In the financial services sector, every marketing dollar is under scrutiny. With acquisition costs rising and growth targets tightening, the pressure to prove ROI has never been higher. Yet for many institutions, traditional measurement systems have over-credited lower-funnel digital channels while undervaluing the brand investments that actually fuel sustainable growth.

That imbalance is now being corrected. A leading financial group recently partnered with Mortar AI to uncover the real commercial contribution of its marketing portfolio, and the findings have reshaped how the business allocates spend, plans campaigns, and collaborates across marketing and finance.

 

The Challenge: Proving the Value of Brand in a Performance-Driven Culture

Like many large financial institutions, this organisation faced a fragmented approach to measurement. Each business unit, including banking, credit, and insurance, reported differently, and performance was often judged in isolation. Brand campaigns were viewed as “nice to have” rather than essential drivers of acquisition and retention.

Finance teams, seeking tangible proof of impact, prioritised short-term digital metrics such as CPL and CPA. Marketing teams, meanwhile, struggled to demonstrate how brand awareness, trust, and consideration translated into long-term revenue and customer lifetime value.

This misalignment created a familiar tension. Performance marketing looked efficient on paper, but growth had plateaued. Leadership needed a unified performance framework that could quantify the true commercial impact of brand and acquisition working together.

 

The Approach: Building a Single Source of Truth

Using Mortar MMM, the institution unified three years of marketing, acquisition, and macroeconomic data across its entire portfolio. The platform’s advanced modelling quantified both short-term and lagged effects, showing not only how media drove immediate leads but also how brand exposure improved downstream efficiency across channels.

For the first time, the business could simulate future investment scenarios with finance-approved transparency. Marketing could demonstrate, in hard numbers, how awareness campaigns lifted acquisition efficiency and cross-product uptake.

The exercise reframed brand marketing from a cost centre into a measurable growth lever.

 

The Results: Brand as a Profit Driver

The insights were striking. Mortar MMM revealed that upper-funnel channels such as TV and Out-of-Home accounted for 32% of incremental acquisitions, primarily by improving the efficiency of digital conversion activity in subsequent weeks.

Armed with these insights, the business reallocated 12% of underperforming budget from oversaturated digital channels into brand and mid-funnel investment, reducing cost per acquisition by 14%, increasing marketing ROI by 17%, and delivering $8.6 million in incremental annual profit.

Perhaps most importantly, marketing and finance now used the same verified dataset to plan, defend, and optimise spend collaboratively. This alignment built confidence at the executive level and allowed future media investments to be tied directly to commercial outcomes.

 

The Broader Shift: From Channel Metrics to Commercial Metrics

This transformation reflects a broader shift happening across the sector. As privacy regulations tighten and attribution signals fade, Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) has become the foundation for financial marketers to understand true ROI, moving beyond last-click metrics to measure the total commercial contribution of every channel.

For financial institutions, that means being able to answer questions that matter to both the CMO and CFO:

• How much long-term profit is brand investment creating?
• What is the optimal balance between awareness and acquisition?
• Where can we shift investment to deliver higher incremental growth?

With unified data and credible measurement, those questions are no longer hypothetical; they are quantifiable.

 

Conclusion: The Era of Accountable Brand Building

Financial marketers have always known that brand drives performance. What has been missing is proof that finance teams can trust. By quantifying the delayed and indirect impact of brand investment, Mortar MMM provides that missing link, empowering marketing leaders to shift the conversation from “spend” to “return.”

In a sector where accountability is everything, that clarity is not just good for marketing. It is good for business.

Contact [email protected] to discuss how MMM can benefit your bottom line.