“Our new journey approach has brought us closer to our customers. We have truly learned a lot about our customer segments, which at times were counter to what our perception was. Only by watching their behavior throughout the journeys in Blueshift were we really able to see that.”
Drive engagement and improve experiences throughout the customer lifecycle by reimagining journeys to be customer-first and create value beyond the transaction.
LendingTree increased engagement, monthly active users, and improved workflow efficiencies by building connected lifecycle journeys focused on their customers.
LendingTree simplifies financial decisions for life’s meaningful moments through choice, education, and support by making comparison shopping for the best loan deal fast and easy.
Charlotte, NC // USA
Personal Finance
LendingTree’s mission is to simplify financial decisions for life’s meaningful moments through choice, education, and support by making comparison shopping for the best loan deal fast and easy. For years, LendingTree has been using Blueshift to make their marketing more relevant and drive sustained growth by activating their rich data into financial profiles. However, as they continued to expand their financial products, they saw an opportunity to evolve their engagement strategies to be more customer-centric.
The company offers financial products that each have different buying paths. The customer segments for these products are in varying life stages and financial standings, which impacts product eligibility and campaign goals.
The result is that LendingTree’s volume of campaigns exploded in recent years as new products were added. Compounding the challenge, financial products have a long runway to cross-sells, which created breaks in engagement and added effort to reacquire customers. The team realized that their growing series of individual, disconnected email and push campaigns were not only increasingly hard to manage, but also ultimately weren’t providing the best customer experience.
To continue to put the customer first and add value throughout the lifecycle, LendingTree set out on a big strategic shift to create intentional lifecycle journeys specific to each product and further tailor those experiences to each customer’s unique journey with the company.
“Every company has data, but if you can’t action off that data instantly, then it doesn’t do you any good. And when dealing in financial products…you better get it right. The magic with Blueshift is its agility and ability to handle data for segmentation, journeys, and personalization across all channels, no matter the speed or attributes that we put in. We have the flexibility to use our data to improve results across many different use cases.”
To make the strategic switch, the team had to disassemble their existing customer engagement strategy without affecting any active campaigns. With the visibility that Blueshift provides into each stage of the customer journey, the LendingTree team was able to get closer to the customer by understanding the distinct behaviors of their numerous segments. They used this insight to create intentional, connected journeys and target their campaigns more effectively — ultimately allowing them to better serve their customers.
The team began by auditing all communications through the lens of the customer and thought, “What should we be doing for the customer, and what does the customer expect from us?” They identified where customers needed guidance, where they could help customers find what they’re looking for faster, and where there was an opportunity to cross-sell. This process allowed them to redefine new buying paths and create intuitive journeys for each type of customer.
With many different restrictions and mandates in finance, the team had to be intentional about how to provide the best experience and tailor it to each situation and product journey. For example, someone who just applied for a mortgage is not able to make financial changes during that time. LendingTree instead focused on providing these customers valuable information to guide them through the mortgage process.
Additionally, they recognized the opportunity to help customers who didn’t receive the product offers for which they were searching in order to reach their financial goals. Acknowledging these customers still needed a solution, the team identified different ways to help them by providing resources such as debt relief assistance and credit repair to help improve their credit standing.
Not only did LendingTree continue to further personalize the journeys as they learned more about customer segments through their behaviors, but they also looked for opportunities to extend the life of the customer by growing engagement throughout the lifecycle. LendingTree took a more holistic engagement strategy that added value beyond the transaction.
Since establishing an account on the LendingTree platform is free, this was the natural place to engage customers and provide additional services tailored to customers’ credit standing. They also created educational, evergreen content to help customers improve their credit score, find additional savings, and help them make smarter financial choices. This helped grow brand loyalty and keep customers engaged with LendingTree’s ecosystem.
As the customer experience is taking place on an increasing number of channels, LendingTree saw an opportunity to use its rich first-party data and audiences to match the right messaging and offers to the right people across their digital acquisition channels, such as Facebook and Google. By using audiences built on actionable first-party data, LendingTree has been able to deliver more cohesive messaging across channels and focus their ad spend on higher-converting audiences.
“The application of the data really sets Blueshift apart. The functionality of being able to use that data in so many different ways, whether it’s targeting users in very granular segments or dynamically populating templates, is what we really need.”
In addition to providing LendingTree with one view of a customer’s lifecycle and the ability to trigger the right message based on where each customer is in their unique journey, the LendingTree team relied on the following Blueshift capabilities to successfully launch their lifecycle journey strategy:
The team continues to use visibility into their customer journeys to improve their strategy by iterating and testing to continuously optimize these journeys.
“If you’re really thinking about how to customize to the nth degree, you have to go with a platform like Blueshift that has all the tools to make robust journeys smarter and customer engagement more effective. You have the ability to coordinate and personalize multiple channels in a customer journey at the push of a button.”
With their new strategy, LendingTree was able to:
By using intentional, relevant messaging
Increased customer engagement
By building intentional customer journeys and reducing disparate campaigns
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