Dashboard 4 — Paid Search

The NBFCs own paid search for personal loans

A 25-month trend view of paid search clickstream traffic across all 12 brands reveals an unexpected pattern: the biggest paid spenders are not the banks, but the NBFCs. Aditya Birla Capital and Bajaj Finserv each run paid volumes 4×–5× higher than most private banks.

Largest spender, Apr 2026
Aditya Birla
48,898 monthly paid search clicks — category leader, outspending every bank
24-month paid volume
Bajaj Finserv
Cumulative 1.34M paid clicks over 2 years — largest sustained investment
Zero paid spend
SBI + CASHe
Both brands ran essentially zero paid search for the full 25-month period
April 2026 snapshot

Monthly paid search clicks, ranked

Aditya Birla Capital
48,898
Bajaj Finserv
46,083
ICICI Bank
24,296
HDFC Bank
23,197
BankBazaar
13,810
Axis Bank
10,300
Tata Capital
5,065
Fibe
773
KreditBee
684
Navi
168
SBI
0
CASHe
0
25-month paid search trend
Monthly paid clicks, Apr 2024 – Apr 2026. Click legend to toggle brands.
Why NBFCs win paid search
NBFCs have to buy the intent banks get for free
Banks own the branded search for "HDFC personal loan" or "ICICI personal loan" — high-intent navigational queries that convert organically at zero marginal cost. NBFCs like Bajaj Finserv and Aditya Birla Capital don't enjoy that branded-search gravity, so they buy commercial intent on generic terms like "personal loan", "instant personal loan", "personal loan low interest". The economics force the strategy.
The fintech paid-search paradox
Fintechs don't run web paid search — they run app install ads
Navi, KreditBee, CASHe, and Fibe collectively show fewer than 2,000 monthly paid search clicks in April 2026. This isn't because they don't spend on acquisition — they do, heavily. But their paid channels are app install ads on Google Play, App Store, and Meta, not web landing pages. Semrush's clickstream view can't see that spend, which is why these brands appear invisible here.
Data source: Semrush Traffic Analytics — Paid Search clickstream view, monthly, Apr 2024 – Apr 2026, India, all devices. CPC benchmarks for personal loan keywords in India range from ₹45 to ₹220 per click (Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, Apr 2026), implying monthly paid search spend of ₹22–108 lakh for the largest spenders (Aditya Birla, Bajaj Finserv).