Don’t miss these 10 hot tips from Monzo💳 (PART 1)
- Marc Jackson
- Apr 12
- 3 min read
What do you think of when you think of Monzo?
Their hot coral card?
The slick app?
Their irreverent tone of voice?
These are ICONIC features of the brand we’ve all become familiar with.
But what you don’t see?
It’s the behind-the-scenes marketing engine that powered one of the UK’s FASTEST growing fintechs – long before it had a media budget or even a brand team.
We sat down with Richard Cook who is part of the OG Monzo marketing crew, and pulled out 10 chewy, battle-tested lessons for anyone doing the good fight of marketing inside a startup.
Whether you’re scaling growth, shaping brand, or just trying to get product to reply to your Slack messages, this one’s for you.
1. Build marketing like a product
Forget the traditional funnel.
At Monzo, marketing lived inside the product.
Campaigns weren’t just assets. They were mechanics, features, experiments.
“We did tons of experimentation, almost like product features.”
– Richard Cook, Social Lead at Monzo
The team applied product thinking to everything – onboarding, referrals, landing pages.
That meant fast iteration, real user feedback and fewer wasted brainstorms.
So instead of asking “what campaign should we run?”, try asking “what problem are we solving – and can marketing be part of the feature?”
Because when marketing sits outside of product, it’s a bolt-on. When it’s built in, it scales.
2. Ride the product team’s momentum
Too many startup marketers are stuck on the sidelines, waiting for the mythical “feature launch” or “Q3 roadmap” to do their thing.
Not at Monzo.
“As marketing, we’d sit with product. That meant we knew what was launching and when – and could wrap storytelling around it in real time.”
– Richard Cook, Social Lead at Monzo
It wasn’t just alignment, it was embedding. They piggybacked on the cadence of product launches to make marketing feel live, relevant and exciting.
The takeaway?
Get out of your silo.
Sit with product.
Show up to standups.
Make friends with engineers.
If you’re last to know what’s shipping, you’re already behind.
3. Kill your attribution obsession
Attribution is important. But if you’re using it as a reason not to do bold, brand-building work, you’re missing the point.
“We got obsessed with NPS and customer growth over pixel-perfect attribution.”
– Richard Cook, Social Lead at Monzo
Monzo measured impact, not just clicks. And they weren’t afraid to invest in things that felt right, even if the tracking was fuzzy.
Richard’s advice is to try framing your efforts as bets not proof points. Because if you wait for a clean attribution model before you move, you’ll be lapped by braver brands.
4. Engineer virality like a game
Referrals weren’t just a growth lever. They were a cultural unlock.4
The queue-jump tactic wasn’t just clever.
It was emotionally charged.
“We ran experiments where you could jump the queue by referring friends.
It felt like a game.”
– Richard Cook, Social Lead at Monzo
It made people feel like insiders. Like hackers. Like early adopters. (Spoiler: that’s what great brand building looks like…)
Want a referral program that actually drives growth? Don’t start with incentives – start with status.
How does it feel to refer someone?
How does it look?
What does it say about the referrer?
5. Your tone of voice is a moat
Monzo spent hours perfecting the voice of a push notification. They understood that tone of voice isn’t a style guide, but a brand in its rawest, most visceral form.
“We’d debate whether ‘whoops’ or ‘ah, damn’ felt more Monzo.”
– Richard Cook, Social Lead at Monzo
That obsession built trust. It made the brand feel alive. And in a category as dry and formal as banking, that STOOD OUT.
If your TOV sounds like a copy-paste from your competitors with a few emojis sprinkled in, it’s not a tone. It’s a costume.
So burn it.
Start again.
Sound like someone real.