Canadian Fintech Affiliate: Kikoff kicks-off credit building in Canada👷
How Kikoff can successfully promote partners, Webull launches RRSP and TFSA accounts, and some great events happening this summer🍸
Morning!
It’s a rainy day in Pizzaville, innit?
Welcome to the Canadian Fintech Affiliate newsletter, a monthly roundup of industry news, offer updates and conferences worth attending for Canadian affiliate marketers.
In today’s email:
Offer updates: Webull launches popular accounts and a sign up bonus ends
Insights: Who is Kikoff and how I’d monetize their audience
Best conferences in Toronto, New York, Budapest and Denver
Opinions expressed are my own*
Today’s reading time is 5 minutes.
🤑 Offer updates
Webull launches RRSP and TFSA accounts, paving the way for a big push into the CA investing space.
Coast Capital welcome offer ends
Kikoff, credit builder app, launches in Canada
After digging into Chexy last month I’ve been getting targeted with tons of ads by a new company called Kikoff. Naturally, I started looking at their product to understand what it is and how they make money.
What is Kikoff?
Kikoff is an app that helps people improve their credit by providing a loan to build their credit history.
This loan can’t be used as traditional credit to make purchases but rather to show creditworthiness through on-time repayments.
KOHO and Borrowell offer similar products, the latter being through the acquisition of Refresh Financial.
This segment is getting lots of attention and fintechs are trying different angles to attract a subprime audience looking to improve their finances.
How are they monetizing their audience?
In Canada, they’re charging a monthly fee starting at $5/month for their credit-building service, with 3 tiers ranging to $20/month (assuming the same as the US.)
In the US they have multiple products like a secured card and a credit line (though you can only use it to purchase e-books in their store, lame.)
It’s unclear without signing up if they’re working with lenders to refer their audience 3rd party offers but this is a prime opportunity to do so.
Here’s how I would do it
First and foremost, you’d need to segment the audience to provide targeted offers to each member based on the likelihood of approval and interest.
Focus on 2 product lines only - credit cards ($75-$250 CPA) and bank accounts ($50-$300 CPA) is where I’d start.
Start with email, then build an in-app marketplace to drive traffic to these offers.
Credit cards are obvious, but why bank accounts?
Their mission is to help people improve their finances. Getting the right bank account sets the stage for many people’s financial well-being. They could focus on no-fee accounts that also give access to HISA accounts with attractive interest rates.
It’s also a category with plenty of products available with strong payouts.
The traffic would come from two initiatives, transaction email offers and an in-app marketplace.
I’d start with email first because you control when you want to reach the audience. With the app marketplace, you need to prompt users to log into the app to check their credit score THEN prompt them to navigate to the marketplace with a notification like ‘Top offers for you.’
Essentially, you’ll get more traffic from email offers than you will with in-app offers at the beginning.
You need to be aware of churn, but to keep things simple we’ll assume their growth loop is dialled in and new user growth is sustainable to launch these initiatives.
Which cards and accounts to focus on?
With the audience being less than prime, the focus would be on cards that cater to that demographic. You’re looking at cashback and balance transfer offers mostly and maybe a few top-tier cards for users who have graduated to the 700+ club.
You’d need to be careful not to promote offers for institutions/fintechs that offer similar credit building products like KOHO.
On the bank account side, free accounts with large signup bonuses would likely convert the best. You can educate the audience on what they need to do to hit the bonuses to improve the quality after the click and the customer satisfaction from being transparent in the offer.
This would build trust and the behaviour to come back to the app when they’re looking for new products.
What products to avoid
Steer clear of mortgages and insurance. They are tempting to launch because of the payouts but at the beginning, the offers need to be extremely focused to compliment the audience’s intent to build their credit.
Could they eventually graduate from renting to owning, sure. Do they own a car or need renters insurance, probably.
But these products aren’t top of mind for the audience right now. Forget about them.
The challenge with partnerships
From what I’ve read, the leadership team is focused on internal products that promote financial literacy. Hats off to them for the mission. I think it’s courageous to try something new and stick to their mission above profit.
I think the challenge with this will be that users who still want products like an unsecured credit card, loan or cash advance will seek those products out from another app.
I would find the right partnerships that align with the mission to find a happy medium of profit and mission-driven actions.
But what do I know, I’m just an affiliate marketer.
🍸Conferences
Upcoming conferences worth checking out:
Finance Affiliate Summit - FAC - COMING THIS FALL
Finder’s FAC event will be held in Toronto early this fall. I’m in the final stages of securing a venue🍾
Keep an eye out for more details.
Affiliate Summit East - ASE - July 29 & 30, 2024 | Times Square, NYC
Great conference to attend for affiliates with parties and meetups, like Mailcon.
Affiliate World Europe - AWE - 5-6 September 2024 | Budapest, Hungary
My favourite of the international shows. If you’re going to go to one conference this year, check this one out.
Rakuten Dealmaker - September 26-26 2024 | Toronto, Canada
Rakuten’s in-house conference. If you want to meet with TD/MBNA or CIBC credit cards, check this out.
Contact.io - August 28-30, 2024 | Denver, CO
Focused on pay-per-call marketing. If you’re driving leads, have a call centre or sending live transfers this is a good show at checkout.