How to Attract Millennials and Gen Z to Your Finance App

How to Attract Millennials and Gen Z to Your Finance App | Finance Apps | AdAction.com

How to Attract Millennials and Gen Z to Your Finance App

Growing your finance app will require acquiring new users from younger generations. They are, after all, digital natives, so they are more apt to use technology to manage their finances. How they feel about money including how they spend, save, and invest is much different from other generations. So, what’s the secret to attracting millennials and Gen Z to your finance app?

Let’s find out!

Why Gen Z and Millennials Are Valuable to Fintech Apps

These generations have similarities and differences and are equally attractive to fintech apps. Gen Z has an estimated buying power of $140 billion and had disposable income of $360 billion. They also represent over 20% of the U.S. population. When it comes to finances, they have unique perspectives, including:

  • Favoring BNPL (buy now, pay later) purchasing options.
  • Spending preferences for both things (technology, health and wellness, and fashion) and experiences (eating out and traveling). 
  • Investing early, with 62% doing so by age 18, with many choosing apps as the vehicle to do this. 
  • Desiring personalized, relevant tools to manage money.
  • Looking for education regarding personal finance, which many find on social media sites like TikTok.
  • Longing to work with companies that align with their values and belief systems.

Millennials have a buying power of $2.5 trillion and represent 21.75% of the U.S. population, which is the greatest percentage.  

Millennials are older, so their financial perspectives are slightly different, often focusing on home ownership and family planning. They, too, seek education on finances and want to work with companies that they consider aligned with their social perspectives. Some other financial considerations for them include:

  • They are bank “hoppers,” switching 2.5 times more than older generations.  
  • They have high expectations regarding service, tools, and outcomes. They want apps that identify spending habits and how they impact their finances. 
  • Social media is a place where they discover services and find apps, so it should be part of your strategy.

Next, we’ll cover strategies to bank on for UA (user acquisition).

The Way to Capture Gen Z’s and Millennials’ “Hearts and Minds” with Your Financial App

Now that you know how these generations feel about money, budgeting, and investing, it’s time to apply strategies to grow this user base

Hyper-Personalize UA Campaigns

These generations crave personalization and authenticity when deciding on finance apps. The more you can customize the campaign to how they think, the better. Here are some examples:

  • Use long-tail keywords in burst campaigns and on your app profiles that include “millennial” and “Gen Z.”
  • Ensure your profiles and ad copy match how they speak about finances, which is informal and slangy instead of boring terms.
  • Link what your app does to how it will support them in saving, investing, etc. For example, your hook could be a financial personality test as a start to their journey. Another thought is to go granular about the tools and how they’ll make a difference in their financial lives.

Lead with Education for Long-Term Retention

Your finance app should play the role of teacher and could even feature on-demand courses through the app. If they see the value of these and what they can learn, you’ll be more likely to keep them as users. This content could be premium, requiring a subscription. It could also be part of a CPE (cost per engagement), where the first class is free. 

Update your app profiles, campaigns, social posts, and more to promote your education angle.

Gamify Finance Management for More Engagement

As you’re marketing to digital natives, your app needs to elevate the experience. Gamification is one way to do this, driving greater engagement. These games can come with real rewards like money added to a savings account. They could also enable users to gain badges and awards, unlocking new features.

Partner with a Financial Influencer

Gen Z and millennials are the social media generations. They spend considerable time on these profiles and engage with content creators. Thus, it’s an ideal channel for attracting these users to your app.

You’ll want to find an influencer with finance aptitude whom Gen Z and millennials trust. These content collaborations could include a walk-through of features, introducing new functionality, displaying games and courses, or anything else that may hook them.

Highlight Your Values and Why They Matter

Gen Z and millennials care about doing business with companies with similar beliefs. Many times, these center around the environment and social issues. If your company’s values place importance on these things, make sure it’s apparent in your advertising, ASO (app store optimization), and app onboarding. Starting the conversation with transparency about how your app can benefit the environment or society will be highly attractive.

More Than Transactions: Gen Z and Millennials Want Relationships

In defining a plan to grow your Gen Z and millennial user base, you’ll need to think outside the transaction. These demographics want more from an app than just tracking a budget or making payments. Within all these strategies, the common theme is relationships. If you focus on that in your advertising, you’ll gain them as users and retain them much longer. 

Get more tips on finance app UA by reading our post on CPE campaigns for the category.

Most Popular

Laravel Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions
12 minutes
Examining the State of Mobile App Fraud
10 minutes
Beyond the Click: AdGem’s Journey to 1 Billion Interactions
2 minutes
Innovating Privileges Governance: AWS CDK Constructs for RBAC
9 minutes
AdAction’s Fiesta Maya: A Staff Retreat in Paradise
2 minutes
Can’t Stop Chronicles: Matt Swim, Strategic Account Manager
3 minutes

Subscribe

Subscribe to the AdAction Connect blog for industry updates, UA tactics and best practices, and more! Get tips that you can apply to your existing strategy, and feel confident that we’ll never serve you ads.

Social Links