Results
“Lifecycle programs that previously took weeks now launch in hours.”
About bunq
bunq is Europe's second-largest neobank. Founded in Amsterdam in 2012, it offers a mobile-first banking experience to millions of users across Europe.
The product is built around AI, designed to make banking - spending, saving, budgeting, investing - easy for its users.
Nicole Baldauf, Head of Retention a.i. at bunq, leads the team responsible for activation and retention. Her team's job: make sure users experience the value of bunq, from the moment they sign up to every stage after.
The challenge
bunq's lifecycle communication was time-based, not behavior-based. Someone saw an ad about earning high interest, clicked, signed up - and then life happened. Days later, they'd get an email about how great the bunq card is.
The messages weren't built around a user's actual behavior and intent - so they weren't relevant in that moment.
The bunq team had solid infrastructure and solid people. But the communication wasn't landing because it wasn't responding to what users were actually doing.
At the same time, bunq's engineers needed to stay focused on making the banking product better - not building marketing and CRM tooling in-house. The team looked at off-the-shelf solutions, and that's how Zelara came on their radar.
Why Zelara
Zelara is the AI autopilot for customer communication. Based on any marketing objective, Zelara crafts messages that are on brand but also speak to the individual needs and preferences of each customer.
Zelara decides which customer should get which message, at which time, through which channel - and it's a loop. The system learns what works for whom and why, and those insights compound over time so it gets better with every send.
The impact
What surprised the bunq team most was speed. A full lifecycle program that would normally take weeks was done within a couple of hours.
The system doesn't just optimize - it brings the insights back to the people running it.
True one-to-one communication, tailored to the needs of each individual user, is finally here.
“We are getting better results. We are getting better results faster. And in the end, our users are getting a better experience - so it's a win-win situation.”
Looking ahead
bunq is now scaling Zelara across the three major lifecycle programs: activation, retention, and reactivation.