Transforming a digital presence to drive business growth and customer engagement for Kensington Mortgages

Vertical

Financial Services

Client

Kensington Mortgages

Capabilities

To retain its leading position in the competitive financial services sector, Kensington Mortgages needed to transform its digital presence. Rika was appointed to help the business maximise its investment in Progress Sitefinity and build a powerful, customer-centric platform.

The project delivered a unified multi-site architecture with advanced personalisation, providing a seamless and engaging experience for both consumers and professional mortgage brokers.

The Business challenge

Kensington Mortgages historically operated with a limited digital presence, as its products and services were offered exclusively through mortgage brokers. However, with the evolving financial services market, the business recognised the need to engage with prospects and existing customers more effectively.

The core challenge was to transform their digital landscape from a static, broker-only resource into a modern, customer-facing platform. This required a strategic overhaul to gain real-time insight into who their website visitors were, to build detailed audience profiles, and to create tailored, personalised user journeys based on first-party data.

Objectives

Maximise investment: Future-proof and enhance the company's existing investment in the Sitefinity DXP.

Drive growth: Increase website visibility, engagement, and lead generation.

Consolidate & streamline: Unify and modernise Kensington’s digital properties into a single, cohesive, and easily manageable platform.

Enable insight: Create a data-rich environment for the marketing team to understand user behaviour and enable a continuous test, learn, and improve cycle.

Strategy

Our strategy centred on leveraging Kensington's Sitefinity DXP to create a powerful, unified multi-site architecture. We implemented Progress Sitefinity Insight, a Customer Data Platform (CDP), to introduce effective personalisation and audience segmentation. This allowed us to build contextually-relevant user experiences for different audiences, from first-time buyers to existing customers.

From a technical perspective, we designed and implemented a robust, scalable architecture with well-structured development and deployment pipelines. This not only streamlined site development but also addressed strict financial services auditing requirements, providing a full audit trail of content changes. The new infrastructure enabled Kensington to deliver new features faster, with greater agility and security.

Insights

Our audit revealed that Kensington's previous digital presence was a siloed system with significant technical and performance challenges. We identified an opportunity to consolidate their assets onto a unified platform, creating a single source for all customer and broker data.

Approach

Our approach was a multi-phase, full-service engagement that began with a comprehensive technology and UX audit. Key steps included:

Audience & Journey Mapping: We developed B2B (broker) and B2C (consumer) personas to map their respective user journeys, ensuring each audience received relevant and personalised content at every touchpoint.

Mobile-First Design: The new web application was designed with a mobile-first, conversion-focused methodology to ensure an optimal experience on the devices customers use most.

Integration: We integrated the platform with third-party systems and CRM to provide enhanced customer profiles to the broker network and enable a seamless flow of data.

Creative theme

The creative direction focused on a re-interpretation of the brand identity for a digital-first audience. We created a mobile-first, conversion-focused design that was intuitive and engaging. The visual and user experience was designed to be clear, confident, and trustworthy, with an emphasis on making complex information easy to digest for both prospects and financial professionals.

Deliverables

A new direct-to-consumer web application for Kensington and its portfolio brand, New Street Mortgages, built on a single DXP instance.
A redesigned and redeveloped Broker Portal to provide financial professionals with enhanced tools and information.
Integration and implementation of Sitefinity Insight for personalisation and behavioural analytics.
A suite of interactive widgets, including mortgage calculators, to add dynamic content and key conversion touchpoints.
A robust DevOps framework with automated deployment pipelines to support a continuous improvement model.

The Outcome

he implementation of a new customer-centric DXP delivered a transformative impact on Kensington’s business, driving both engagement and commercial success.

Business impact:

The ability to provide a personalised experience and generate qualified leads for the broker network resulted in a remarkable 200% year-on-year increase in new mortgage applications.

User engagement:

The new digital experience was met with a highly positive response. Session durations increased by 14%, and new visitor numbers grew by 40%, indicating a more engaging and effective user journey.

Qualified leads:

By enabling richer customer profiles and a more streamlined process, the platform delivered a 25% increase in qualified leads to Kensington’s preferred financial advisers.

Operational excellence:

The consolidated multi-site architecture significantly simplified security audits and compliance processes, while providing Kensington with crucial behavioural insights to refine its product offerings and marketing campaigns.

The success of the project and the quality of the new digital experience earned it a shortlisting for Progress’ “Site of the Year, 2021” award and a 2024 Best use of technology Drum Award.