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CIBC2024–25

Investor’s Edge

Piloting a redesign of CIBC’s investing app and a campus campaign for young investors.

Here’s how it came together

Overview

Challenge

Investors aged 18 to 25 were leaving for digital-first brokerages, and many who opened an account never funded it or made a first trade.

Opportunity

Treat the brokerage as a growth funnel: bring the right students in, then make funding and the first investment easy.

Date of Project

2024 to 2025

Role

Product Manager, Growth

Responsibilities

  • Funnel analysis
  • Redesign pilot
  • Campus acquisition campaign
  • Experiment design

Tools

  • SQL
  • Power BI
  • Journey mapping
  • A/B test design
Campus sign-ups
30,000+
Funded accounts
16,000
First trades
8,000
Ontario universities
7+

Why 18 to 25 matters to a bank brokerage

Investor’s Edge is CIBC’s self-directed brokerage, where clients choose and trade their own stocks and ETFs. Someone who starts investing at 20 can bring decades of savings, registered accounts and banking with them.

By 2024, digital-first apps like Wealthsimple had made investing feel like a consumer app: quick sign-up, small amounts, simple screens. A bank brokerage had to win young investors on simplicity, not only on trust and research.

Two ways to lose a young investor

Leakage: they choose another platform or abandon the sign-up. Inactivity: they open an account and never fund it, trade or come back.

An empty account isn’t a win. The value starts when a client funds the account and builds a habit.

  1. Awareness

    Does this feel like it’s for me?

  2. Account opened

    Long sign-up, unfamiliar terms

  3. Funded

    Moving money in felt slow

  4. First investment

    Not sure what to buy

  5. Repeat activity

    No reason to come back

  6. Retained

The youth investing funnel. Funding and the first investment were where young investors stalled.

Finding where they stalled

I pulled behavioural data with SQL and built Power BI views of the funnel by age. Investors aged 18 to 25 showed material drop-off across activation, from an opened account into funding and the first investment.

Then I mapped the journey screen by screen and marked where a first-time investor would hesitate: unfamiliar terms, unclear next steps and funding that felt slow.

Acquire better, activate better

The pilot ran on two tracks. Acquisition brought the right students in; activation turned an opened account into a funded, active one.

Acquire better

  • Campus campaigns at Ontario universities
  • Student messaging
  • Free AirPods for opening an account
  • Cross-sell from CIBC student banking

Activate better

  • Easier funding
  • Beginner-friendly discovery
  • Explanations at the moment of decision
  • A confident first trade
  • Reasons to come back
The two tracks of the pilot.

Redesigning around the first investment

I piloted the redesign of the native app, with mobile web included, across home and portfolio, onboarding, funding, discovery and research, the first investment, trading and repeat engagement.

The home screen led with what a beginner needs next: cash available, Add money, Discover and Trade, with explanations at the moment of decision instead of in a glossary.

Before

After

Illustrative: the home screen’s information hierarchy before and after. Not the production design.

Meeting students where they are

We took Investor’s Edge to campus at TMU, York, McMaster, Western, Queen’s, Waterloo and U of T, among other Ontario schools, with free AirPods for opening an account.

A promotion can fill a funnel with empty accounts, so we tracked it past the sign-up: 30,000+ sign-ups, 16,000 funded accounts and 8,000 first trades.

30,000+ sign-ups

16,000 funded accounts

8,000 made a first trade

The campus campaign, from sign-up to first trade.

Optimize for funded, active investors

Option A

Maximize sign-ups

Big top-line numbers.

Empty accounts that never invest.

Option B

Copy the fintech app

Familiar to young users.

Throws away what CIBC does well: banking, research and the range of accounts.

Option C

Funded and active as the goal

Chosen

The campaign and the redesign judged by funding and first trades.

Slower to show headline growth.

What it changed

  1. 30,000+ campus sign-ups, 16,000 funded accounts and 8,000 first trades
  2. A piloted redesign of the investing app around funding and the first investment
  3. Growth measured on funded, active investors, not sign-ups
  4. Experiments planned to separate product changes from campaign effects

What did I learn?

Key takeaways

  • Marketing gets students in the door; the product has to turn that into a habit.
  • Track a promotion past the sign-up, or it hides empty accounts.
  • Don’t copy the fintech app. Remove the friction and make the bank’s strengths easy to see.

Next time

  • Instrument experiments earlier, and separate campaign lift from product lift.

Next project

Imperial Service Hub

CIBC · 2024–25