More signed loan volume
Earnest is the San Francisco fintech that set out to make student loans simpler and fairer. Part of Navient since 2017, it has refinanced more than $24 billion in student loans and lends to students and families across the country.
For nearly three years, we were the creative team behind its biggest moments: the back-to-school season, when Earnest does most of its new student lending, the winter push that follows, and the refinancing campaigns in between. Over time, Earnest brought us into nearly every channel it ran.
Industry
EducationFinanceTechnology
Services Provided
Organic SocialContent & CopywritingCampaigns & AdvertisingPaid Search & SocialDigital DesignEmail MarketingPerformance MarketingVideoCreative Direction
Lower cost per application
Student loans refinanced by Earnest
Number one student loan refinancer in the country
Part rebel, part guide.
Earnest already had a strong voice: part rebel, part guide, in a category buried in fine print. Our job was to carry it into every ad without losing the warmth. We built campaigns around real borrowers and their reviews, which earned more than double the click-through rate of other creative. And we created an illustration and animation library that turned rates, terms, and approval times into something people actually stopped to read.
A campaign for every season.
Student lending runs on a calendar, so we did too. Each year brought a new back-to-school campaign, a winter campaign, and refinancing work timed to rate changes and the end of the federal payment pause. In between, we designed lifecycle emails for each type of borrower, direct mail, customer video testimonials, organic social, and sales materials for Earnest’s campus partnerships team. For Going Merry, the scholarship platform Earnest acquired in 2021, we built a campaign for a new audience: high school counselors.
More applications, less anxiety.
The work moved the numbers that matter in lending. In its first six weeks, our cosigner-first winter campaign helped Earnest double cosigner eligibility submissions year over year, cut the cost of each one by 36%, and grow signed loan volume by 40%. Through it all, we kept a fast-moving brand consistent from the first ad to the signed loan.
“We’d struggled to find creative partners who felt current and spoke to our audience the right way: not too cute, not too corporate. Anchour’s work felt genuine and met people where they are. Direct, but playful too. If we could have run every concept, we would have.”
HEAD OF MARKETING, EARNEST
