Getting to yes with credit cards

Online card marketing shows some clever techniques and some areas for improvement

BY Fred Schebesta

October 3, 2008

There are certain financial products in the market that work well online and certain ones that don’t.

While it’s hard to sell a couture dress online, it’s super easy to select a credit card with the lowest interest rate and no annual fees. Because of the electronic nature of card use, credit cards have performed exceptionally well online, allowing banks to successfully acquire new customers.

In fact, in Australia during the month of August, 550,000 hits were taken from potential customers searching for credit cards online. Searching for credit cards has shown to be even more popular than people searching for God, which in the same period only attracted 40,400 hits.

When it comes to the online marketing of credit cards some banks have performed better than others. Following is my analysis of the top three campaigns and how well they seek to attract business.

Number 3: ANZ Low Rate MasterCard
ANZ offers a low interest rate card to existing ANZ card holders which is highly competitive. What’s great about this campaign is the bank’s emphasis on its “60 second response”. This is effective because it ties into the Internet mindset of instant gratification. You want instant downloads, instant uploads, instant messaging and instant approval for your credit card.

Online, ANZ has also made it very easy to just click and check out the competition. Consumers already do this using sites like http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au/.

Pros
• Great individual landing pages
• Strong call to action in advertising
• The use of individual landing pages to increase conversion
• Cross-selling of other relevant cards on landing pages
• The  “next” button is in green and encourages the user to move forward through the signup process

Cons
• The application form is a bit convoluted and non-intuitive, this would cause a higher drop out rate among potential customers

A suggestion for these pages might be for ANZ to improve the formatting of the form pages, especially the first few, to make them more intuitive.

Number 2: Citibank Clear Card
Citibank has always done a great job in its online marketing and this particular card is fantastic. The bank builds a perception of scarcity and time pressure with the selective placement of words under the ‘Apply now’ button.

I call this “point of action scarcity”, that is, the action they want users to take is to click on the button. The message encourages visitors to take action more quickly in case the offer might end, which increases conversion on the bank’s landing page. The simplicity of Citibank’s banners is strong, enabling users to easily see what they’re being offered.

Pros
• Clean persuasive landing pages
• Clean easily understood banner ads
• Competitive rate and a good balance transfer offer
• The application process has a progress bar which reduces the pain of applying - “When is the filling of this application pain going to end? In seven more pages.”

Cons
• The application page is extremely slow to load.
• You are unable to save your application and come back at a later time.
Removing the fancy taglines in the banner ads would simplify the message. This would mean that the benefits, such as the low rate, balance transfer option and generous credit limit, will then be noticed faster.

Number 1: St.George Vertigo
The St. George Vertigo card is the clear winner with a low rate which is just 0.2 per cent under the Aussie card. Despite the other cards having slightly better online marketing, St George has used this small difference in rate to attract customers.

Pros
• The card has worked up the best price to be in the primary position
• Simple clean banner ads
• Big buttons which are easy to see and differentiate
• Can save application

Cons
• The site doesn’t contain any unique landing pages. The pages are integrated into the main website which causes leakage.

A suggestion would be to advise the potential clients again of the cards details on the application page, perhaps, for example, by adding an image of the card they are applying for.

Fred Schebesta is director of Freestyle Media which specialises in driving traffic to websites and converts online customers into purchasers of products and services.