How RBC is Reaching Prospects with Consideration Campaigns

To assess RBC’s increasing consideration score from Q1 F23 to Q4 F23, the following channels have been identified as growth drivers:

• ‍Organic Search Strategy. How RBC is ranking for resource & tool pages.
• ‍Paid Advertising. RBC’s investments into consideration content & messaging.
• ‍Paid Search. Assessing spikes in traffic to tools & resources through paid targeting.
• ‍TikTok UGC. How RBC is activating online with creators.

‍

For the activations analyzed in this report, here are 4 defining factors used to identify a consideration campaign:

• ‍Focused on education. CTAs feature “Learn more” instead of “Open an Account”.
• ‍Uses brand-defining pages. Teaching viewers about the brand and products as opposed to general homepages (ie. rbcroyalbank.com or directing to RBC’s social media).
• ‍Targets people who are already aware of RBC. Campaigns that don’t explicitly state what RBC is and what products they service. 
• ‍Lead conversion. Campaign targets are to direct viewers to About pages, resources and tools or email/sms lead generation.

‍

Key Takeaways

RBC saw a 45% increase in organic traffic to tool & resource pages, ranking for people looking for mortgage & loan information.

• Recommendations
  (i) Break out tool compilation pages by product instead of having one page for all tools.
  (ii) Optimize your calculation tools to be desktop & mobile friendly. Add more content on the pages, such as describing the tool’s purpose and what terms mean.

‍

RBC spent $1.1M on digital advertising from April 2022 to March 2023 for consideration campaigns. 

• Recommendations
  (i) Shift toward YouTube & Display advertising for consideration campaigns. 
  (ii) Advertise tools that help viewers put their financial situations in perspective (ie. housing affordability tool) and quantify how easy they are to complete (ie. “only 60 seconds”). 
  (iii) Focus on bringing traffic to your “About” page to educate viewers on what you bring to the table.
  (iv) Build a narrative about your brand values (How do you want to support your audience?) .
  (v) Use niche influencers for display targeting. Advertise on sites where viewers would build trust from those influencer’s endorsement of your bank.
  

‍

RBC saw an ad spend increase of 97% on Paid Search ($21K) consideration ads from October 2022 - March 2023. 

• Recommendations
  (i) Create a landing page with interactive tools (i.e: a tool that allows your audience to compare credit cards)
  (ii) Keep ad copy simple and to the point, experiment with simple headline-only ads like “Compare Credit Cards”. 
  (iii) Target people looking for branded products (RBC credit card). 
  (iv) Use forms to learn more about your warm audience’s wants and needs for specific products. 

‍‍

RBC generated 23M in video views with sponsored TikTok videos posted on the creator’s accounts. 

• Recommendations
  (i) Sponsor local TikTok creators then add spend to ~25% of the videos that perform the best organically.
  (ii) Creators should create content in their usual tone so that a fan wouldn’t notice it’s sponsored. 
  (iii) Topics should cover money conversations, budgeting and career planning. Creators can use their captions to link to resources you have available or they can show how they use it in their videos. 

‍

How to Apply this Research

*What product saw the top spend or generated the top traffic.

‍

‍

RBC saw a 45% increase in organic traffic to tool & resource pages, ranking for people looking for mortgage & loan information.

‍

Create a no-fluff compilation page where viewers can browse different resources you offer in one place.

Instead of merging cross-product content on one page, aim to break it out into different product pages (ie. just mortgage tools, just loan tools).

Keywords

• rbc mortgage calculator
• mortgage calculator rbc
• mortgage calculator
• mortgage payment calculator
• royal bank mortgage calculator
• rbc mortgage payment calculator
• mortgage calculator ontario
• mortgage rate calculator

‍

Create a tool that provides instant calculations and offers options to view different repayment timeframes & amounts.

Your current tools are great but are not optimized for desktop or mobile devices. They offer no additional information beyond entry fields (i.e. they don’t explain what you’re asking for or how it can help the user).

Create a tool that shows viewers what your range of mortgage offerings looks like for their respective situations. Capture their emails and put them into a follow-up flow that works on how they can reach their home-buying goals. 

Here’s how we suggest applying this to your strategy. 

Don’t limit it to just mortgages— there’s an opportunity to expand across all products.

Keywords

• mortgage affordability calculator
• mortgage approval calculator
• how much house can i afford
• rbc mortgage affordability calculator
• mortgage qualification calculator
• mortgage eligibility calculator

‍

‍

Shift toward YouTube & Display advertising for consideration campaigns. By Q4 F23, RBC had split their budget across them.

RBC has been prioritizing general bank campaigns, mortgages and investment products for consideration ad activations.

‍

Advertise tools that set realistic expectations for viewers. RBC spent $359K to promote their “True House Affordability Tool”.

Spend $359K | Imp. 76M | CPM. $4.8

Before the user starts the full analysis, make sure you capture their email and phone number.

Ad & Landing Page Tactics:

1. Your ad should focus on how quickly you can see a result from it, RBC leverages how their tool only takes 60 seconds to use.
2. Use simple graphics and aim to communicate the main takeaways in under 10 words → “Prequalify for a mortgage in 60 seconds”.
3. The landing page should build trust with viewers, by stating: 

• What they will get out of it
• How it won’t affect their credit score
• That results are ready immediately

‍

Educate viewers about why you are different from the rest. RBC spent $306K on campaigns promoting their “About Us” page.

‍

A top campaign for the “About Us” landing page uses YouTube to drive emotional storytelling about your values. 

RBC spent $189K on 4 variations of a “Bank of Ideas” campaign.

Ad Tactics:

1. Top-performing videos are 15 seconds long.
2. Videos feature a compilation of different, aspirational imagery that help drive emotion.
3. Don’t focus on money in a literal sense but instead on broad concepts that money can achieve for you—like vacations, honeymoons, and growing old comfortably. 
4. Make it about you and the viewer. RBC states “We are the bank of your ideas and our ideas together”.
5. ‍Test messaging. Keep the intro the same and test the main content (about 6 seconds in).  

• The top ad tries to connect with viewers on the storyline of “firsts”, stating they’ll be with the viewer for all their firsts. 
• The second ad focuses on bigger moments in life like growing old and going on honeymoons.  

‍

Speak to audiences with influencers only niches would know. RBC spent $81K on two Display ads with HGTV stars the Baeumlers.

This was the second largest campaign with the “About Us” landing page.

Ad Tactics:

• Feature local stars on Display ads with no branding about who they are. Only focus on adding your branding to the image. 
• By using Canadian HGTV stars in their images, viewers who are fans of their shows will recognize them and notice it as their endorsement of RBC.
• Target news sources, and online radios that are localized to Canadians.

Display Targeting:

• ‍globalnews.ca 
• ‍globaltv.com
• ‍hgtv.ca
• ‍cjob.com
• ‍q107.com

‍

‍

Increase spend on tool and resource pages with Paid Search. RBC grew their spend by 97% in the second half of the year.

‍

Use a ‘compare’ resource as a tool template for consumer products. 

71% of the Paid Search ad spend for tools went to credit cards. Tactics for this campaign include: 

• Creating an interactive tool that lightly gamifies the process of discovering options about your products. 
• Keeping ads simple, some of RBC’s ad copy features a simple branded headline (“RBC Credit Cards”) or a headline about comparing credit cards (“Compare RBC Cards”). 
• Targeting people looking for broad credit card searches related to your brand offerings. 

Keywords

• rbc credit card
• westjet mastercard
• rbc bank
• rbc student credit card
• rbc avion visa
• best rbc credit card

Ad Copy Examples

‍

Use tables to disseminate information quickly. Make tools cyclical so the viewer is always redirected to new resources.

‍

Target products that only specific people would already be searching for, such as interest rates related to products.

11% of the Paid Search ad spend went to a GIC Selector. Tactics for this campaign include: 

• Keeping ad copy simple and to the point. Prioritize the idea of helping the viewer, RBC states “We can help you meet your goals”.
• The new everyday investor probably doesn’t immediately know what a GIC is. Continue further education for people who already know what investment product they want.
• Keeping target keywords branded for people already looking for your bank.

Keywords

• rbc gic rates
• rbc gic
• gic rates
• rbc gic special rates
• rbc gic interest rates
• gic rbc

Ad Copy Examples

‍

Give viewers an opportunity to tell you more about themselves and their goals through multi-select forms.

‍

‍

Start consideration campaigns with TikTok creators who post content from their accounts. Boost high performers with spend. 

RBC started this in April 2022 but consideration sponsored posts saw viewership growth in Q4 F23 (Oct. ‘22 onwards).

‍

Target local creators in the mid-tier range, then add spend to ~25% of the videos that push your message the best.

RBC worked with 9 creators on consideration-focused sponsored videos.

‍

Talk about money without talking about your brand. Pose questions about finances and life to start a conversation.

‍

Educate prospects on initiatives your brand is supporting. RBC promoted two UGC ads about their music initiatives.

Views 9M*

‍

Spend $70K | Imp. 20M | CPM. $3.5

Tactics:

1. When planning broad creator campaigns, maintain consistency in small ways to build a unified campaign:

• Introductions should have similar text, storytelling and branding. 
• Use your logo in the top right corner of the videos
• Ensure storylines follow similar patterns but are told in the natural voice of the creator. RBC’s music campaigns show musicians struggling to figure it all out then cut to them performing as a result of RBC’s help. 

2. Videos are about 30 seconds in length.

*Ad spend unavailable for this video

‍

Repurpose ad creative from TikTok to YouTube & Instagram to show how you’re supporting community to a broader audience.

RBC tested both of these YouTube ads in 15 and 6 second formats, but prioritized the shorter run time.

Spend $25K | Imp. 7.9M | CPM. $3.2

‍

Sponsor creators to talk broadly about finance. RBC started budgeting & career planning campaigns to share resources.

Views 252K 

‍

Views 87K 

‍

Views 23K 

Organic Partnership Tactics:

• Don’t script the creator’s talking points. Let them develop content based on what works for them traditionally. 
• Videos talk about the importance of budgeting or career planning and either link to resources from RBC in their descriptions or mention them in the video. 
• ‍In this video, the creator shows the Future Launch toolbox page that is full of rich content, blog posts and resources to kick-start a career.