Decoding Essential KPIs to Hyperscale Your Co-branded Credit Card Program
As we saw in our previous blog, credit card programs are key to driving customer engagement and revenue for businesses. However, tracking and measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) that provide meaningful insights into its performance is crucial to ensure the ongoing success and profitability of your credit card program.
By identifying and measuring the right KPIs, you can gain valuable insights into customer acquisition trends, retention, profitability, and overall portfolio performance.
This article will explore the KPIs integral to monitoring and enhancing your co-branded credit card program.
Acquisition
For co-branded credit cards, as per the RBI guidelines, the role of the co-branding partner should be limited to marketing and distribution of the cards. Hence, the acquisition of credit card customers is one of the key areas which need to be tracked. Some of the important metrics are
- Number of Applications – The total number of credit card applications received.
This top-of-the-funnel number can be improved by having a digital onboarding journey. With the RBI allowing Video KYC for customer onboarding, co-brand partners can enable digital onboarding for their co-branded credit cards. - Cost of Acquisition – Customer Acquisition Cost is a crucial expenditure in any credit card program, and if it is out of control, it can throw your plan off course right away.
Activation
User-initiated card activation is a crucial step in the success of your co-branded credit program. As per the RBI, if a cardholder does not activate their credit card within 30 days of issuance, the issuing Bank will require OTP-based consent to activate the card. If the cardholder does not consent to activation, the card issuer shall close the account within 7 working days of requesting consent. (This does not apply to renewed or replaced cards).
Non-activation will eventually lead to customers canceling their co-brand card. There is a huge cost of acquisition that the bank incurs in onboarding the customer hence activation within the prescribed timeline is very critical.
This brings us to one of the critical tracking metrics at the top of the funnel.
- Activation Rate
The percentage of customers who activate their credit cards within 30 days of receiving them. Many users apply for credit cards but do not use them, resulting in inflated numbers. Hence, the activation is a realistic measure of the quality of user acquisition for a co-brand.
Co-brands can leverage the digital credit card experience to enable quicker card activation. With the Bank’s approval, co-brands can offer a digital credit card experience in their app. To highlight, no transaction data can be shared with the co-brand as per the regulation.
Engagement
Now that you have converted your users into co-branded credit card holders, you need to track their engagement level with your card. Under this area, here are the key metrics you need to track as a co-brand.
- Total transactions
- By Volume
- By Value
- Frequency of purchase using your co-branded credit card
- Within your ecosystem (your mobile app/site/stores)
- Outside your ecosystem (other merchants)
- Recency – The percentage of cards with at least one transaction in a month. This should be tracked at 2 levels – within your ecosystem and on other merchants.
- Milestone – The percentage of card users who have achieved milestone benefits indicates the spending inertia on your co-branded credit card. Hence, it is an important measure to track.
- Offer Performance – % conversion of the offers offered on your own ecosystem through your co-branded credit card
Portfolio Size & Growth Rate
Over time, the co-brand needs to track its credit card portfolio size and growth rate.
- Portfolio Size – The size of the portfolio refers to the number of credit cards issued. The brand gets paid on the number of cards issued. The payout generally is on a per-card basis, while some banks may also reward the co-brand with a milestone payout when the portfolio crosses a certain threshold.
- Growth Rate % – Dividing the net new cards (new cards activated minus cards closed) with the total active cards in the portfolio gives the card portfolio growth rate for a given period.
Customer Loyalty
In a highly competitive world, it is essential to build customer loyalty. Isn’t it one of your key goals when you launch your co-branded credit card? Here are a few key metrics you should track to gauge the impact of your co-branded credit on customer loyalty.
- Spend Share % – Percentage of spending done within your ecosystem compared to overall expenditure by your credit card user base. If you see a large amount of spending happening outside your ecosystem, it could be due to a lack of engagement. One of the main objectives for you to launch a co-branded credit card is to increase spending on your own ecosystem.
- Impact on your Net Promoter Score – Customer loyalty metric that is commonly used to assess customer satisfaction and loyalty. It measures the likelihood of customers recommending the credit card program to others. It is vital to track how your credit card users vote for you.
Thought Summary
Your bank partner will track key financial KPIs of your co-branded credit card, but as a co-brand, you need to track vital KPIs that will help you make your credit card program successful among your customers.
The success of the above KPIs would depend on the kind of customer experience that you would provide to your customers and how you engage with them. But launching it the traditional way is complex & time-consuming, and fails to meet the business objectives.
With Hyperface, you can launch a digital-first modern co-branded credit card with the customer experience at the center. The delivery of instant cashback/rewards drives customers to spend more on the brand.
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