Case study
River City Federal Credit Union
River City Federal Credit Union lifted auto-loan ad Result Rate 42% and avoided $40,000 in testing costs.
Stated
River City Federal Credit Union, a credit union serving Bexar County, Texas, had not run quantitative research or A/B testing on its marketing in recent years. It needed an auto-loan Facebook and Instagram campaign to perform better, and set three questions: raise Result Rate by 25%, find the cash-back incentive that attracts applicants without giving away margin, and pick the slogan that earns the most clicks.
Revealed
All three hypotheses were confirmed, one of them against the team's own instinct. The $300 incentive staff had observed elsewhere held up as the right balance. The slogan a staff member had suggested turned out to be the worst performer, and it lost in the synthetic study before it lost in the live ads. The campaign landed a 0.74 Result Rate against the prior campaign's 0.52.
Numbers
Figures with provenance.
42%
increase in Result Rate over the prior campaign
$40K
conjoint analysis testing cost avoided
$300
cash-back incentive validated for the auto-loan offer
Model-predicted
Stated before the answer was known.
Predicted
The slogan a staff member had suggested would be the weakest of the set, and a $300 cash-back incentive would balance applicant interest against margin.
Observed
Run head to head against humans in Facebook and Instagram, that slogan was the worst performer in market. The campaign landed a 0.74 Result Rate against the prior campaign's 0.52.
Agreement
The ranking held: the slogan the model placed last placed last with real buyers.
River City FCU_Subconscious_Creators Edge Strategy_Case Study FINAL_SV (Drive, 2026-05-15), Objectives 1 and 3
Causality
The slogan and the incentive level cause the change in click behavior. The synthetic stage ranked them before any budget moved, and the live stage tested that ranking on real buyers.
- Intervention
- Cash-back incentive level and campaign slogan varied across choice tasks, then the surviving messages varied again in live ad rotation.
- Outcome
- Result Rate — link clicks to the promotion landing page as a share of impressions.
- Design
- Discrete choice survey across 140 digital twins, followed by an A/B test against humans in Facebook and Instagram Ads Manager.
Before
No quantitative research or A/B testing on recent campaigns. Incentive level set by watching what other credit unions offered. Slogan chosen by staff judgment, with a $40,000 agency conjoint study as the only rigorous alternative.
With Subconscious
140 digital twins infused with human behavioral data tested incentive levels and messaging first, then the surviving messages ran head to head against humans in Facebook and Instagram.
Result
Result Rate rose from 0.52 to 0.74, a 42% increase. The $300 incentive was confirmed. The worst slogan was identified before spend, and $40,000 in testing costs was avoided.
We’ve been looking for ways to utilize data better to accomplish our mission of serving our community and members and are thrilled to be one of a select few organizations in the world that have access to this revolutionary technology. It’s exciting to see how harnessing the power of AI with a data-driven approach can improve campaign metrics.