Breaking the clickthrough obsession: why financial brands need a broader measure of success

Clickthrough rates aren’t meaningless. But they’re wildly overvalued.

We see it all the time in financial services: Clients show us a piece of creative that performs well because it “gets clicks”—even if those clicks come from the wrong audience, lead nowhere meaningful, or fade out before anyone takes real action.

It’s the illusion of effectiveness. And it’s holding brands back.

Clicks are an output. Not an outcome.

The real question isn’t “Did they click?” It’s “Did the right person click—and did it lead to anything that matters?”

When brands optimize to the wrong metric, they get the wrong answers:

• A headline that overpromises just to earn the click
• A visual that interrupts but doesn’t convert
• A message that’s sticky but not relevant

And when that happens, even a “high-performing” ad can hurt you.

According to Forrester, 58% of financial services customers consider leaving a brand after just one bad digital experience. So the cost of chasing clicks isn’t just wasted media. It’s lost trust.

This is why we zoom out.

When we evaluate creative, we don’t stop at clickthroughs. We ask:

• Who’s clicking?
• What do they do next?
• Are we driving meaningful engagement—or just winning the attention war?
• Are we connecting with high value customers?
• Are we deepening our relationship with existing customers?

It’s not about reporting more metrics. It’s about framing success in a way that reflects the strategy—not just the surface performance.

We’ve seen this dynamic in credit card marketing. The challenge isn’t just about driving applications—it’s about ensuring the product ends up with the person most likely to use it meaningfully. A high application rate might look great, but if it doesn’t lead to top-of-wallet status, it’s only telling part of the story.

This kind of thinking requires a different mindset.

You have to stop thinking of creative as something that works when it gets attention. It works when it moves the right person toward the right action.

That’s the shift: from engagement to impact.

And it’s what separates brands that just make noise from brands that build momentum.

Because if success is just clicks, you’ll keep making noise without meaning. But if success is connection, you’ll build something worth clicking into.

Want your work to actually matter? Redefine success around what your customer does—not just whether they saw you.