Case Study 1

Shifting a UK Challenger Bank from Bought to Earned Customer Acquisition

Client : London-based digital bank for small businesses

Our Approach

The mandate was not just to acquire more customers. It was also to acquire better ones, improving acquisition value alongside volume. The ask was to do so with a brand budget far smaller than its competitors', and with hands-on execution rather than just being directed via a strategy document.

That required answering a question the bank had never fully answered: who precisely is our ideal customer, and what do we understand about them that no competitor does?

Our work followed four integrated steps:

1. Define the Ideal Customers

Using internal data and customer interviews, we defined the bank's target ideal customer profiles (ICPs) and refined them down to three sector-specific personas. We detailed initial sketches to kick off our understanding.

2. Study them deeply, in context

We designed and executed surround-sound research programmes, including operator surveys, customer conversations, and expert interviews across each target ICP sector ecosystem. This added unique depth and context to our persona understanding.

3. Multi-channel marketing

We used the research findings to design and execute a year-long calendar of multifaceted marketing campaigns across partnerships, influencers, trade media, social media and traditional advertising. Each campaign spoke individually to each sector, while the three linked together thematically.

4. Measure, learn and repeat

We tracked and measured progress, adjusted our strategies accordingly, and repeated our successful activities across multiple ICPs. In the process, we built the internal marketing muscle of the team so that earned acquisition could replace paid acquisition.

The Insights Engine

The heart of the work was a principle: know your customer better than anyone else.

Alongside the operator survey, we interviewed the people who see the customer unguarded: their accountants, their suppliers, their trade bodies, the payments and EPOS providers who watch the money move. Triangulating those sources produced findings across target sectors that not only gave insights into individual ICPs but also unified their challenges in a way the bank could address on a brand-building level.

That became proprietary, brand-attributable data that formed the basis for signature reports, short-form content, PR, influencer and social campaigns, and, critically, a reason each sector's most trusted organisations wanted to work with the bank.

Impact

The bank moved from renting growth to earning it.

Key outcomes included:

Marketing spend down 14% year on year, while applications from the target customer profile rose 10%
Target-customer accounts worth 1.6 times the revenue per account of non-target customers
The target profiles growing to represent close to half of all new accounts sold
New banking and marketing partnerships signed with national trade bodies and sector providers
Invitations to speak at founder and industry events, trade press coverage, and a materially stronger position within each target sector ecosystem
A repeatable sector playbook, extended across ICPs

Why This Matters

Most acquisition problems are diagnosed as channel problems and solved with budget. This work shows what happens when they are diagnosed as knowledge problems instead.

Once the bank understood its customer more deeply than its competitors did, the same media budget worked harder, the sector's most trusted voices became partners rather than gatekeepers, and the insight itself became an asset that kept earning long after any single campaign ended.

The Challenge

A UK challenger bank serving small businesses had built a strong product and a loyal base of business account customers. But a recent rebrand had reset its market awareness to near start-up levels, at precisely the moment competition for new business accounts intensified.

Growth depended almost entirely on paid channels. More than 80% of applications came through pay-per-click, affiliates and app marketing. Digital acquisition costs were climbing across the sector.

The bank was, in effect, renting its growth. Every new customer cost more than the last, and none of that spend was building an asset that would still be there the following year.