoffer Lötebo, CEO, Precis Digital

With revenue data being central to evaluating their marketing investments, Zmarta has now found a way to better assess mobile performance. As a result of these new approaches, the company has seen mobile traffic share and total number of conversions increase. Since the new measurement model was implemented, Zmarta’s AdWords campaigns have made significant gains. Mobile now makes up 59% of total revenue, with mobile clicks up by 85%. Revenue has increased by 111% while return on investment has grown by an impressive 59%. Without the new way of attributing value across devices and understanding how people move between channels, Zmarta would not have seen this large increase in revenue.

© 2015 Google Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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