BRD Builds Always-On Banking Acquisition

Challenge

Retail media had not yet been proven in Romania as a reliable banking acquisition channel at always-on scale. Footprints AI needed to show the model could drive qualified onboarding starts and successful account openings and, critically, recover high-intent users who dropped off before opening an account and re-engage them to complete onboarding.

Solution

Together with Footprints AI, BRD activated a two-layer acquisition model across Carrefour, Profi and Bolt Food. Retail media filled the funnel with qualified traffic through in-store and digital placements, while an AI-powered CRO layer monitored the onboarding flow in real time, detected abandonment and re-engaged users through personalized retargeting. This turned retail media from a traffic source into a connected acquisition engine, where media generated demand and CRO re-engaged users after abandoned onboarding.

Results

The always-on engine delivered strong full-funnel performance across 106 days:

· 754 accounts opened and 5.4x ROAS

· 81,568 clicks generated from 6.35M impressions and 3.86M reach, with a 1.28% CTR

· 6,967 users started onboarding, with 754 account opens at a 10.8% conversion rate

· Of the 754 accounts opened, the report attributes 62 to the AI-powered CRO recovery layer after abandoned onboarding

· The report records 62 recovered account opens alongside 692 direct conversions and labels the CRO contribution an 8.9% assisted conversion uplift, 48% above its 6% market benchmark.

By combining omnichannel retail media with real-time CRO recovery, BRD proved that acquisition performance does not stop at the click. The campaign turned qualified traffic into account openings, while the report attributed recovered account openings to the CRO layer after users dropped off mid-journey, making the engine stronger and more efficient over time.

Download the full case study to see how BRD combined retail media and AI-powered CRO to drive qualified traffic, recover abandoned onboarding journeys and generate measurable account openings in Romania.