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When marketing and finance report different numbers

Both teams are using real data and reaching incompatible conclusions. That argument ends when there's one model everyone works from.

What's different here

Fintech has a structural reporting problem: marketing reports platform-attributed conversions, finance reports funded accounts and payback, and the two never reconcile. We've walked into companies where this argument had run through every board meeting for two years. Building one source of truth — where cost per funded account and payback period are the shared metrics — usually delivers more organizational value than any individual channel improvement.

$2.1MAnnual waste eliminatedfintech & financial services average

Fintech & Financial Services clients

NorthwindLumen LabsHarborlineVerdantAtlas FoodsPoka HealthBrightsideCobalt BankMeridianArdentFoundryKestrel
Vertical-specific tactics

What digital marketing looks like for fintech companies.

These are the plays that wouldn't appear on a generic digital marketing page — they only make sense in fintech & financial services.

01

One reconciled unit-economics model

Cost per funded account, payback period, and contribution by cohort, built from your core banking or ledger system rather than ad platforms. Marketing and finance open the same dashboard.

02

Full-lifecycle server-side measurement

Events flowing from your servers with PII hashed, tied to funding and first-transaction events that occur days or weeks after the click — which browser pixels structurally cannot capture.

03

Regulated lifecycle communications

Onboarding, activation, and reactivation flows built within marketing communication rules, including consent management and required opt-out handling for financial products.

04

Channel incrementality testing

Geo holdouts and matched-market tests to establish what's genuinely incremental versus what would have converted anyway — which matters far more when brand search is a large share of reported conversions.

The constraints

What holds fintech companies back

01

Marketing and finance report different numbers

Platforms double-count conversions and browser tracking misses a third of events. Both teams use real data and reach incompatible conclusions.

02

Compliance-heavy funnels kill conversion

KYC requirements, disclosures, and long application forms are necessary — and brutal for completion rates unless they're designed carefully.

03

You're optimizing the wrong event

Application starts are easy to buy. Funded accounts are what make money. Most fintech ad accounts are optimized to the former.

04

Ad platform policy restrictions

Financial services face heavy ad restrictions. Account bans and disapprovals stall growth for weeks if you don't know the rules cold.

What's included

The full scope.

Everything in a digital marketing engagement, applied to fintech & financial services.

01

Full-funnel growth audit

Every channel, every step, mapped with real numbers. You'll see exactly where your funnel leaks before you sign anything.

02

Server-side conversion tracking

GA4 + server-side tagging + platform CAPIs, so you optimize to real conversions instead of platform guesses.

03

Paid acquisition management

Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok — structured, tested, and scaled against your actual CAC ceiling.

04

SEO & content engine

Topic clusters built around buying intent, published on a predictable cadence, internally linked to compound.

05

Lifecycle email & SMS

Welcome, nurture, abandoned cart, win-back, and reactivation flows that run whether or not you're spending on ads.

06

Conversion rate optimization

Continuous testing on the pages that matter most, so every channel gets more efficient at once.

07

Live revenue dashboard

One Looker Studio dashboard: spend, CAC, LTV, ROAS, pipeline, by channel, updated daily.

08

Weekly growth calls

No monthly PDF you never read. A working session every week with the people actually running your account.

The process

How this runs.

  1. Diagnose

    Weeks 1–2

    Two-week deep audit of analytics, ad accounts, funnel, and competitors. We deliver a written growth thesis with prioritized bets.

  2. Instrument

    Weeks 2–3

    Fix tracking first. Server-side events, conversion definitions, and dashboards — because you can't optimize what you can't measure.

  3. Unblock the constraint

    Weeks 3–6

    We attack the single biggest bottleneck first — usually conversion rate or offer, not traffic volume.

  4. Scale what works

    Month 2+

    Winning channels get budget and creative volume. Losers get cut fast. Decisions are made on data, weekly.

  5. Compound

    Month 4+

    Layer in the durable assets — SEO, email lists, retention — so your paid dependency drops quarter over quarter.

Investment

Scoped like the core service, no surcharge.

Every engagement is quoted from your actual brief. There's no vertical surcharge for this combination — request a quote and we'll scope it properly.

Focus

One or two channels, executed exceptionally well.

Scoped to your brief

  • 2 channels managed
  • Conversion tracking setup
  • Monthly strategy call
  • Live revenue dashboard
  • Up to $50k/mo ad spend
Request a quote
Most popular

Engine

Companies ready to run the full funnel as one system.

Scoped to your brief

  • Up to 5 channels managed
  • Server-side tracking + CAPI
  • Dedicated growth strategist
  • In-house creative studio (12 assets/mo)
  • CRO testing program
  • Lifecycle email & SMS
  • Weekly growth calls
  • Up to $250k/mo ad spend
Request a quote

Scale

Multi-market brands spending $250k+ per month.

Scoped to your brief

  • Unlimited channels & markets
  • Incrementality & MMM testing
  • Dedicated squad (5+ specialists)
  • Custom data warehouse & modeling
  • Creative volume: 40+ assets/mo
  • Executive reporting & board decks
Request a quote

All engagements start with a free audit. Prices exclude media spend, which you pay directly to the platforms on accounts you own.

Questions

Fintech & Financial Services questions, answered straight.

Yes, with leading indicators tied to real outcomes: qualified application starts, KYC pass rate, funding rate by source, and time-to-fund. We commit to those in month one and backfill revenue attribution as accounts fund. The model gets more accurate over time rather than staying a guess, and finance can audit every step of it.

Digital Marketing × Fintech & Financial Services

Let's talk about your growth constraint.

Both teams are using real data and reaching incompatible conclusions. That argument ends when there's one model everyone works from.

Our commitment: 90-day performance commitment: hit our agreed leading indicators or we work the next month at no charge.