LinkedIn Content Strategy for Payments Strategists | Netwarm
LinkedIn playbook · Case study
LinkedIn content strategy for payments strategists: how a UK payments strategist reached 84 fintech and payments leaders in 6 weeks
We read every reaction on 21 posts from a UK payments strategist and founder of a payments media and advisory firm. 370 people, 84 fintech and payments leaders. Here is what brings buyers, what brings peers, and the 5 posts we’d publish next.
Max Sawyer · Netwarm··11 min read
The creator in this case studyA UK-based payments strategist and founder of a payments media and advisory firm
Followers42,081
Posts~3–4 a week
Sells
These numbers are from 5 November. Your audience has already moved.
New fintech and payments leaders turn Hot every week and others go quiet. Run your free scan to see today’s version, with the names.
Fractional payment strategy and go-to-market advisory for payments and fintech companies, plus thought leadership and event coverage: the Unfiltered Payment Conversations podcast and a pavilion at Money20/20 Europe
PeriodSep 25 – Nov 5
Ideal client: Founders, commercial and partnership leaders at payments, fintech and travel companies who want to be seen by the rest of the industry, and merchants who need payments that perform, not just work.The challenge: On September 30, the strategist wrote: “Payments can be working perfectly and still be underperforming commercially. […] The dashboard can still look green.” LinkedIn works the same way: reactions can look healthy while nobody checks who they come from.
Key takeaways
About 1 in 4 readers is a fintech or payments leader.84 founders, C-level, VPs and heads at payments, fintech and travel companies reacted in 6 weeks: 22.7% of 370 people. Consultants, marketers and media peers were 27.8%.
The biggest post doesn’t bring the most buyers.The Day 1 recap from Fintech Meetup Europe had 85 reactions and 19.0% buyers. The Day 2 recap had 51 and 29.5%.
5 buyers are Hot right now.They reacted to 5 posts or more. One of them reacted to 9 of the 21.
01
Who actually reads you, and what the LinkedIn algorithm changed
The strategist posts 3 to 4 times a week about payments and the events where the industry meets: recaps from Money20/20 and Fintech Meetup Europe, analysis of acquiring and unified commerce, cards, travel payments and financial inclusion. 21 posts between 25 September and 5 November 2026, about half of them in the evening, UK time.
The LinkedIn algorithm shows a post to the people who reacted to the last ones, then to people like them. A payments voice’s feed fills up with other consultants, marketers and event people: they know the room, they react, and they push reach. The founders and commercial leaders who buy advisory and visibility read along too. Reach can’t tell them apart. Who reacted can.
21posts in 6 weeks
370people reacted
84fintech & payments leaders
13came back 3+ times
Audience by roleThe 370 people who reacted, by roleFree
Peers outnumber buyers: 103 people who sell consulting, marketing, content or event services to the same industry. They know the conferences and the names, and they react to almost everything.
The buyers are 84 people: founders, C-level, VPs and heads of commercial, partnerships and payments at PSPs, card and payment security companies, fintechs, banks and airlines. They react most to recaps and analysis that carry a clear point of view.
SeniorityAll people who reactedFree
Founder, owner, C-level23%
Director, VP9.2%
Manager11.6%
Independent6.2%
Other50%
IndustriesFintech and payments leaders onlyNetwarm
Payments, cards and fintech53.6%
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Core audience13 fintech and payments leaders engaged 3+ times · 5 engaged 5+ timesNetwarm
13 fintech and payments leaders keep coming back. One of them reacted to 9 of the 21 posts.See your regulars
Engager company sizeEveryone who reacted, by company sizeNetwarm
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See which company sizes your fintech and payments leaders work at.See company sizes
02
What to post on LinkedIn to reach fintech and payments leaders
Every topic brings a similar share of fintech and payments leaders, between 17.5% and 21.3%. The gap is between single posts: the Day 2 recap from Fintech Meetup Europe brought twice the share of the card demo post.
We tagged each of the 21 posts by topic, then measured the share of fintech and payments leaders among the people who reacted.
Your topicsWhat your 21 posts were aboutFree
21posts
Events & team news8
Payments industry analysis5
Cards & payment methods3
Financial inclusion3
Travel & airline payments2
Topics that attract fintech and payments leadersShare of each topic’s reactions from fintech and payments leadersNetwarm
Events & team news21.3%
Financial inclusion20.4%
Travel & airline payments18.2%
Payments industry analysis18.1%
Cards & payment methods17.5%
One topic brings the most fintech and payments leaders per post. See which.See which topics
Shares are close: event recaps lead at 21.3%, cards and payment methods come last at 17.5%. Financial inclusion posts brought the most buyers per post, 9.3 on average over 3 posts.
Posts that brought the most fintech and payments leadersShare of fintech and payments leaders in each post’s reactions1 of 5 open
#1Day 2 at Fintech Meetup Europe: business still comes down to people29.5%
#2What if banking isn’t designed for the way people live and earn?26.3%
#3Checkout.com, Mollie and the blurring line between online and in-person25.9%
#4Who gets to define the problem in financial inclusion?25%
#5Which country processes the most real-time payments?25%
For comparison, the Day 1 recap from Fintech Meetup Europe had 85 reactions, the most of the period, and reached 19.0% fintech and payments leaders.
6 rules for LinkedIn engagement from fintech and payments leaders
These rules come from what worked on the strategist’s own profile, and from the best-performing payments and fintech posts on LinkedIn over the last 3 months.
1
Flip the usual framing with a question. Payments leaders have heard every version of the standard argument. A first line that questions the premise, not the answer, makes them stop and read the rest.On this profile: the financial inclusion question post brought 15 fintech and payments leaders, tied for the most of any post, at 26.3%.
Recap the event with one point of view. A recap that says what the event changed, or what a move means for the industry, gives the people who weren’t there a reason to react. A countdown or a thank-you mostly reaches the people who were.On this profile: the Day 2 recap brought 29.5% buyers, the pre-event countdown post 11.1%.
Name the companies and explain the move. Commercial leaders follow competitors by name. A post that names the players, explains the strategy behind one move and ends with a question to operators is read by the people who make the same calls.On this profile: the Checkout.com and Mollie post brought 25.9%. Across the niche: Dwayne Gefferie’s Fiserv gateways post drew 412 likes.
Ask a question payments people think they can answer. A quiz or a “did you know” on how payments really work invites the expert to test themselves, and the answer becomes the post.On this profile: the real-time payments quiz brought 25.0%. Across the niche: Jason Heister’s approval-vs-settlement post drew 407 likes.
List named players with one number each. A short ranked list, each line a company and a figure, is easy to scan, easy to share, and gets the people on the list reacting.Across the niche: Arthur Bedel’s list of startups founded by Revolut alumni drew 1,622 likes and 42 comments.
Explain a structural point with one image. An image or a scene everyone gets in a second, then the payments lesson underneath, travels beyond the experts without losing them.Across the niche: Monica Jasuja’s waterfall, agile and AI image drew 1,674 likes and 108 comments.
When fintech and payments leaders read: the best time to post on LinkedIn for payments strategists
We compared the share of buyers by the day and the hour each post was published. With 21 posts in 6 weeks, each day has 1 to 6 posts, so read these as a direction, not a law. Only three 2-hour slots had 3 posts or more: 12:00, 18:00 and 20:00 UK time.
Share of fintech and payments leaders by posting dayAmong the people who reacted to each postFree
14.8%
Mon
17.3%
Tue
22.0%
Wed
21.7%
Thu
22.0%
Fri
17.6%
Sat
14.6%
Sun
Best time to post, by hourShare of fintech and payments leaders among people who reactedFree
17.4%
12:00
23.1%
18:00
20.0%
20:00
Friday and Wednesday brought the highest share of buyers (22.0%), with Thursday close (21.7%). Monday (3 posts, 14.8%) and Sunday (1 post, 14.6%) brought the lowest. Friday had the most posts, 6, so it is the most reliable signal.
By hour, posts at 18:00 brought 23.1% buyers, at 20:00 20.0% and at 12:00 17.4%. Keep the analysis and point-of-view posts for the early evening, Wednesday to Friday.
05
5 posts ready to publish to target fintech and payments leaders
Each post follows the rules above, in the strategist’s voice: a question or a contradiction up front, 👉 bullets, and a direct question to the industry at the end. Swap in your own details before posting.
1Ready to postOpinion question
What if the problem with checkout conversion isn’t the checkout?Rule 1: flip the usual framing with a question. Modelled on the strategist’s financial inclusion question post, tied for the most buyers of any post.
Hook
What if the problem with checkout conversion isn’t the checkout?It’s an important distinction. For years, the conversation has focused on the front end: fewer fields, faster flows, the right wallet button in the right place.All important, of course.But in my experience, a lot of lost revenue sits somewhere the customer never sees.👉 A good customer declined by a fraud rule tuned to avoid chargebacks rather than protect revenue.
👉 A subscriber lost because an expired card was never updated.
👉 A payment sent down a route that costs more and approves less.None of these show up as a broken checkout. The page loads, the button works, the dashboard stays green.So what’s going on?We are confusing the experience of paying with the performance of the payment. One is design. The other is routing, risk, retries and the commercial agreements behind them.And this is where things get interesting. The teams that own each piece are rarely in the same room. Product owns the checkout, risk owns the rules, finance owns the acquiring contracts.Which is why the better question for merchants isn’t “how do we make checkout smoother?” It’s “of everyone who tried to pay, how many should have converted, and why didn’t they?”Curious to hear from merchants and payment teams: who owns that question in your business? 👇
Visual · Text onlyNo image. The question in the first line carries the post.Check before postingAdd one real (anonymised) case from your advisory work where the fix sat in routing or risk rules, not in the checkout.
The event doesn’t start when the doors openRule 2: recap the events season with one point of view. Modelled on the strategist’s Day 2 recap from Fintech Meetup Europe, 29.5% buyers.
Hook
After a year of back-to-back events, here’s the one thing I’d tell any payments business planning its 2027 calendar. 😁The event doesn’t start when the doors open.This year our team covered Money20/20, Fintech Meetup Europe, World Aviation Festival and more, from the stage, the floor and behind the microphone. And the businesses that got the most out of those few days had one thing in common.They treated the event as three moments, not one.👉 Before: they told the market where they’d be, who they wanted to meet and what they wanted to talk about. The meetings were booked before the flight.👉 During: they created something worth sharing, a conversation, an interview, a point of view, not just a stand and a stack of business cards.👉 After: they followed up within the week, while the conversation was still fresh, and turned what they heard into content for the people who weren’t in the room.Showing up is easy. Making it count takes a plan for all three.Which of the three does your team find hardest? 👇
Visual · PhotoOne photo from the floor or the recording space at an event this year, with your team in it.Check before postingName the events you really covered this year, and keep the three moments in the order you see them work.
Three ways to unify online and in-store paymentsRule 3: name the companies and explain the move. Modelled on Dwayne Gefferie’s Fiserv gateways post, 412 likes, and the strategist’s Checkout.com and Mollie post, 25.9% buyers.
Hook
Adyen, Stripe and Checkout.com all want the merchant’s online and in-store payments. They’re getting there from three very different directions.👉 Adyen has long championed unified commerce: one platform, online and in-store, built that way from the start.👉 Stripe has extended its online proposition into physical retail, taking its developer-first approach into the store.👉 Checkout.com has taken a software-led, device-agnostic route into in-person payments, with Mollie as an early partner that keeps its own merchant relationships and hardware strategy.Three models. Same merchant.So which one matters?It depends on where the business started. For merchants whose online and store businesses grew up separately, payments often still run as two worlds: different providers, separate contracts, fragmented reporting, funds settling on different timelines.A single provider can fix the fragmentation. It can also concentrate the dependency. And more hardware choice doesn’t automatically mean acquiring portability or more negotiating leverage.The real test isn’t which model wins. It’s how much control the merchant keeps as the infrastructure behind them consolidates.If you run payments for a merchant with both online and in-store sales: one provider or two? 👇
Visual · ImageThree columns, one per provider, with one line each on how it reaches the store. Your own simple diagram, no logos needed.Check before postingCheck each provider’s latest announcement before posting, and add one merchant situation you have seen first-hand.
Which instrument still carries more than half of euro area payments?Rule 4: ask a question payments people think they can answer. Modelled on Jason Heister’s approval-vs-settlement post, 407 likes, and the strategist’s real-time payments quiz, 25.0% buyers.
Hook
Which payment instrument accounted for more than half of all non-cash payment transactions in the euro area in the first half of 2025? 🌍👉 Digital wallets
👉 Credit transfers
👉 Cards
👉 Direct debitsSounds like an easy one for a bunch of payments experts, right? 😁The answer is cards. According to the European Central Bank, cards accounted for 56.6% of non-cash payment transactions in the euro area in the first half of 2025.And if you picked digital wallets, you’re not entirely wrong either. In markets like the UK and the US, many wallet transactions still run on the same card infrastructure underneath.That’s the part the “cards are dying” debate tends to miss. The physical card is becoming less central to how we pay. The card rails underneath are not going anywhere soon.What is changing is the reason to carry the plastic. For issuers, the physical card is becoming a product and positioning decision, not just an acceptance instrument.Be honest: what did you answer before reading on? 👇
Visual · Poll or short videoUse a LinkedIn poll with the four options, or a 30-second clip asking the question on an event floor.Check before postingCheck the latest ECB payment statistics before posting and update the figure and period if a newer release is out.
The payments performance scorecardLead magnet built from the strategist’s “payments can be working perfectly” post. Format modelled on Jimena Santillán’s market map, shared in the first comment.
Hook
Payments can be working perfectly and still be underperforming commercially.I wrote that a few weeks ago, and it’s the line I’ve had the most conversations about since.Because most payment teams are still measured on whether payments work: uptime, success rates, settlement speed, STP. By those measures, the dashboard looks green.The business experiences something else.So I turned it into a one-page scorecard. 8 questions, in two parts.At checkout:
▪️ How many good customers are declined and logged as a normal outcome?
▪️ Are your fraud rules tuned to avoid chargebacks, or to protect revenue?
▪️ How many subscribers do you lose to expired cards and failed retries?
▪️ Does your acceptance cost grow with every unoptimised route?After settlement:
▪️ How long until cash that has landed can actually be used?
▪️ How many exceptions are still handled manually?
▪️ Are customers stuck on credit hold after they have already paid?
▪️ Is payment data stripped out before anyone can use it?Each question comes with the metric to track it: revenue captured per attempted payment, time to usable cash, and true cost per payment, end to end.Comment SCORECARD and I’ll send it over. 👇
Visual · CarouselSlide 1: the opening line. Slides 2–3: the 8 questions in two groups. Slide 4: the three metrics. Last slide: “Comment SCORECARD”.Check before postingHave the one-page scorecard ready as a PDF before posting, and answer every comment within a day.
Free forever: unlimited scheduling through LinkedIn’s official API, with images, video and PDF carousels.
06
LinkedIn lead generation: lead magnets that work to target fintech and payments leaders
Reactions show interest. A download shows intent. The fastest way to find out which fintech and payments leaders are serious is to give them something useful and see who asks for it.
In payments and fintech content, these formats get the most requests:
Format 1The market map, shared as a spreadsheetA map of every player in one segment, with the full list in a spreadsheet in the first comment. Payments leaders use it to find partners and check their own place on it.
Format 2The source report in the first commentA first-hand story or analysis in the post, and the underlying report linked in the first comment for the readers who want to go deeper.
Format 3The deep-dive behind the postThe post explains one move; the newsletter or long-form piece gives the full story. Readers who click are telling you the topic matters to them.
Our pick for you: “The payments performance scorecard”Built from the strategist’s “payments can be working perfectly” post: 8 questions across checkout and settlement, each with the metric behind it (revenue captured per attempted payment, time to usable cash, true cost per payment). Offer it in post 5 with “Comment SCORECARD”. It leads straight into the merchant conversations the strategist already invites at the end of that post.With a Reveal link, every person who downloads it is shown by name, with their role and how warm they are. Your first Reveal link is free.Create your free Reveal link
07
From reactions to clients
Content brings fintech and payments leaders to the profile. It doesn’t say when to reach out. Most never comment, so they stay invisible, and a commercial leader who read every post this month may have booked another partner by the next event.
On LinkedIn, the right moment to start a conversation is when someone keeps coming back. We call that Hot: 5 or more points over 90 days, where a reaction counts 1, a repost 2, a download or a reply 4.
Hot right now5 fintech and payments leaders · not contacted yetNetwarm
5 fintech and payments leaders are Hot. See who to message first.See who’s Hot
First messageAn opener for each Hot person, based on the posts they readNetwarm
Hi Laura, you’ve reacted to a few of my posts on acquiring lately. Is unified commerce on your 2027 roadmap?Hi Marc, saw you liked my Fintech Meetup Europe recap. Are you planning to be at Money20/20 Europe next year?
A first line for each of them, ready to send.See the openers
Netwarm sends nothing for you. It tells you who and when, and you write the message. It also works inside Claude and ChatGPT: ask “Who’s Hot today?” and get the list.
08
FAQ
Recaps and analysis with a clear point of view: what an event or a move means for the industry, with the companies named. Here the Day 2 recap from Fintech Meetup Europe brought 29.5% fintech and payments leaders, the card demo post 14.6%.
For this strategist, Friday and Wednesday brought the highest share of buyers (22.0%), with Thursday close behind (21.7%). Monday and Sunday brought the lowest. By hour, 18:00 UK time beat 12:00, 23.1% against 17.4%.
3 to 4 posts a week brought 84 fintech and payments leaders in 6 weeks, and 13 of them came back 3 times or more. Keep the rhythm, and put the analysis posts on Wednesday to Friday evenings.
Look at who reacts, not how many. Group reactions by role, measure the share of your ideal clients per post, and follow the people who keep coming back. A free Netwarm scan does this for you.
Yes. Netwarm only reads public reactions to your own posts. It never logs in as you, never asks for your password, and never messages anyone for you.
How we made this playbook
We read the public reactions on 21 posts published between 25 September and 5 November 2026 (up to the first 100 people per post: 737 of the 883 reactions) and sorted the 370 people by role. The creator’s own team was counted as peers. Comments were not counted, so engagement figures are a floor.
Niche rules come from top payments and fintech posts over the last 3 months. Role groups are approximate, and some peers also buy; a Netwarm scan matches people to your own ideal client.
