Financial marketers: Plan now for better advertising returns

Some 10 million people are required to complete a self-assessment tax return. That’s a substantial pool of prospective clients for you to target, making this the perfect time to fine tune your campaigns and highlight the services you offer to grow your business.

In the typical British way, most will leave it until the last minute to submit self-assessment tax returns.

To illustrate my point, I looked at the search trend for the keyword ‘self-assessment’. The chart below demonstrates how searches for ‘self-assessment’ spike in the last week of January each year:

Screenshot of Google trends graph.

Source: Google Trends

If we look at the trend over 12 months, we can see that the number of searches starts to increase in October before peaking in January – corresponding with the submission deadlines for paper and online returns:

Screenshot of Google trends graph.

Source: Google Trends

It’s crunch time for finance marketers. The campaigns you build now can make or break your targets over the coming months.

Target the right audience at the right time

2016 was a record-breaking year for self-assessment, with Friday 29th January the busiest day for submitting online returns. International Business Times uncovered some more interesting stats from 2016, including that 18-20 year olds were the worst culprits for missing the deadline, and that men were less punctual than women at getting their returns submitted on time!

Understanding your target audience enables you to focus your marketing more effectively.

Consider who is most likely to be searching for your services and when. You probably have access to some of this data already, but drilling down deeper into demographic and behavioural insights will give your campaigns a real edge.

Call tracking for marketing success

Up to 60% of your digital marketing budget could be wasted because of a failure to bridge the gap between your marketing activity and your commercial results.

Call tracking is the most accurate way of understanding which advertising campaigns are driving your conversions. It goes without saying that telephone calls are critical in the financial sector – most of us prefer to pick up the phone to discuss a subject as complex as finances.

The list of features and benefits goes on, however I’ve pulled out three key areas below that will enable you to analyse the performance of your marketing campaigns to really understand which activity generates the best return on investment:

1. Keyword level tracking

Which keywords are most successful at driving clicks and calls?

Call tracking helps you uncover more than simply which keywords customers use to search for your business. It provides you with detailed information on the keywords that lead directly to enquiries and revenue.

You’ll also find that search terms change as deadlines draw near. Early on, prospects are researching services and using branded terms. These then change to more immediate queries, such as ‘tax deadlines’, ‘tax extensions’, or even ‘tax fines’, so it’s important to always test, monitor and update your ad copy accordingly.

2. Full visitor journey

Track your customers from click to conversion. View the full visitor journey through your website, including:

  • The source and medium that triggered the visit (e.g. PPC, Organic, Referral, Social Media, Email, etc)
  • Landing page – the page users entered your site on
  • All the pages they viewed while they were on your website and any previous visits
  • The point in their journey that they converted to a lead
  • What they did on your site after ending their phone call

This report provides you with crucial insight into the performance of your website. You can use this information to better understand how users navigate your website and highlight any gaps in content or user experience problems.

3. End-to-end marketing attribution

Integrate Mediahawk call tracking with your CRM solution and link the cost of each marketing campaign directly to the value of the resulting conversions. This enables you to uncover precisely which keywords and campaigns are driving revenue, allowing you to spend more in the areas that you know will generate sales – and less on those that don’t.

A taxing time of year

More than 89% of returns were completed online in 2016. The internet is a crucial resource for advice, researching services and submitting returns. The opportunities and greater returns are clearly there for marketers in this sector who start their campaign planning at the right time – and having the right call tracking and analytics technology in place will ensure that you don’t fall victim to the black hole of marketing response.

Get in touch to see how we can help you optimise your marketing and improve ROI

About the author - Natalia Selby

Marketing Executive at Mediahawk, with 20 years experience in analytics and content management.

Graphic representing call tracking software
Optimise your marketing and improve ROI

Book a 15-minute demo of Mediahawk. We’ll show you how our software helps marketers turn analytics and reporting into an effortless task.

Latest news and blogs

Driving growth in a recession: How to still hit your marketing objectives

Despite the recent news that Britain’s economy fell into a recession at the end of 2023, budget growth for UK marketing…

How to identify what’s generating poor-quality leads in your PPC ad campaigns

Every pay-per-click (PPC) marketer will have experience with poor-quality leads. Whether you have leads engaging about a service or product you don’t…

The dealership’s guide to creating an effective electric vehicle marketing strategy

The shift towards sustainable transportation is gaining momentum. The government’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate has set an ambitious target, requiring manufacturers…