“Don’t Chase Quick Wins”: Stanislav Galandzovskyi on What Fintech Teams Get Wrong About Paid Ads

Paid ads are often seen as a shortcut to fast growth. But according to Stanislav Galandzovskyi, a performance marketing consultant who’s worked with companies like Zilch and NAGA, that mindset is exactly what leads teams to burn budget and lose patience in the fintech space.

With experience running campaigns in over 120 countries and across verticals like trading, crypto, and B2B finance, Stan has seen the patterns – and the pitfalls – up close. 

In this interview, Stan opens up about the biggest misconceptions teams have about paid growth, why trust and infrastructure matter more than ad copy, and what it actually takes to scale in 2025.

How did your journey in digital marketing – and specifically paid advertising – begin?

It actually started out pretty simply – back in 2016, I helped my brother promote his small business online. I set up a few Google Ad campaigns, barely knew what I was doing, but the leads started coming in. That little dopamine hit got me hooked. From there, I went deep into performance marketing – testing, failing, learning. Over time, I started working with larger businesses, moved into fintech, and the scale of responsibility grew fast.

From building the paid ads department at Zilch to leading million-dollar campaigns at NAGA – what project challenged or shaped you the most?

It’s hard to pick one – every company you work with sharpens a different skill.

At Zilch, I joined an exceptionally strong marketing team – over 150 people, each highly skilled in their field. My role was to build the user acquisition function from scratch. That meant designing the hiring structure, setting up processes, aligning with product and compliance, and most importantly – showing the first performance results fast enough to gain trust. Working in such an established environment taught me how to operate with discipline, communicate effectively with senior stakeholders, and create systems that scale.

NAGA, on the other hand, had more of a startup mindset – fast, dynamic, experimental. I had full ownership of global performance marketing there, running campaigns in 120 countries with multi-million dollar monthly budgets. It was a different kind of challenge: being hands-on, pivoting fast, adapting messaging and strategy to drastically different markets, sometimes overnight.

Zilch taught me structure. NAGA taught me speed and adaptability. Together, they gave me the foundation to build scalable, strategic acquisition systems that support long-term business goals.

You’ve worked with trading platforms, prop firms, crypto products, B2B finance services, and payment providers. How does acquisition strategy differ between these verticals – and what should teams consider before launching campaigns?

They may all fall under “fintech,” but the acquisition strategies are very different.

In trading and prop firms, users often act based on urgency or market events – so messaging has to be fast, direct, and trust-heavy. Regulation also plays a massive role in what you can and can’t say.

Crypto adds another layer of complexity. It’s volatile, heavily scrutinized by platforms like Meta and Google, and often has trust issues with mainstream audiences. There, brand and community matter just as much as acquisition.

For B2B fintech and payment providers, you’re working with long cycles and multiple stakeholders. That changes the goal – it’s less about direct conversion and more about building awareness, generating qualified pipeline, and making sure your ads support the sales team.

Before launching anything, teams need to be brutally honest about their product’s buying journey – who’s involved, how long it takes, and what kind of trust is needed to say “yes.”

Many founders and sometimes CMOs expect quick results from ads. But in your words, “fintech isn’t fast fashion.” Why do quick wins rarely work in this space?

Because the product is rarely impulse-buy. You’re not selling a t-shirt or a subscription app.

Fintech is built on trust – and trust takes time. You’re asking people to trust you with their money – or even their identity if KYC is involved. That naturally leads to longer decision cycles, more hesitation, and higher expectations from users.

On top of that, fintech is a heavily regulated space. You can’t always say what you want in ads, which limits creative freedom and slows down testing. And even when a user signs up, the actual conversion – like funding an account or using the product – can take weeks. Add to that the competition in most markets, and it becomes clear that success won’t come from one smart ad or a quick budget push.

That’s why I always tell clients: slow results at the start aren’t a red flag – they’re part of the process. The real work happens in the background: refining the targeting, testing messaging, improving the funnel. Once that system is in place, scale becomes possible – but expecting it from day one is where most teams go wrong. In fintech, it usually takes between 3 to 9 months. 

You often emphasize that paid ads don’t work in isolation. What do you mean by that?

The biggest mistake I see is teams thinking that launching ads is the entire strategy. But in reality, ads are the beginning of the user journey. What users see after they click an ad matters tremendously. Especially in fintech, where trust is the primary barrier to conversion.

You need to work on visible, credible trust signals: real customer reviews (like Trustpilot), proof of licensing and regulation, logos of payment providers or banks you work with, video testimonials, media mentions, and ideally – partnerships or awards that carry weight in your industry.

If users land on a page that feels vague, anonymous, and not trustworthy enough, they won’t convert – no matter how good your ad is.

So the approach I recommend is simple but powerful: treat your performance campaigns as the front door, and make sure what people see inside gives them every reason to stay. Ads alone won’t convert. But ads, backed by credibility, clarity, and a strong funnel – that’s what drives real growth.

You’ve run campaigns across 120+ countries and you’ve warned against this. Can you share a case where localization was a game-changer – or a failure?

Many believe you can just scale what worked in one country to another. I’ve seen this assumption go wrong more times than I can count – even from experienced teams.

One of the clearest examples was with a campaign we ran for NAGA in Asia. We were getting incredibly cheap traffic, but zero conversions. We made a quick research and realized the problem wasn’t the ad or the offer – it was the brand name. “Naga” is a well-known mythical dragon in some Asian cultures, so users were clicking for completely the wrong reason. The traffic was irrelevant from the start.

In a Latin American market, I worked with a fintech product that was seeing poor conversion rates. After analyzing the data, we realized the $250 entry cost was too high for the average user in that region. We adjusted the offer and saw immediate improvements in lead quality and engagement.

So, localization isn’t just about translating words. It’s about understanding culture, payment habits, visuals, and what “trust” looks like in a specific country.

AI tools are everywhere now, and some think they’ve made paid ads “easy.” What’s your take?

AI can definitely speed things up – especially for routine tasks like drafting content. But in fintech, you can’t fully automate content creation. It’s simply too risky.

Google now offers the option to auto-generate ad copy with no human check. That might work in other industries, but in fintech, it can quickly turn into a compliance issue. One wrong phrase – like “zero risk” – and you’re looking at penalties, account blocks, or even regulatory consequences. And many of these risky phrases aren’t obvious unless you work closely with a compliance team.

That’s why every piece of content I run – from ads to landing pages – goes through manual approval. In some cases, we even send drafts to a compliance officer for sign-off.

So I’m not against AI – I use it where it makes sense. But final responsibility always stays with a human. That’s a necessity in regulated industries. 

What’s your process when a fintech founder or CMO comes to you and says, “We tried ads once, didn’t work – so it’s not for us”. What do you say to that mindset?

I say: “Great. Then let’s figure out why.”

We review what exactly was done: What channels were used? Who was the target audience? What did the landing page look like? What was the actual user journey from click to conversion?

I also ask what internal expectations were. Sometimes, teams expected results in two weeks from a two-thousand-dollar test, which simply isn’t realistic in fintech.

In one case, a company targeted a narrow crypto audience in Germany using English-language ads – and sent them to a generic, multi-step landing page with no trust signals. No wonder it didn’t convert. In another, a B2B fintech was measuring results based on closed deals, even though their sales cycle was six months long.

So the first step is understanding whether the setup gave the campaign a real chance. If not, we fix the foundation – segmentation, creative, funnel, analytics. 

Do you remember a moment with a client – maybe a founder or CMO – when you realized you’d really made a difference for their business?

When they reached out, they were spending $4,500 a month on ads, getting just 33 purchases total, and had no path to scale. No structure, no proper tracking – just budget being burned.

We stepped back and rebuilt everything: fixed conversion tracking, defined clear audience segments, and launched Performance Max campaigns tailored by region. Within three months, they were spending over $20,000/month – but now with a $59 CPA, 349 purchases, and ROAS above 500%.

Our work led to 8x increase in revenue and a predictable user acquisition system.

The moment I knew it really clicked was when one of the founders told me, “It looks like we don’t even need calls anymore – everything just works now.” That’s what I aim for. Not just results, but peace of mind for my clients. 

If you could give one piece of honest, no-BS advice to a fintech founder considering paid ads in 2025 – what would it be?

Don’t chase quick wins. 

Instead, go in with a real plan: give your campaign at least 2–3 months to learn and optimize. Have the budget to reach statistical significance. And make sure your landing pages, messaging, and trust signals are ready before you run a single ad.

Paid ads can absolutely scale a fintech business – but only when treated as a system. If you’re not ready to commit to that, it’s better to wait than to burn budget testing the wrong way.