This article is part of a new series from the Chimney Data Studio published by our research team. Chimney Data Studio provides insights and analysis across 23 million web sessions from over 120 financial institutions. We analyze and share the results to help you drive digital growth.
[WATCH Chimney Calculator Benchmark Analysis Webinar] to benchmark your performance data and see how calculators can impact multiple pages for you.
[DOWNLOAD Slides from the Webinar Report] to benchmark your performance data and see how calculators can impact multiple pages for you.
Remember financial calculators? Yes, the same ones that you use every time you have a big decision to make.
This article isn’t about ideas or hypotheticals, it's about raw data that shows how financial calculators perform on bank and credit union websites.
This is the largest analysis ever done on the performance of financial calculators on bank and credit union websites.
What we found is a game-changer: calculators are not just surviving; they're thriving.
The search demand is overwhelming. Remember when calculators on financial websites were just a nice-to-have? Those days are long gone. Today, 8 of out 10 major financial decisions are made using a financial calculator during the process.
In our groundbreaking benchmark report, we've combed through over 23 million web sessions across 120 U.S. financial institutions, including everything from large banks and credit unions to local community focused institutions.
The evidence is clear:
Financial calculators are actually digital conversion machines.
How we did it: Our analysis of 23 million pageviews segmented by institution type and size, focusing on pages featuring our calculators, to bring you the most relevant insights. To accurately analyze the data with benchmarks among peer groups, we performed a cohort analysis based on the type of institution along with the size of overall web traffic [See appendix for details on our process. & analysis].
While this research is isolated to Chimney clients, these numbers highlight the broader trends of personalized content converting at higher rates.
The industry conversion benchmarks for bank and credit union websites hovers around 2-3% from overall web traffic.
Our analysis shows that the click through rate on Chimney calculators is 18% on average.
Imagine if you could improve your conversion rates from 2% to 10% and how that would impact your next campaign.
Integrating calculators isn't about random placement to check the box; it's about strategic usage where they can make the most significant impact. Dive into our "8 Best Practices for Maximizing Your Financial Calculators" for actionable insights.
92% of mortgage borrowers do online research before reaching out to lenders, according to Ellie Mae’s Connecting with Borrowers Online report.
Looking to increase engagement? Look no further. After analyzing over 23 million website visits in 2023, Chimney Data Studio found that 1 of every 5 people that use a calculator will click through to an application.
When Chimney’s journey widget is used, engagement rates increase by over 10%!
To understand these results it's important to understand how calculators are being utilized. Chimney clients can easily publish calculators on many different pages of their website so there is not one particular tactic that increases engagement more than others.
You can read more about our best practice recommendations here: 8 Best Practices for Getting More from your Financial Calculators
The buying process has moved online - 80% of major financial decisions now involve online research.
To compete, you have to be ready even when the branch and call center are closed. For example, Chimney clients have access to an entire library of calculators that their account holders can access 24/7, even after traditional banking hours. By instantly providing answers at the moment a question is asked, you dramatically increase the likelihood of winning the account.
Having a CTA like “Apply Now” at the top of the page is simply not good enough. The data shows it is vital to have multiple CTA options embedded right within the calculator that someone is using.
Chimney's journey widget.
Here’s where to start: Integrate calculators into your strategy, focusing on pages where they can make the biggest impact. Tailor your CTAs to ‘next best actions’ to maximize conversions.
Leveraging calculators isn't just about placing them everywhere. It's about strategic placement and optimization based on deep insights into engagement patterns and conversion rates.
Calculators have evolved from a tool on a banker’s desk to crucial moments in the buying process, driving engagement and conversions at impressive rates. Our analysis isn't just a pat on the back for using calculators; it's a roadmap to leveraging them more effectively than ever before.
[REQUEST Chimney Calculator Lift Analysis] to benchmark your performance data and see how calculators can impact multiple pages for you.
Appendix
We analyzed the overall dataset and also built peer benchmarks. We engineered peer benchmarks via cohort breakdown by 1) Type (Bank or Credit Union) and 2) Size (volume of website traffic).
Defining key terms:
Pageview: First we looked at how many people land on a page that includes a Chimney calculator. Our analysis looked at both overall page views and unique sessions.
Engagement: From there we looked at how many people engage with a calculator on that page. Chimney’s analytics platform defines an engagement as anyone that interacted with at least 2 elements of the calculator. For example, if someone moves a slider and selects a drop down, that would count as an Engaged User.
Conversion: Finally we analyzed how many Engaged Users convert using the CTAs embedded within our calculators. A CTA event can be configured using our CTAs - the most common examples of a CTA event would be something like “Apply Now” or “Open An Account”.
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