Case Study Boosting Organic Demand
How we reduced acquisition costs and scaled brand awareness for a leading credit card brand using integrated PPC and ORM.
68%
Reduction in card acquisition cost
~800
Average cards acquired per month
58%
Brand awareness
The Client
A leading Indian credit card brand focused on customer acquisition and feature-led positioning.
The client is a leading credit card brand in India's rapidly growing and highly competitive banking and financial services (BFSI) sector. Catering to a young, tech-savvy population, the brand focuses on delivering credit products with attractive features, cashback programs, and specialized perks tailored to various consumer segments, including corporate professionals and defense personnel.
In India's digital credit market, acquiring customers is highly competitive. With legacy banks and new fintech startups bidding for the same audience, brands face high customer acquisition costs. To stand out, financial brands must not only capture attention but also quickly build trust through transparent communications and responsive customer service.
Having launched several new card features, the client needed to improve their lead generation efficiency. They required an integrated marketing partner to lower their acquisition costs and build a structured customer service workflow to address customer inquiries and feedback on public social channels.
The Challenge
Navigating high acquisition costs and public customer service friction.
The credit card market is heavily saturated, with established banking institutions spending heavily on brand campaigns. The client's digital acquisition costs had reached unsustainable levels, preventing them from scaling card issuances. Brand awareness was also low, making it difficult to convert users who were unfamiliar with their features.
Additionally, their digital customer operations were struggling. Customer inquiries, questions, and complaints on social media platforms were met with slow response and engagement times. With response turnarounds averaging four days, public feedback channels became liability zones that deterred potential applicants. To unlock growth, the client needed to coordinate performance marketing campaigns with an agile Online Reputation Management (ORM) system.
4 days
Average legacy customer response turnaround time (TAT) on social media
High
Baseline card acquisition cost limiting marketing scalability
30
Alignments managed monthly for customer notification syncs
What our audit found
Identifying conversion leaks in the application and support funnels.
We conducted a detailed review of the client's paid search funnel and social media response logs. The diagnostic identified two main issues. First, their PPC campaigns used broad, unsegmented keywords, targeting mass-market consumers and defense personnel with the same generic messaging. This lack of segmentation led to high CPCs and low lead-to-card approval rates.
Second, unresolved customer queries and complaints on public channels were creating negative brand sentiment. Potential customers who researched the credit card online saw unanswered complaints about application delays or billing issues. This public friction acted as a leak in the conversion funnel, causing high-intent prospects to abandon their application forms.
PPC campaigns targeted broad keywords without segmenting by demographic search intent.
Lack of tailored creatives for distinct consumer segments, such as military personnel.
Slow response times on social media created negative brand perception.
Support teams and marketing campaigns operated in isolation without shared data.
Public friction from unanswered complaints led to card application drop-offs.
The Solution
How we turned it around.
Feature-Led Video Production
We designed a creative production pipeline to address low brand awareness and simplify complex credit card features. We wrote, animated, and produced feature-led brand videos that highlighted the unique benefits of the client's cards, such as rewards structures, airport lounge access, and defense-specific perks. These video assets were deployed across social platforms and ad campaigns to drive user engagement and improve conversion rates.
What we shipped
- Wrote benefits-focused scripts tailored to different target demographics.
- Produced clean, engaging animations to explain card features.
- Recorded professional voice-overs in regional languages.
- Shared videos across social channels to improve brand trust and conversions.
Hyper-Segmented Performance Marketing
To lower the card acquisition cost, we overhauled the client's PPC campaigns. We segmented audiences into distinct demographics, building separate campaigns for mass-market consumers, regional audiences, and military personnel. We refined keyword targeting to exclude low-intent search queries and implemented a continuous CPC/CPL optimization framework that directed ad budget toward high-converting user demographics.
What we shipped
- Restructured campaigns by geographic region and demographic affinity.
- Designed dedicated landing pages and ad copy for defense personnel segments.
- Conducted daily negative keyword audits to eliminate waste.
- Optimized bidding to focus budgets on high-approval lead profiles.
SLA-Driven Online Reputation Management
To resolve the slow customer response times, we established a dedicated Online Reputation Management (ORM) framework. We implemented strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for customer service agents and created a library of pre-approved, compliant response templates. By integrating social monitoring tools, we enabled agents to identify, track, and resolve customer queries and complaints in real-time, transforming public feedback channels into trust-building assets.
What we shipped
- Set strict SLA turnaround targets for customer service teams.
- Created a library of pre-approved response templates for common queries.
- Routed complex technical issues directly to specialized support desks.
- Closed over 30,000 customer tickets to improve public brand sentiment.
The Numbers
Outcomes we can talk about.
The integration of targeted performance marketing and rapid reputation management yielded strong results. The client saw a 68% reduction in card acquisition cost, allowing them to scale customer acquisition efficiently. Monthly volumes stabilized at an average of 800 newly acquired credit cards. On the brand side, targeted video campaigns and positive social feedback drove a 58% increase in brand awareness.
Crucially, customer response operations were completely transformed. The average turnaround time (TAT) for customer queries on social platforms plummeted from four days to just one day. The support team successfully closed over 30,000 tickets, resolving issues in public forums and building customer trust. Additionally, 30 aligned operational notifications were managed monthly, ensuring consistent customer communication during system updates or product changes.
68%
Reduction in card acquisition cost
~800
Average cards acquired per month
58%
Brand awareness
1 day
Customer response turnaround time
30K+
Customer support tickets closed
What We Built
What's Next
Automating customer service routing with intelligent triage.
With lead acquisition and reputation management stabilized, the next phase of the engagement focuses on automating customer service workflows. We are developing an AI-powered triage system that classifies incoming social media tickets by sentiment and complexity, routing them to the correct department within minutes.
We are also expanding the segmented PPC campaign model to include personalized retargeting ads, showing applicants customized rewards calculators based on their specific spending habits to further boost conversion rates.
Frequently Asked Questions
About This Project
The questions teams usually ask when they want to run a similar engagement.
Fast, helpful responses to customer complaints on public channels built brand trust. When prospective applicants researched the brand and saw resolved queries rather than unanswered complaints, their conversion rate rose.
The Real Numbers
Need real numbers? Let's talk.
We kept the names off the page. The story is real, the outcomes are real, and we're always happy to walk a serious team through the rest of it.
Start a Conversation→More from Marketing
Reducing ACoS and Scaling Sales for an Amazon Seller
Scaling B2B Lead Generation for an Electrical Equipment Exporter
Boosting Conversion: A 22% ROAS Lift for a Global Luxury Beauty Leader
Insights from our blog
Digital MarketingAI Marketing Analytics for Cross-Channel Attribution: The Complete Guide (2026)
Did you know that the average buyer interacts with six to eight channels before converting? The buyer might discover a brand through a YouTube pre-roll, research it on Google, click a retargeting ad on Instagram, open a nurture…
Digital MarketingOrganic vs Paid Social Media: Which Works Better in 2026?
Brands spent $234 billion on social media advertising in 2024. Yet organic reach on most platforms continues to decline. The result is a growing question...
Digital MarketingSocial Media Marketing Trends 2026: What Brands Need to Know
Want to hear something incredulous?Over 5.2 billion people worldwide now use social media. Yes, you read that right. And the average person bounces between nearly...