• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 7, 2025

The cost to acquire new customers may require adjusting advertising and marketing spend, but it also means understanding many factors -- from the lifetime value of customers to their product and usage patterns.

Fintel Connect, an affiliate marketing company that specializes in fintech and banking, has released a guide that breaks down how acquisition costs vary by product, channel, and partner mix to give financial marketers an understanding of what drives costs. 

While this guide is geared toward the financial market, the 2025 Cost-Per-Acquisition Benchmarking Guide reminds advertisers and marketers across North America to review key factors that influence costs per acquisition (CPA), which measures how much it costs to gain a specific action from an ad.

CPAs are dynamic and are influenced by the broader marketing mix -- they do not exist in a vacuum.

The guide offers actionable insights to optimize budgets and plan for growth that can be used in other market segments and helps marketers consider how CPA varies across financial products, the biggest cost drivers in acquisition marketing, and ways to optimize costs, improve lifetime value and more.

A recognizable brand can help influence performance, but brand recognition is limited, and financial institutions and other companies may need to invest more in educational campaigns, partnerships, or endorsements to build trust and reduce acquisition costs over time.

Each marketing channel, such as search advertising, plays a different role -- but the CPA for this media is high, whereas paid social and affiliate marketing are low. Email marketing is the lowest, according to the report.

The benchmarking study also suggests keeping close tabs on tracking conversion rates for each event.

Conversion rates provide a clear picture of how effectively leads progress through the funnel, showing where potential drop-offs occur and highlights areas for improvement. Metrics like funding rates, approval rates, and account activations play a large role in driving down acquisition costs.

Marketers need to pay attention to the economic impacts on consumers due to seasonality, interest rates, competition, and global events.

These factors create a moving target for financial institutions trying to fine-tune their marketing strategies.