How Financial Services Brands Are Winning With Paid Search

The financial services industry is at a tipping point. As Boomers pass the torch, younger generations are stepping in—and they bring different expectations, different loyalties, and a digital-first mindset that forces a rethink of old playbooks.

Search isn’t just important because it’s another channel to manage. It’s where all your marketing efforts ultimately converge. Brand campaigns, social ads, display pushes—they all drive people to search. Winning that moment isn’t optional; it’s critical.

Today, we’re sharing four real-world examples where the right tools helped financial services marketers turn strategy into real results.

Tech that shaped the case studies ahead:

• [award-winning] Campaign Mirroring: Manage just one engine: Syncs your Google Ads campaigns to Microsoft Advertising automatically. All changes are reflected, including bids, creative, etc.
• Budget Navigator: Predict and optimize spend with machine learning.
• Search Term Analysis: Find winning queries with AI in minutes, not hours, and cut wasted spend fast.
• Smart Tags: Let AI scour your search programs to flag underperformers and fix them automatically.

31% drop in CPA: scaling paid search for Royal Bank of Canada

RBC is a powerhouse in financial services, but even at that scale, efficiency isn’t automatic. The search team manages a massive portfolio, and keeping campaigns optimized across channels without overwhelming internal resources was becoming a real constraint. There was no room to add headcount, but expectations around paid search growth hadn’t slowed down.

Skai’s Campaign Mirroring allowed them to sync Google Ads recommendations across to Microsoft Advertising, eliminating repetitive manual effort. Weekly keyword expansion reports added fuel to the mix by helping unlock new opportunities, while the cannibalization tool cleaned up overlap.

The impact was clear: CPA fell by 31%, CPC dropped 25%, and Microsoft performance surged with clicks rising up to 137% YoY and CTR lifting as much as 33%.

181% more leads: Creditas MX boosts acquisition with machine learning

For Creditas MX, manual bidding was slowing things down—and draining resources. They needed more scale, better leads, and tighter control over spend. The old way of working simply couldn’t keep pace with their goals.

By shifting to Skai’s Budget Navigator, the team automated forecasting, optimization, and performance tracking across campaigns. With less time spent in spreadsheets and more focus on strategy, lead volume rose by 181%. At the same time, acquisition costs dropped by 42% and ROAS improved by 1.5x. Creditas didn’t just grow—they grew smarter.

59% reduction in CPA: Lewis Media Partners hits national and state goals

Lewis Media Partners was working with a top education savings brand that needed to boost new account signups. The challenge? Do it at scale across both national and state-level campaigns, each with different goals and metrics for success.

With Skai’s support, the agency upgraded portfolio optimization, applied deeper query-level insights, and streamlined reporting across accounts. Automation took over what had been a time-intensive process, allowing the team to shift focus to performance levers that mattered. CPA fell by 34% statewide and 59% nationally, all within nine months—while exceeding client acquisition targets.

17.5% rise in CTR: RBC uses Smart Tags to improve campaign efficiency

RBC’s next challenge was about scale—not just in performance, but in workflow. Managing underperforming ads was eating up time the team didn’t have. With thousands of creatives in rotation, identifying what needed to be paused was becoming a full-time job.

Using Smart Tags, the team let Skai’s AI handle the first layer of analysis. Ads that fell below performance thresholds were automatically flagged, and Skai’s Automated Actions handled the follow-through. CTR rose by 17.5%, budgets were reallocated more efficiently, and the team reclaimed hours every week.

Search is evolving—so should your strategy

Search isn’t just one piece of the puzzle—it’s the layer that connects everything else. Every impression, every campaign, every interaction feeds into that moment when a customer hits the search bar.

Financial services brands who invest in smarter search strategies aren’t just protecting performance—they’re building a foundation that supports everything else. Skai’s platform was built for this shift, and we’re ready to help brands not just keep up, but lead.

Schedule a brief, tailored demo to see Skai’s innovative, AI-driven platform.