# Performance review — Fintech

The performance review with the columns a regulated financial product needs: every line read on funded accounts rather than applications, approval rate stated beside the cost, and causes that include the two things advertising does not control — underwriting and the review cycle.

Everything else is the general review, unchanged. Planned from the plan, variance separated from cause, cause held to evidence, one decision with one owner and a date.

## How to use it

1. Copy this file, or the CSV version if you would rather work in a sheet.
2. Take the planned figures from the plan, not from memory.
3. Write one row per line the plan had, including the ones that went as expected.
4. Separate the variance from the cause, and the cause from the decision.
5. Where a cause is not known, write that instead of a plausible story.
6. Give every decision an owner and a next review date, in the room.
7. Keep the finished reviews: a year of them answers questions no single one can.

## The columns

**Period** (Text). The window being reviewed, with its dates, split at any change to a rate, a fee or a term. A blended month spanning such a change describes neither half of it.

**Line reviewed** (Text). The line being reviewed, named by product and market, matching the plan. Approval rates differ enough between products that a blended row cannot be acted on.

**Planned spend** (Integer). What the plan said this line would spend, in minor units, taken from the plan rather than recalculated after the fact.

**Actual spend** (Integer). The spend that actually occurred, in the same units and code. Where a creative replacement left a gap while a review was pending, the underspend is an operational fact and belongs in the cause.

**Planned result** (Text). The primary metric and target from the plan, which should be a funded account or an approved application rather than an application started.

**Actual result** (Text). What it produced, from the underwriting data rather than the ad platform, for a cohort old enough that funded outcomes have landed.

**Variance** (Text). The difference on spend and on result, with the cohort's approval rate stated beside it. That one addition is what separates an advertising result from an underwriting one.

**Cause** (Text). Why, as far as the evidence supports. Two causes come before the campaign: a movement in the approval rate, and a gap where creative was out of market waiting for a review.

**Evidence** (Text). The export, the cohort window and the underwriting source. A cause naming an approval-rate movement needs the underwriting figures, not an inference from the cost per funded account.

**Decision** (Text). Continue, change the creative or audience, investigate with underwriting, or stop. The second and third look identical on a dashboard and are completely different pieces of work.

**Owner** (Text). Who carries the decision, by name. An investigation into approval rates belongs with whoever owns underwriting, and naming them here is what turns it into a conversation rather than a note.

**Next review** (Date (YYYY-MM-DD)). When this row is looked at again, far enough ahead that funded outcomes from any change have landed. Reviewing a creative change on applications a fortnight later answers the wrong question.

**Notes** (Text). What the next reader needs: the rate announcement, the competitor promotion, the review that took three weeks, the seasonal effect that moves this product every year.

## The performance review

| Period | Line reviewed | Planned spend | Actual spend | Planned result | Actual result | Variance | Cause | Evidence | Decision | Owner | Next review | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

## Before you commit it

- Every row is read on funded accounts or approved applications, not clicks.
- The approval rate for the cohort is stated beside the cost.
- Changes to rates, fees or terms during the period are recorded with dates.
- Creative replaced because of a review change is noted as a cause.
- Variance, cause and decision are in separate columns.
- Every decision has an owner by name and a next review date.
- Underwriting changes are distinguished from advertising changes.