Summary
You Need A Budget (YNAB) provides financial management software along with a host of resources that encourage financial education and literacy. YNAB launched its student program in 2012 but found that manually verifying students for its free trial was time-consuming and caused users to opt out. When the company adopted SheerID’s Audience Network to instantly verify students, it saved 300 hours and $20,000 in support costs per year, and drove a 68% increase in student acquisition.
Challenge
You Need A Budget (YNAB) empowers people to make more informed financial decisions and take control of their financial lives. While YNAB is a software company, its primary goal is to educate users, and it sees its platform as simply a means for helping users understand and implement sound financial practices.
College students are a key community for YNAB, and in 2012, the company launched a program giving them access to a free trial of its software. But in order to qualify, students had to verify their eligibility by emailing documents to YNAB’s support team—a manual process that often resulted in back-and-forth exchanges that could last a week.
Kody Atkinson, YNAB’s group programs manager and program owner, said this was out of line with user expectations and led to one in five verified students never using their free trial.
Kody knew that had to change. “The issue came to a head when we decided to expand our program and realized that having to manually verify students was holding us back.”
When it comes to technology, college students are used to instant gratification, and asking them to engage in a lengthy email exchange to access our program prevented us from truly connecting with them.
Solution
Kody started looking into digital verification solutions—and the more research he did, the more he realized that SheerID’s Audience Network was the perfect fit.
“It became very clear, very quickly, that SheerID was operating at a different level from their competitors,” Kody said. “SheerID offered everything we needed to not only solve our current student verification issue, but more effectively segment our audience and potentially engage other communities.”
The YNAB team relaunched their student program with SheerID, which instantly verified students and provided the company with permissioned data it could use to nurture students with highly relevant content on topics like student loans, housing, and how to get through college with little-to-no debt.
YNAB promoted their revamped student program through a variety of channels, including:
• Blogs
• Social media
• A referral program
• YNAB’s ambassador program featuring students with larger social media followings
Kody noted that, while all the channels were helpful in growing YNAB’s student program, the channels that tapped into the company’s existing customer base were particularly effective.
“Our users are extremely passionate. They see how strongly YNAB has impacted their financial lives and are excited to share that educational opportunity with others,” Kody said. “We offer students an extended free trial through our referral program and cash incentives to participate in our ambassador programs, but many of them ask for opportunities to learn from YNAB’s experts instead.”
SheerID offered everything we needed to not only solve our current student verification issue, but more effectively segment our audience and potentially engage other communities.
Results
Kody said relaunching YNAB’s student program has been a great success. The company has saved 300 hours per year in support time, reducing support costs by $20,000 annually. It also slashed support inquiries by more than 80%, which cleared the way for even greater company-wide benefits.
“SheerID definitely saved us money, but more importantly, it freed up our support team to work on more strategic initiatives, like improving processes to better serve our customers,” Kody said. “Employees can now focus on high-value tasks, and that has created exponential value for our business.”
The improved user experience has also led to greater engagement with the platform. The number of verified students that never use the trial dropped from 16% to just 2%.
This greater engagement has driven a 68% increase in student acquisition, which Kody believes will pay huge dividends down the road. “If students convert to a full-price subscription after they graduate at the rate YNAB’s regular free trial users do, our SheerID program could generate up to $900,000 in revenue.” That would be an incredible win, but Kody says the benefits of partnering with SheerID go beyond increasing YNAB’s bottom line.
“Students don’t come to YNAB for a lengthy verification process; they come to get the resources they need to better manage their financial lives,” Kody said. “SheerID allows us to empower students more fully and quickly, which has had a profound impact on our user experience and growth.
SheerID allows us to empower students more fully and quickly, which has had a profound impact on our user experience and growth.