About the author
An interview with Brandi Meredith, Marqeta’s Senior Director of Integrated Marketing
Marqeta is busy revolutionizing the world of modern card issuing. Their platform provides businesses with the tools to create, manage, and optimize customized payment card programs. With a mission to democratize financial services, they’re creating a future where transactions are frictionless and inclusive.
Brandi Meredith is the dynamic force behind Marqeta’s creative marketing. With a career that spans decades in the finance industry — starting as a part-time teller in college and evolving into a multifaceted fintech marketing expert — Brandi’s journey is both inspiring and insightful.
We had the chance to sit down with Brandi to hear her take on the educational value of TikTok, the importance of brand storytelling, the rise of embedded finance, and anticipating the needs of the next generation of fintech consumers.
Can you provide an overview of your role within the company and your experience in the fintech industry?
At Marqeta, I have the opportunity to lead our creative marketing engine. This team of amazing individuals brings stories to life through various types of content, thoughtful design, and promotional packaging, and then amplifies that through our digital channels, like web and social. I’ve worn almost every shape of marketing hat, from Product Marketing, Demand Generation and Creative. If you are doing it right all functions are moving to a shared goal, but the ability to craft stories that help people see opportunity in a partnership and solution is really the area that brings me joy.
So, how did you end up in fintech — and what keeps you inspired?
I’ve been working in the finance industry my entire adult life, starting as a part time teller in college. I spent more than 15 years in the traditional banking space, both as an actual banker and lender and then moving into marketing where I really focused on the B2B side of the house in corporate banking. In reality, banks have become technology companies so there was a natural path for me to make the jump to fintech.
At one point in my career, I taught financial education to college students and it was a moment of realization that not everyone has the same access to financial services or experiences them in the same way, and that can have a huge impact on how a person navigates life. What I love about fintech is the movement toward equal accessibility and how that enables stronger businesses and financially stable individuals – which leads to thriving communities and growth.
What recent media can you recommend that has been beneficial in your understanding of the industry and current marketing practices?
My home is filled with books, but very few of them are about marketing or fintech because by the time it’s published the landscape has likely changed. I really enjoy listening to podcasts and have a mix of them that are my go-to including:
- The Journal by The Wall Street Journal
- Technologist of the Month
- Marketing School
- Fintech Insider by 11:FS
- What the Fintech (which also has a great women in fintech focused newsletter)
When I really want some inspiration for a new campaign or I want to get some insight about a new digital trend, I turn to social media. TikTok specifically can really be a wealth of information and because videos are short, they get to the point. It’s a great way to digest information quickly and also keep up on content and social trends. This is what I tell my husband when he calls out that I’ve been scrolling TikTok for an hour.
And you can never discount the value of surrounding yourself with really great people. I’ve acquired a network through my career of individuals who have very unique ways of approaching challenges, looking at the data, influencing audiences, etc. My past and current leadership have incredible backgrounds and have taught me so much along the way. But I also am very fortunate to have worked with incredible peers and people on my teams. There is literally nobody that I can’t and won’t learn from.
And what have you learned about the current state of the fintech industry, particularly in terms of innovation and market dynamics?
It’s a bit like watching the convergence of three streams — fintech, traditional banking, and consumer facing brands — all joining to make this powerful force that reshapes the way we think about money, how it moves, and who gives and has access to it.
The reality is that things we couldn’t have dreamed possible when we were kids seem absolutely commonplace today. If you would have told me in 1993 that I would be able to send my friend money from my phone with the push of a few buttons, I would have looked at my neon pink Swatch watch phone that was plugged into the wall, looked back at you and told you were out of your mind.
But today, buyers in both the consumer and business space want things to be fast and convenient, and they just want to understand how it works. Or better yet, they want a partner that will just do the lifting for them and they don’t need to know how it works. While this pace of change is really exciting work, it also has to be approached with the diligence to know what trends to lean into and do it in a way that protects your company and your clients from regulatory requirements.
What role does branding play in making that consumer connection, especially considering the highly competitive nature of the industry?
Fintech is not only highly competitive, but the nature of what we do in fintech means that we are likely always evolving our target audience and the value we deliver. Your brand needs to evolve with your company as fast as your solutions and benefits do.
As you think about traditional marketing, it was normal for brand to be siloed away from functions like product marketing and demand generation. But your brand is really the ‘why’ in every story you tell. As marketing teams evolved to a more integrated way of working and thinking, every solution launch, event, and demand generation initiative should also be a brand campaign and incorporate those values and reasons-to-believe into every motion — not just awareness. And if you are having a hard time doing that, you may need to rethink your brand positioning.
How does Marqeta differentiate itself from other players in the fintech space, both in terms of branding and product offerings?
We have really established ourselves as a leader in modern card issuing for the last decade and had the joy of developing some of the most exciting and innovative payment platforms used by most Americans every day. We will do the same by enabling non-financial brands to enter the financial services space and impact the way their customers and employees live; I have zero doubt about that.
But what makes us really different is WHY we show up and do this every day. As Marqetans, we know that what we do makes lives better. What we have built with our customers enables medications to be delivered to people stuck at home. It allows a company to pay their employees faster. And yes, there is company benefit to that in employee retention, but it also alleviates that employee’s stress about meeting financial obligations or buying groceries for their families that week. We want to continue to be that vision enabler and legacy liberator because of the impact that it has across all our communities. And that core belief shows up in how we work.
What opportunities do you see in the rise of embedded finance for both fintech companies and non-financial businesses? Conversely, what challenges does it present?
Embedded finance is about breaking barriers. Not only just for industries who see opportunities by working in the financial space; it also breaks barriers for individuals who haven’t had the access to services. It really has the ability to make finance part of everyday life and to make that everyday a lot easier than it has been in the past.
Fintechs getting into the embedded finance space have a whole new market to introduce themselves to. And while the big enterprise giants have been offering more traditional financial services for years — like co-branded credit cards — the opportunity is so much broader. It can unlock access to business capital that enables faster growth. It can bring more data transparency around internal spending. Help them retain happier and more productive employees by giving them access to services they may not have gotten through a traditional bank. And when it comes to building engaging experiences for their clients around custom rewards and integrated solutions, the possibilities are as endless as our imagination.
Certainly there are challenges that businesses will face coming into this space. Which is why the right partner is mission critical. A lot of companies may not be prepared to manage the regulatory oversight and data protection that comes with offering financial solutions. And the integration into current platforms can be technically challenging and time consuming. The right partner will have tools that help their customers overcome those challenges through the right program management solution.
That’s the great thing about embedded finance and the companies that are doing it right — it’s a partnership and a collaboration that maximizes the strength of every player.
In what ways does your company use data-driven insights to optimize marketing campaigns and improve customer engagement?
Our marketing team has put a high focus on analytical rigor in the last year and we see that pay off every day. One thing that we have consistently leveraged is intent data, which we monitor through a platform called Demand Base. This helps our demand generation, sales development, and account executive teams have real-time insight into how our target accounts are interacting with us across our channels. We leverage that data to craft compelling ABM initiatives and prepare our SDRs for more productive conversations that drive funnel progression.
We are also lucky to have a real powerhouse group within our marketing organization that is focused on delivering us qualitative and quantitative insights that fuel our messaging and positioning, help us understand our buyers and focus on where we see the biggest opportunities.
The team has done a lot of work this year already to set up frameworks for testing across channels so we can really learn what types of content and creative are resonating with different audiences and personas. From that we will be able to optimize and continuously improve engagement and conversions.
How do you decide what partners you need in order to maximize the effectiveness of your marketing programs?
When I formed my current team at Marqeta, we were leveraging 13 different agencies, consultants, and freelancers to help us deliver various forms of content, creatives, website optimizations, SEO performance, etc. It was the opposite of integrated and created an overly complicated web of handoffs and dependencies. The worst part is that we didn’t have a strategic partner that really had an eye for integrated marketing that would help position our team to meet the evolving needs of our business.
Finding an agency like EnvisionIt was a game changer for us. What I really appreciate about them is that it’s been a partnership in understanding what we need and what it will take to get us there. Both of the teams have adapted to fit how the other works really quickly so that we have strong personal working relationships that really underpin all the activity. Streamlining agency relationships with the right team of people can really be the difference in hitting your goals or spiraling on the same issues over and over.
What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities for fintech marketing in the coming years, and how is your company preparing for them?
I think the biggest challenge and opportunity are the same: differentiation.
The fintech space is incredibly crowded. And as the realization about how many opportunities there are in embedded finance grows, that is only going to become more of an issue. It’s going to be critical that companies are showing up with the ‘why’ and not just the ‘what’.
At Marqeta, we don’t want to just be another subscription business. We come to work to think not just about what is next for us at our company, but what is next for our customers? For their customers? I think a lot of tech companies stand on industry terms like ‘innovation’ but what does that really mean if you can’t provide the proof points? We’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of the biggest companies that have changed the way people go through daily life. Everything from how you order a ride, get your food delivered, and send money to your friends and family. In that way, we are ALWAYS preparing for what comes next because that is literally why we are here. To deliver an easier tomorrow by working with really great companies that have groundbreaking ideas.
What key performance indicators does your team use to measure the success of marketing campaigns, and how do you adjust strategies based on these metrics?
We are hyper focused this year on elevating the Marqeta brand with new audiences and delivering campaigns that convert in the funnel.
We have an amazing Insights & Research team in our organization that helps us keep the pulse on brand sentiment by gathering data points on recall, recognition, and saliency of the Marqeta name. We also monitor how that stacks against our competitors and where we have opportunities to play into our strengths and apply some efforts to lift us in other areas. We have well established brand pillars, so we know who we are and what we want to be known for. Being able to see how those are viewed by others has informed the types of stories we tell, industry voices we align to, and how to position our leadership voices.
For funnel-focused campaigns, we are obviously focusing on the standard metrics that deliver us high quality leads at a minimal cost — and then convert them to actual sales opportunities. So things like SEO, channel performance, lead scoring, and conversion rates are critical. As a team we are much more focused on integrated strategies and performance as an entire marketing org.
I think there are times when it’s easy for busy marketing teams to silo and only focus on the tactical goals in front of them without pausing to look up and see if it’s contributing to the needs of the business. We’ve got all eyes on performance at this point, even reviewing pipeline dashboards with designers and event managers. We are constantly looking for ways to test, have critical thinking about the performance, and actively apply those learnings to the next step. It’s an all-hands-on-deck approach and it’s not always the easiest to implement, but it’s absolutely essential to the success of a team.
Speaking of success, what are some of the things that fintech companies should be doing or tracking to help future-proof their products and services?
First, I think any company should be keeping tabs on their own Rotten Tomato score. By that, I mean brand health, net promoter score, customer satisfaction, etc. You can build amazing products, but if they aren’t delivered well… you won’t get far.
Another area that I think everyone in fintech is watching — rightfully so — is the regulatory and data protection space. Especially as we begin to deliver financial solutions to brands that aren’t as familiar with financial regulation and requirements, it’s our responsibility as an industry to provide that level of protection to our customers and their end users.
This last one might be strange, but listen to the kids. I watch how my 10- and 13-year-old kids interact with the world around them and in all the digital channels. The way they navigate digital experience and what they expect them to do is really a blueprint for what fintechs and companies need to be building for now so they are ready to meet that demand when this generation becomes independent consumers and users of financial services.
