With more than half of the population using the internet, there’s no reason fintech businesses shouldn’t be paying attention to it too. By advertising online, you widen your reach and are able to tap into an already engaged audience.
That being said, figuring out how much to invest in fintech digital marketing can be tricky.
Spend too little, and you might not achieve the traction you desire. Spend too much, and you could blow your budget with little results to show for it. How do you find the sweet spot and ensure your online campaign is worth every penny?
Let’s dive into common digital marketing costs, factors influencing how much fintech companies should spend on online campaigns, and digital marketing strategies you should prioritize to generate the highest ROI.
Digital Marketing Costs
The cost of digital marketing is directly influenced by your business’s needs, the platforms you advertise on, and the work involved. Many companies that are advertising online commonly invest in fintech digital marketing services such as:
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Link building
- Content creation/marketing
- Social media (organic and advertising)
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
If you plan to spend money on some or all of the above, their costs will impact your total digital marketing budget.
Average Cost for Digital Marketing
Determining the average cost of digital marketing is not as straightforward as it might seem, as many factors are involved. However, you can approximate the number by looking at the typical amounts other companies invest in their fintech digital marketing services.
SEO Costs
About one-third of all companies spend between $1,000 and $5,000 monthly on SEO services. Small and midsize businesses with limited budgets and simple optimization campaigns are on the lower end of that range. Those with complicated SEO projects and more marketing resources spend over $5,000.
The size of the business is just one factor influencing SEO costs, though –the pricing model you’ll use also impacts your spending on search engine optimization. For instance, the average hourly SEO cost is between $150 and $250. The more skilled and experienced the SEO professional, the higher the hourly fee.
If you choose to pay your SEO partner a monthly retainer, the cost can range between $3,000 and over $20,000 per month, depending on the size of your SEO campaign. This payment plan usually comes with a package of SEO services that may include:
- Keyword research and competitor analysis
- On-page optimization and local SEO
- Developing a tailored SEO strategy
- Technical SEO auditing and optimization
- Setting up analytics and reporting
Besides monthly and hourly SEO pricing, you can also go for a project-based model. It’s suitable if you have an in-house SEO team and need extra support to avoid overwhelming your staff. Big projects like SEO audits often cost between $5,000 and $10,000.
Link Building Costs
Multiple backlinks from other sites tell Google your website is relevant and popular. This may lead to better ranking on search results pages and increasing your online visibility. Businesses normally create their link building budget based on the cost of acquiring a single backlink, which can range from $250 to $1000 per link.
If you find a link building partner with low prices that seem too good to be true, trust your instincts. If something isn’t right, it probably isn’t. The quality of the links they provide is probably low, and, in other words, you get what you pay for.
Cheap links are typically poor-quality, likely from spammy sources or websites with no reputation. The links may seem cost-effective upfront, but they can be a disaster for your fintech SEO in the long run. That’s because bad links hurt your website’s authority in the eyes of search engines — Google can suppress your ranking or entirely remove your web pages from search results if it thinks you’re trying to game the system.
Stick to reputable link builders and high-quality links from high authority, relevant sites.
Content Creation Costs
Hiring talented writers to create content can cost anywhere from $0.30 to $0.60+ per word.
With the rise of powerful AI writing tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, it’s easy to dismiss the idea of hiring a writer. While AI tools can be effective in content creation, a human touch is necessary to create marketing copy that addresses your target audience’s needs, pain points, and interests.
AI-only content tends to be bland and offers little in the way of novelty or expertise on a subject – experts are still needed to create useful high-quality pieces.
Social Media Ads
With over five billion people now using social media, businesses that want to expand their reach can no longer afford to ignore social media advertising.
How much you spend on social ads, of course, depends on your business goals and size, the platform you use, and your preferred pricing model. The average monthly cost can range from $500 to over $20,000.
Pay-Per-Click Ads
The amount you spend on ad clicks in sponsored search engine results varies with multiple factors, including the keywords you bid on, your bidding strategy, and the PPC platform you use (Bing, Google, etc.). For small businesses, the average PPC costs on Google ads can be anywhere between $500 and $10,000 per month.
How Much Should Your Fintech Company Spend on Digital Marketing?
While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for fintech marketing budgets, one thing is for sure: strategic spending is essential. Allocating the right amount into the right channel can fuel your growth and propel you far ahead.
But exactly how much should you spend on digital marketing?
What Are Your Marketing Goals?
You should be asking yourself the following before starting a digital marketing campaign:
- Do you want to increase brand awareness and acquire new customers?
- Or are you aiming for repeat purchases from existing buyers?
- Perhaps you want to establish industry authority, improve brand engagement, and eventually boost revenue generation in your fintech company?
Whatever your goals are, they will influence the size of your digital marketing campaign and the nature of your marketing activities. All these will determine whether you spend more or less on marketing than others in your industry.
Who Is Your Target Audience?
Do you target business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) audiences? The type of audience you target determines where you launch your digital marketing campaigns, which, in turn, affects how much you spend.
For instance, suitable platforms for reaching B2C audiences include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, where consumers are more likely to browse. However, LinkedIn is your best shot if you are targeting professionals and decision-makers in an organization.
Your target audience analysis will also determine the type of content you create and, therefore, influence marketing costs. For example, consumers ready to make the buying decision might prefer user-generated content as social proof. B2B customers in the same stage may be interested in in-depth white papers or case studies. User-generated content is free advertising because the cost of asking people to share their experience enjoying your product is essentially zero. With a B2B audience, on the other hand, you need to hire a talented team to create the white papers and case studies.
How Much Brand Awareness Do You Already Have?
Established fintech companies with a strong reputation often spend less on brand awareness campaigns because they’re already known. Their focus might shift towards other marketing goals deeper in the funnel, like lead generation and customer acquisition.
On the other hand, newcomers or less-known organizations in the fintech industry are likely to dedicate more marketing resources to increasing brand awareness. Because they lack reputation, their main goal when investing in fintech digital marketing is to ensure people know about their existence.
Marketing Strategies for Fintech Companies Worth Investing In
With billions of people using the internet, marketing online can be an opportunity to reach a wider audience and acquire more leads for your financial technology company.
There are many digital marketing strategies you could use, and not all of them might suit your organization. Below are some of the most crucial strategies you should prioritize in your marketing campaign.
SEO
Popular search engines like Google prefer to rank high-quality webpages that:
- Load fast and are mobile-friendly
- Showcase sufficient experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)
- Answer searchers’ questions and provide the information they need effectively
- Add to the general knowledge base and are ultimately useful
SEO for fintech is all about meeting the above requirements and the goal is to appear on top of Google, or as close as possible. Once you rank higher on search results, you stand to acquire organic website traffic when prospects search for terms related to your business. You can maintain your ranking position for a long time with sound strategies and the right support too, which makes investing in SEO cost-effective in the long run.
Besides traffic and improved online visibility, SEO is essential to staying competitive in your industry. Many businesses incorporate search engine optimization in their digital marketing campaigns. If you don’t invest in SEO, chances are your competitors have the upper hand and may leave you behind.
Link Building
Search engines treat backlinks almost as endorsements. The more quality websites link back to your site, the more credible and trustworthy it will seem in the eyes of Google.
But link quantity alone is not enough; your link building outreach needs to focus on backlink quality.
For example, a backlink from an authoritative website like The Washington Post has a bigger impact on your SEO than one from a random blogger who has a new website. Additionally, you want backlinks from content relevant to fintech or websites related to your business. This indicates your company is well-respected in the industry.
While search engines consider multiple factors when ranking web pages, a strong backlink profile could mean better ranking on result pages, more traffic to your website, and more leads for your fintech company.
Content Marketing
It’s all about creating and distributing helpful content — blog posts, videos, white papers, emails, social media posts, and more—to potential customers without explicitly promoting your brand. The goal is to offer prospects the information they seek and stimulate their interest in your products or services.
With content marketing, you maximize the chances of conversions by providing people with the content they need to take the next step toward buying. This could mean more people signing up for your email list, requesting a demo of your fintech products, or even making their first purchase.
Additionally, dishing out relevant content that answers your prospects’ most urgent questions is a great way to build industry authority. In other words, it’s an opportunity to become a thought leader people can trust. According to Adobe, 70% of customers buy from brands they trust and abandon those they don’t.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Because PPC ads usually appear at the top of result pages, they can be an excellent strategy for your business to capitalize on competitive keywords that are difficult to rank for organically.
Organic SEO efforts often take time to build up, but with PPC for fintech, you can bid on competitive search terms and get in front of your target audience as soon as your digital marketing campaign goes live. For this reason, you get fast results — you may start driving traffic to your website the very same day you launch and invest in fintech digital marketing.
PPC advertising can also be cost effective. You decide how much you want to spend on your campaign upfront and only pay when you get results, whether they are conversions or clicks. It’s a chance to reach your target audience for a price that seems fair to you.
Unlike marketing on TV, billboards, and magazines, where you’ll probably never know how many prospects saw your ads, PPC management allows you to track the number of people who clicked your ads and the action they took from there. In short, measuring your campaign’s conversions in whichever PPC platform you use and accessing loads of data is straightforward.
Work With a Fintech Digital Marketing Agency You Can Trust
If you invest in fintech digital marketing and deploy the strategies above correctly, your campaign should see tangible outcomes. This could mean increased brand awareness, higher website traffic, improved lead generation, or any of your other marketing goals.
Some strategies like SEO and content marketing can take time to work — you won’t always get results overnight. If, after a few months, you’re not receiving the outcomes you desire, you may need to re-evaluate your marketing efforts or even speak with a digital marketing expert you can trust.
Ready for professional help? Contact Sure Oak! With experience helping financial tech businesses maximize their digital marketing efforts, our agency has what it takes to help you achieve your marketing goals.
