Situation
Founded in 2014, Starling Bank is a leading digital bank in the UK with over 2m accounts and growing fast.
To promote their app and attract new customers, they launched
a small referral program with about 10 content and comparison site partners. This network was tracked and managed via highly manual processes for approvals, invoicing, and reporting. But those time-intensive, manual processes left little bandwidth for relationship-building and growth.
Starling Bank knew they would need a more automated approach to partnership management if they wanted to grow the size of their program.
Solution
From day one, the Impact Partnership Cloud streamlined processes and eliminated manual tasks so the bank could manage the steady flow of partner applications and new opportunities they were generating.
Impact automated processes at every phase of the partnership life cycle, from how the bank responded to inbound applications to its ability to quickly get each contract set up.
Attribution and contracting became integrated, making it simple to track all partner-driven events and pay out only when conversions were recorded.
Unified tracking
With the Partnership Cloud, Starling was able to create a single landing page and use it across all partnerships, eliminating the time-consuming task of setting up individual landing pages.
It also enabled them to fully automate the tracking and attribution process—no more manually tallying which conversions were tied to which partners. Tracking visibility also helped the team optimize the performance of existing partners and seek out new partnerships they could predict would achieve similar success.
Streamlined contracting and payment
With Impact, Starling can now create template contract terms and easily customize them as-needed for each new partnership. The bank can specify exactly where in the conversion funnel a partner should get credit.
Payments, too, became automated and streamlined. Prior to Impact, Starling Bank had to tell partners how much to bill and then pay each invoice separately. With Impact, they just deposited funds in one go and let Impact’s Global Clearinghouse take care of the disbursals.
Improved communication, creativity, and compliance
While automated processes were a huge boon for Starling, personalized communication with partners remained a priority for the bank, even as it grew.
Impact enabled the bank to automate its generic communications and devote more time to personal interactions with partners. That in turn helped to generate more creative ideas and ensure adherence to compliance and brand standards.
Outcome
A mature program with freedom to scale
After launching Impact Partnership Cloud, Starling Bank has had the time and resources to accelerate every aspect of its partnership program, with plenty of headroom for future growth.
The team:
● Increased the number of partners onboarded per month at an average of 41% MoM
● Increased monthly account opens coming through affiliate partners by an average of 31%
● Reduced average time to onboard new partners by 6x
● Increased monthly clicks from partners at an average of 58% MoM
● Increased monthly app installs coming through affiliate partners an average of 50% MoM