PPC for Fintechs in 2025: Navigating Challenges and Beating Market Leaders

The fintech sector in the EU and UK is growing at an unprecedented pace, with both regions feeling the impact of huge surges in investment. 

This rapid growth has led to a highly competitive landscape, where challenger brands have to push hard to stand out against established market leaders. In fact, 70% of B2B market leaders increased their market share over the past year! 

In 2024, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising remains to be one of the most effective tools for fintech challengers to achieve larger market share. Here's a quick guide to making your fintech marketing campaigns work for your brand in the year ahead.

1. Update Your Measurement

The deprecation of third-party cookies is finally upon us, with projections indicating their retirement around Q1 of 2025. Google Chrome has already begun restricting cookies for a small percentage of users, signaling that the time to act is now. For fintech companies, adopting a privacy-centric measurement approach is crucial.

Start by implementing first-party data tracking. This involves collecting data directly from your website interactions, CRM systems, and opt-in user information. Coupled with enhanced conversions, which provide more accurate tracking of customer actions, this can help you build a robust and privacy-compliant measurement framework. Transitioning to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is also essential, as it offers advanced analytics capabilities tailored for a cookie-less world.

2. Consider Utilizing Value-Based Bidding

Once your privacy-safe measurement systems are in place, it’s time to revisit your bidding strategies. Value-based bidding focuses on maximizing the revenue and profit from your ad spend, rather than just clicks or traffic. This approach is particularly effective for fintechs, where the lifetime value of a customer can be significant.

Implement systems that allow you to track and optimize for multiple actions and dynamic values. For instance, you could track sign-ups for different financial products, like digital banking services or investment platforms, and assign different values to each action based on their profitability. This way, your bidding strategies are aligned with your business goals, helping you get the most out of your ad spend.

3. Test Broad Match Keywords

Broad match keywords have historically been tricky, often leading to irrelevant traffic. However, advancements in AI and machine learning have made broad match more viable. With the introduction of Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), using broad match can help you capture a wider array of search queries.

For fintech companies, this means your ads could reach potential customers searching for a variety of fintech-related terms, not just the exact keywords you bid on. This broader reach, combined with your value-based bidding strategy, can help manage and optimize the performance of broad match keywords. Add broad match to your testing roadmap for 2024 to explore its potential benefits.

4. Try Demand Gen

Demand Gen campaigns, which will replace Google’s Discovery campaigns, allow advertisers to reach potential customers across the entire buyer journey. While there is some overlap with Performance Max placements, Demand Gen campaigns use different tactics, making them worth exploring. Most notably, lowering the required limit to build lookalike audiences. 

For fintechs, these campaigns can be particularly effective in driving awareness and interest for new services or products. Test Demand Gen campaigns to understand their impact and optimize their performance. Even if the results are mixed initially, gaining insights from these tests can help refine your overall PPC strategy.

Many fintech marketing experts opt for low funnel campaigns to capture interest in search and social. However, a full funnel approach that boosts brand awareness supports the entire marketing function, and helps to generate higher quality leads at conversion points. This is because these leads are aware of your brand, with trust and reputation already established.

5. Use AI to Upgrade Your Creative

Generative AI is transforming PPC asset creation. Due to technology developments like Google’s introduction of generative AI within Workspace, advertisers can quickly generate personalized ad assets. For fintech companies, generative AI offers a way to produce multiple ad iterations efficiently.

But AI isn’t just useful for content creation, but ideation. Fintech companies can often have complex solutions that are challenging to visualize. Try using AI to find new ways to represent your solution. 

These AI tools can help you create more engaging and targeted ads, whether for display banners, video content, or social media posts. Experiment with generative AI to enhance your creative strategy and keep your campaigns fresh and relevant.

6. Sync Paid and Organic Efforts to Navigate SGE

Google’s new AI search results (SGE) impacts both paid and organic search results, often displaying content that can affect user interactions. For fintechs, this means a more integrated approach between your PPC and SEO efforts is necessary.

Ensure collaboration between your paid and organic search teams to optimize your presence on search engine results pages (SERPs). Understanding how your campaigns show up in these new AI-driven environments can help you adjust and refine your strategies for better performance.

New technologies and updates have made PPC advertising more complex but also more effective. For fintech companies facing high competition and market dominance by large players, adopting a holistic and integrated approach to PPC is crucial. Explore tactics beyond traditional platforms, stay updated with industry trends, and continuously test and refine your campaigns.

7. Integrate CRM Systems

For fintech marketers, integrating CRM systems with Google Ads is a game-changer. Closed-loop reporting provides a full view of the customer journey, allowing precise ROI measurement. Enhanced lead management ensures leads are efficiently captured and nurtured, while improved targeting and personalization lead to more impactful ad campaigns.

To ensure successful integration, start with a data audit, set clear objectives, and use UTM parameters for accurate tracking. Leverage automated workflows and focus on continuous campaign optimization. Watch out for common pitfalls like ignoring data privacy regulations, overcomplicating the process, and neglecting team training and support.

By seamlessly integrating CRM with Google Ads, fintech marketers can achieve greater campaign precision and effectiveness, standing out in a competitive market.

Need help? Hire a fintech marketing agency to support your PPC strategy

*Featured image credit to Katrin Nothdurft on Unsplash