- Precision prospecting has been effective in lifting conventional marketing metrics such as response and conversion rates. But increasingly, the real advantage in targeting will be to identify the relationships that will matter most over time.
- A recent campaign to the mass affluent had it both ways: more funded accounts and higher balances, using one indicator for higher acquisition volume and another for sustainable customer value.
- The uncomfortable truth is that only about 1% of prospects will contribute to meaningful deposit growth. Targeting without the right decision support could miss them and focus instead on those who may look good initially but whose value will deflate over time.
Discovering and nurturing the 1% of prospects that will yield meaningful deposit growth continues to make affluent consumers (aged 35+ and with $100k+ household income) attractive. Not only do they have considerable means, they were also the most active shoppers for new banking services in 2025. But to find them, precision prospecting has to consider the value of each prospect over time.
Mass affluent customers are a discerning bunch: they need to feel wanted, and they need to be marketed to in a way that appeals to them as individuals. And the competitive dynamic for this segment is intensifying. That’s where the right precision prospect targeting can play an outsized role.
Affluent Consumers are in Motion
According to the 2025 Curinos U.S. Shopper Survey, 12% of affluent consumers who have switched banks in the past three years say that they would switch again. They also hold the highest average number of banking relationships—4.1, compared to 3.9 for HENRYs (high earners not rich yet), 3.6 for the stable mass market (SMM) and 3.2 for paycheck-to-paycheck (P2P). More than half of them (53%) hold their primary banking relationship with nationals, but a sizeable share hold it with super regionals, direct banks and fintechs (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Banking Relationships | By Segment
Notes: 1Heatmapped by rows | Switching includes only “I’m thinking about switching my primary checking account to a new bank” answer choice
Sources: Curinos Customer Knowledge | 2025 US Shopper Survey (P2P= 6,457, SMM = 3,027, HENRY= 1,128, MASS AFF+ = 3,019) | Q11: Which of the following statements best describes your level of interest in switching your primary checking account to a new bank? | Q7: Which of the following online banks are you familiar with?| Q9: Of all the banks you have a relationship with, which would you consider your overall primary financial institution? Select one. | Curinos Analysis
Figure 2: Financial Products Held | by Segment
Note: Having a checking account was a termination clause.
Sources: Curinos Customer Knowledge | 2025 US Shopper Survey (P2P= 6,457, SMM = 3,027, HENRY= 1,128, MASS AFF+ = 3,019) | Q8:Which of the following products do you keep with each of the following banks? (Select all that apply for each column) | Curinos Analysis
Figure 3: Drivers of Primacy | Ranked 1st | By Segment
Sources: Curinos Customer Knowledge | 2025 US Shopper Survey (P2P= 6,457, SMM = 3,027, HENRY= 1,128, MASS AFF+ = 3,089) | Total Sample | Q19: Please rank these statements in order of importance when selecting a primary bank, with 1 being most important and 9 being least important. Q20: How satisfied are you with [PIPE IN PRIMARY BANK] on each of these statements?
Targeting Affluence: A Real-World Success Story
Prospect targeting identifies prospects who are likely to respond to marketing stimuli that will produce a desired outcome. Among other use cases, Curinos uses target modeling to predict the likelihood that an identified consumer will change their primary institution. It’s based on these four factors: 1) how likely an individual will choose the brand (brand association); 2) the likelihood they’ll switch their primary financial institution (switch propensity); 3) the likelihood they’ll create value in the future (deposit propensity); and 4) the amount of anticipated transaction volume they’ll generate (transaction propensity) (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Targeting Insights to Optimize Audience and Marketing
The urgency of this approach is growing in direct proportion to the intensity of competition for the segment. Institutions that rely on broad-based marketing and reactive outreach will find their acquisition economics worsening and their conversion rates declining. Precision is no longer a differentiator—it’s the price of admission.
A recent example illustrates what Curinos can do for its depository clients. Using base modeling on brand association and deposit propensity, one bank was able not only to encourage new higher-balance customers to opt into their premier product but also to gain insight that would drive future growth.
The strategy was built on our well-founded hypothesis from other engagements that by identifying high-quality targets with a preference for the bank and some propensity to churn, Curinos would be able to improve efficiency and efficacy of customer acquisition. A two-phase approach was constructed around the belief that awareness followed by the targeted introduction of an offer would lead to increased acquisition.
First, the group was targeted with a digital awareness campaign, with impressions delivered in a split between brand and product awareness. In the second phase, offers were split between direct mail and digital across further brand awareness, product awareness and the offers themselves.
As a result, the overall response rate outperformed control by ~3x. And the mail-offer response rate for the growth in acquisition of deposit relationships outperformed by 4x. The team acknowledged that for future campaigns, digital-only would be less effective than targeted direct mail and that spreading volume to the best responders across the footprint would drive better economies.
Real Results
As the campaigns played out, the bank recorded significant growth to new-to-bank checking relationships among affluent customers. The targeted group to which the scoring model had been applied brought 3x the number of funded accounts and more than 2.5x average balances compared with organic acquisitions (Figure 5).
The results prompted comparison to a similar acquisition campaign carried out in a different partnership. In that instance, the bank shifted from its regional-market strategy to targeting those they deemed to be the best 200,000 prospects across the bank’s footprint. On an adjusted basis, the Curinos campaign saw a 40% improvement in response rate, would have generated nearly 100 more households for the same number of mailers, and averaged 5% more checking balances.
The key to these results is predictive prospecting through adaptive intelligence that continuously learns from interactions. It transforms automated touchpoints into evolving relationships that can unlock the potential value of every customer.
Figure 5: Client Performance Impact
Mass Affluent Deposit Acquisition through Prospect Targeting
Decision & Action Takeaways
Decision to be Made | How to apply precision prospect targeting to identify most opportune audiences precisely and direct marketing to them accordingly. |
How It Affects Total Customer Value | Improves efficacy—targeting the right people—and efficiency—doing so with the least amount of resources possible. |
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Expected KPI Lift |
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