0%
Increase in organic search traffic following CheckMyFile’s new brand, website and TV campaign
Financial Services
Mean more. Build confidence.
Financial decisions are often complicated, considered and consequential.
When someone chooses insurance, checks their credit, plans a pension or manages their money, they need to understand what they’re buying and feel confident they’re making the right decision.
At AgencyUK, we combine brand, communications, web and tech to help financial services organisations become easier to understand, more distinctive and more valuable to the people they serve.
We reposition established financial brands, launch new propositions, grow customer acquisition and improve digital journeys, so complicated products become easier to choose.
Our financial services impact
0%
Increase in inbound enquiries for EMCAS, 5% ahead of target
0+
Companies recruited to Westfield Health’s Walking Lunch campaign against a target of 250
£0m
In Start Up Loans funding distributed through the digital system we helped build
Why is the financial services sector different?
Money is rational on paper, but financial decisions rarely are. People procrastinate, avoid complexity, discount the future, follow familiar behaviours and worry about making the wrong decision.
Understanding those behaviours makes complicated decisions feel simpler and financial products more meaningful.
For Zurich’s Future+ proposition, the challenge was to change how younger audiences thought about pensions, making their future feel closer and developing a more lifestyle-oriented way of talking about long-term financial planning. The work formed part of Zurich’s wider £100m investment in its pensions proposition.
Brand
Mean more through meaningful difference.
Financial services can be difficult to differentiate, with similar products, similar claims, similar language and similar promises of reassurance.
We find the meaningful difference that gives organisations a stronger position, using customer, competitor and market intelligence to develop propositions that make complex financial products more relevant to people’s lives.
For WPA, that meant challenging conventional health-insurance positioning and developing a proposition around the needs of self-employed customers.
Strategy
Positioning
Proposition
Identity
Experience
Communications
Mean more to more people.
Financial products rarely attract attention on their own, so communications need to make them relevant.
We combine audience intelligence, behavioural understanding, commercial creativity and media to identify what matters to different customers, then build campaigns around the barriers and motivations most likely to influence action.
For CheckMyFile, increased competition and rising paid-search acquisition costs led us to move beyond search into brand-building TV, helping increase customer acquisition while reducing dependence on paid media.
Campaign Planning
Creative
Media
Social
Performance
CRM
Web
Mean more through better experiences.
Financial websites often ask people to understand complicated products, provide sensitive information and make high-consideration decisions.
We use audience insight, customer journeys, UX, content and conversion design to make those decisions easier, connecting the experience with the CRM, marketing and business systems behind it.
For CheckMyFile, personas and customer lifetime value informed the website architecture, UX and messaging around the journeys most important to conversion. The resulting site supports around 1 million monthly visitors.
UX
Development
SEO
Content
Conversion
Optimisation
Tech
Mean more by learning faster.
Financial services depend on data, systems and processes working together securely.
We use technology to connect digital experiences with the platforms behind them, including CRM, marketing automation, reporting, third-party data, secure integrations and AI-powered customer experiences.
Our work for Start Up Loans included secure financial-data exchange with more than 60 banks, intermediaries and credit-checking agencies, financial risk-assessment algorithms, CRM and reporting integrations, and the digital infrastructure used to distribute £100m in loan funding.
AI
Data
Integrations
Automation
Agents
Intelligence
One brand at every financial touchpoint.
Financial decisions don’t happen in one channel. People move between advertising, search, comparison sites, reviews, websites, advisers, calculators, applications, email and customer service before they decide. Every interaction can either increase confidence or introduce another reason to hesitate.
From first impression to financial decision, customers see brand, marketing, digital and service as one organisation. We connect the promise made in communications with the experience that follows, so the proposition stays clear through research, consideration, application and the ongoing customer relationship.
When the decision matters, consistency builds confidence.
Search
Comparison
Advertising
Social
Website
Calculators
Applications
Email
CRM
Customer Service
Advisers
Portals
CheckMyFile
107% increase in online conversions
CheckMyFile was the first company to provide online credit reports, but increasing competition from heavily funded market entrants was putting pressure on its search-led acquisition model.
What began as a brand refresh developed into a complete growth programme spanning positioning, identity, audience personas, customer journeys, website UX, TV advertising and campaign optimisation.
The programme helped achieve a 39% year-on-year increase in acquisition, supported by a 77% increase in organic search traffic. Subsequent activity achieved a 107% increase in online conversions, while weekly customer acquisition continued to grow despite multimillion-pound competitor campaigns.
- Online conversions +107%
- Year-on-year increase in acquisition +39%
- Organic search traffic +77%
“We wanted an agency that could not only deliver on our initial and ongoing project requirements, but one that we could develop a long-term relationship with founded on trust and a deep understanding of our business, to the extent that it was considered an extension of our marketing function. We found that with AgencyUK.”
Rich Catlin
Director, CheckMyFile
Build the brand, then win the customer.
Financial services marketing needs more than performance media. We build recognition and preference before customers enter the market, while search, paid media, content and conversion activity capture demand when they’re ready to act.
CheckMyFile shows why both matter. Brand investment through TV reduced reliance on ever more expensive paid search while driving organic discovery, customer acquisition and online conversion.
For EMCAS, an integrated campaign across TV, radio, press, display and social repositioned the brand in a difficult category while generating a 25% increase in inbound enquiries, 5% ahead of target.
Where financial confidence meets personal wellbeing.
Some of our experience sits at the intersection of financial services and healthcare.
We’ve worked with health insurance and wellbeing organisations including WPA and Westfield Health, giving us experience of products where financial protection, health and personal confidence are closely connected.
For Westfield Health, our Walking Lunch campaign repositioned the organisation around health and wellbeing, attracting 400+ company sign-ups against a target of 250, 2,706 individual participants and 27 pieces of media coverage including BBC Breakfast. The campaign generated 188 million opportunities to see.
Our financial services experience
Our financial services experience spans insurance, pensions, credit, lending and protection, across brand strategy, proposition development, customer acquisition, communications, digital experience and technology.
It includes work for WPA, Zurich, CheckMyFile, Westfield Health, Teachers Assurance, EMCAS, Start Up Loans Company, AXA Drivology and the Motor Insurers’ Bureau.
We’ve built new pension propositions, differentiated insurance brands, designed credit journeys and developed secure financial platforms, working on everything between what a financial brand means and how well it converts.
Frequently asked questions
How do you work within FCA rules and Consumer Duty?
We build FCA financial promotions requirements and Consumer Duty principles into the work from the outset, rather than treating compliance as a final check.
That means designing communications to be clear, fair and not misleading, presenting benefits and risks appropriately, and helping customers understand the information they need to make informed decisions. The FCA also expects firms to consider testing and monitoring whether communications support consumer understanding.
We work collaboratively with your compliance teams and approval processes, combining regulatory requirements with clear, effective creative that works for customers as well as the business.
How do you make products like insurance and pensions feel relevant?
Effective insurance marketing makes complex or distant financial decisions meaningful to the people making them.
Products such as insurance and pensions can be difficult to engage with because their value often relates to something that might happen years from now. We use audience insight to understand what matters to different customers, then turn product features and technical detail into clearer propositions, communications and experiences.
Important information still needs to be there in full. The job is to give people a reason to pay attention and helping them understand how the product relates to their lives, priorities and financial decisions.
How do you improve quote and application journeys?
Financial products are often high-consideration decisions, so quote and application journeys need to give people clarity and confidence as well as make the process easy to complete.
We look at the complete digital journey, from the information someone needs before starting through to forms, content, calls to action and points where users hesitate or leave. User research, analytics and testing can help identify unnecessary friction and opportunities to improve the experience.
Our web and technology teams can then turn those insights into practical improvements. Fewer clicks help, but the real objective is making a complex decision easier to understand and complete.
How do you build trust for a financial brand?
Financial services are personal. People are being asked to trust organisations with their money, future security and decisions that can have significant consequences.
Building brand trust starts with a credible proposition and continues through every communication and customer experience. Clear language, consistent branding, useful information and well-designed digital journeys all contribute to how confident people feel about choosing you.
We connect brand, communications, web and technology so the promise made by the brand is reflected in the experience customers receive. Trust isn’t something a campaign can simply claim. It has to be demonstrated through what the organisation says and does.
Ready to mean more?
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