CASE STUDY

CASE STUDY

Sector: Financial Services

Shaping global digital transformation with propensity insight

Western Union sought to revolutionise its business through ambitious digital transformation

The Challenge

Western Union, a global leader in money transfer and financial services, was undergoing a major digital transformation. However, rising customer acquisition costs and complex customer journeys across channels created inefficiencies in media spend.

Key Issues Identified:

  • Rising CAC: Year-over-year increase of 22% in blended customer acquisition costs across major regions.

  • Cross-channel confusion: 45% of customers who eventually converted interacted with both paid and organic media, making it difficult to understand true channel performance.

  • Budget inefficiency: Paid media spending was heavily skewed toward "last-click" performers, underinvesting in influential upper-funnel and brand channels.

The Solution: Propensity Engine Implementation

Big Wednesday deployed its advanced Propensity Engine across Western Union's core markets. The tool analysed behavioral, transactional, and engagement data across all customer touchpoints, helping Western Union to:

  • Identify 8 key customer themes influencing conversions across different regional markets.

  • Uncover hidden value in under-reported channels, particularly brand and organic.

  • Build a custom attribution model to reflect true channel contribution, enabling smarter spend decisions.

Strategic Actions Taken

  1. Paused Low-Propensity Paid Campaigns:
    Campaigns targeting customers likely to convert anyway (due to brand affinity or previous engagement) were identified and paused in favour of higher-propensity segments.

  2. Reallocated Spend to Undervalued Channels:
    Shifted 20–25% of paid media budget from high-cost, low-impact search ads to better-performing organic and direct acquisition efforts.

  3. Aligned Global & Regional Teams:
    Introduced a single source of truth via unified attribution dashboards, resolving internal conflicts between regional teams over budget distribution.

Results:

  • Customer acquisition cost decreased by 21%

  • Return on ad spend (ROAS) increased by 45%

  • Conversion rate from paid media improved by 38%

  • Organic conversions increased by 13%

  • $2.4 million in media spend was reallocated to higher-value channels