Earnest

How Earnest increased volume of leads by 40X

Student loan refinancing, on your terms.
Platforms
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
What We Did
  • Strategy
  • Optimization
  • Channel Expansion
  • Tracking & Analysis
Work With Us

Earnest is a financial services company specializing in debt refinancing for students receiving a professional designation upon graduation from college. While Earnest generates a great deal of its business from its first-class reputation, engaging brand, and disruptive business model, a key component of its expansion plan was to launch a robust digital customer acquisition program across paid channels.

Over the course of five years, Thrive digital has been able to build and sustain an advanced growth marketing program, reach aggressive acquisition targets, and ultimately support multiple financing rounds as well as an acquisition.

Goals

Channel Exploration
Conduct channel exploration across numerous digital marketing platforms in order to identify opportunities for large-scale customer acquisition.
Converting Leads
Establish a customer acquisition funnel focused on building brand visibility, engaging new potential customers, and converting new opportunities into funded loans.
Sustainable Growth
Aggressively build and scale as many online acquisition channels as possible while simultaneously meeting and exceeding Earnest’s cost per funded loan acquisition cost goals, and number of customers acquired objectives.
Tracking and Analytics
Thrive Digital worked with the development team at Earnest to develop an understanding around how to track complex down-funnel actions, and integrate these into a performance marketing strategy.
Strategic Leadership
Lead and coordinate performance marketing strategy among internal client teams, work with internal stakeholders in order to provide solutions to marketing technology obstacles such as down-funnel lead tracking, work with external strategic partners in order to align campaigns with shared goals.

Solution

Omni-Channel Strategy
Thrive Digital developed an omni-channel strategy spanning major platforms such as Facebook, Google AdWords, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks. We worked in tandem with the Earnest team and an outside creative agency to develop effective positioning and audience segments on each platform.
Optimization
Optimization targets changed rapidly throughout the first year of the project. Thrive Digital worked as a thought leader in determining how goals were developed, and then optimized campaigns towards these goals.
Channel Expansion
Prior to starting with Thrive Digital, Earnest was active on two major advertising platforms with fundamental pieces in place. Over the course of a year, over seven major platforms were integrated with complex strategies being deployed in each.
Data Analytics
Thrive Digital worked with the development team at Earnest to develop an understanding around how to track complex down-funnel actions, and integrate these into a performance marketing strategy.
THE RESULT
40x Volume of Leads
10+ Successful Lead-Generating Channels
“The team at Thrive Digital is great to work with. They are diligent, strategic and deeply focused on the details. Thrive is a rare breed among digital marketing agencies.”
Craig Battin
Head of Growth Marketing, Earnest

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