We sat down with Alexey Bokov, the driving force behind many of the transformative shifts in how Visa presents its products to European consumers. Alexey’s recent “Level Up Your Game” campaign, launched during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, has just been nominated for the Cards & Payments award.
Alexey graciously agreed to share his insights on the strategies reshaping the industry.
Alexey, you’ve built your reputation on deep consumer behaviour expertise. Many would assume marketers have this figured out by now, yet impactful innovation continues—often centred around data. Do you agree?
Alexey Bokov: Most certainly. If you reflect on the trends of the last decade, the conversation shifted from big data to machine learning, and now to AI. But simply knowing the technology exists isn’t enough. The real challenge, and opportunity, lies in knowing how to wield these tools to drive a drastic difference for your business goals.
Can you expand on your own evolution in this space, specifically the move from smart adaptable banners to smart adaptable brand strategies?
Back in 2021, my work with DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimisation) focused on using machine learning to build marketing content that continuously experiments and learns. The goal was to automatically show each customer the ad that works best for them. Spending hundreds of thousands on a campaign only to see it flop is a risk no one wants to take. Traditional methods like user interviews or A/B testing are valuable but often too slow or costly. AI-based DCO allowed us to achieve far superior results at a fraction of the cost.
But that isn’t your biggest innovation in marketing efficiency so far, is it?
I would agree. While spearheading AI-based DCO was innovative, the framework of PCBs (Profitable Consumer Behaviours) is one of my latest innovations, and one I am particularly proud of. With PCBs, I’ve succeeded in crystallising over two decades of marketing expertise into a cohesive strategy. Honestly, I couldn’t have done it anywhere else—Visa has the best data. I might be partial, but our partners and B2B customers know it’s true! By uniting the efforts of our best data science and analytics professionals with marketing, advertising and product development, I’ve managed to merge diverse data sources to arrive at the precise persona and behavioural insights we need.
Profitable consumer behavior dynamics are seen through the lens of various anonymized data identifiers, like advertising Device ID, Cross Device ID, or Persistent ID. This data framework allows us to find growth cohorts in real time, validate them and connect to their payment behaviors, improving targeting, increasing ROI, and even informing UX for our products.
Can you give us some examples so our readers can understand PCBs better?
Certainly. You’re likely familiar with the marketing paradox of King Charles III vs. Ozzy Osbourne. On paper, they look identical: same age, marital status, hobbies, location, and wealth. Yet, it’s obvious they require completely different marketing approaches. My PCBs solve this by synergising different data identities in transactions and advertising to paint a reliable picture of user cohorts beyond basic demographics.
The “Profitable” part of PCBs means we focus on metrics that drive revenue—not just for Visa, but for SMBs, merchants, the e-commerce sector, and the economy as a whole. PCBs are key metrics that combine the human element with specific payment behaviours that drive growth.
This approach benefits users, too. If you abandon a cart because you don’t have your card handy or worry about security, you’re frustrated. What if we could show you ads explaining how to use digital wallets or token-based payments safely? Then, the next time you shop, the experience becomes hassle-free, secure, and perhaps even includes a discount.
Can you explain how you succeeded in arriving at those insights?
In addition to understanding digital marketing and user psychology, I’m not afraid to dive into the data myself. I’ve found ways to interlink Visa’s vast data sources to pinpoint unique user segments.
For example, if you search for a chair on a search engine that uses digital advertising, you’ll see more ads for chairs—but only when that same search engine sees and tracks you online again. Social networks have their own siloed insights about you, as do travel aggregators. But Visa’s ubiquity offers a fuller, uninterrupted picture of your customer journey.
Imagine a person who pays for cab rides with Visa, shops at a specific supermarket chain, and pays for drinks at a pub when a certain football team plays. By uniting data from different sources and using PCBs, we can have a much better understanding of their needs as a customer. We might show them an ad for a Visa/FIFA partnership offering ticket benefits. Or a campaign with their local bank offering supermarket discounts. If that person plans a trip, they might research online but buy a ticket offline, or simply start using their card in a new country without prior searches. A travel aggregator wouldn’t know they are the same football-loving person who just travelled, but Visa would. We can then show them relevant ads for local merchants or taxi apps in that new location.
This end-to-end visibility is uniquely valuable. We then use AI-based DCO to display the most effective ad. Finding that user, understanding their persona, and deciding which profitable behaviours to target—that is the essence of PCBs.
Was it difficult to adapt this framework across borders?
Actually, it was smoother than expected. While there are differences between customer behaviours in the UK and the EU, our system accounts for them. Crucially, this allowed us to move from planning separate merchant activations for each country to seamlessly bringing it all together. This synergy makes the pie bigger for everyone involved. “Level Up Your Game” was a truly Pan-European campaign, and it used PCBs quite a lot.
Which outcomes make you particularly proud of this innovation?
It’s proven beneficial all around. Users get relevant marketing, and Visa’s partners see great Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI).
Personally, I am most proud of our ability to calculate our own ROMI precisely. This eliminates guesswork: we can now assess not just the reach of a campaign, but its actual impact on revenue, down to every individual behaviour we targeted.
“Level Up Your Game” was the first Visa campaign to simultaneously drive brand metrics and specific commercial KPIs. The results exceeded our wildest expectations. I love knowing that I’ve succeeded in connecting data that was previously fragmented. Now, we have clear KPIs rooted in defined PCBs with clear business outcomes.
Additionally, seeing the growth in e-commerce and peer-to-peer payments is rewarding. Making this kind of economic contribution is an incredible benefit of working at Visa.
What trends are you especially excited about right now?
AI continues to be a game-changer, driving some of the most disruptive and transformative innovations today—and it’s clear this momentum isn’t slowing down anytime soon. That said, humans still hold a unique edge. Our abilities to foster synergy, think creatively, and deliver deep, empathetic insights into the people and organizations we serve remain unmatched. These qualities will always play a pivotal role in shaping the products we create.
Additionally, the payment market will continue to embrace tokenisation, providing even more protection for consumers, as well as equipping us with high-quality data and insights, which we can leverage to refine our personas and PCBs. And the advancements in AI will further support our efforts in these areas.
Alexey, thank you for sharing your insights and giving us a glimpse into the world of data innovation in payments and marketing!
Thank you—it was a pleasure to join the conversation!
