Digital Marketing for Banks, Credit Unions and Other Financial Services

Marketing is important for all industries, as it plays a crucial role in generating leads, attracting new customers, and maintaining customer retention. This is especially true for banks and financial institutions due to the highly competitive market in this industry.

What is Bank Marketing?

Bank marketing refers to the strategic approach financial institutions use to promote their products and services. Like any other industry, banks need to connect with their target audience, build trust, and differentiate themselves from the competition. Bank marketing involves digital strategies like paid search, paid social, programmatic, and search engine optimization (SEO), as well as traditional marketing such as print media and direct mail.

However, the CMO Spring 2024 survey reveals that traditional advertising spend continues to experience negative growth, at -2.1%, down from -0.6% in Fall 2023. In contrast, digital marketing spend has rebounded, increasing from +7.9% in Fall 2023 to +8.9% in the latest survey, after showing a growth rate of +8.2% one year ago. These trends underscore the growing importance of investing in digital marketing over traditional methods, especially as technological advancements continue to reshape the landscape.

For example, while businesses once invested heavily in television advertising, the rise of connected TV (CTV) has shifted investments toward programmatic advertising, thanks to its flexibility in reaching highly targeted audiences across various platforms like Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and many others. According to emarketer, 43% of US advertisers are pulling their ad spend from linear TV and investing that budget into connected TV (CTV) advertising. They are also estimating that linear TV investments will decline by 13.3% from 2023 to 2024.

With so many channels to choose from, across both digital marketing and traditional media, it’s important to understand where your customers are, what their pain points are, what the competitive landscape looks like, and how to better position yourself in the marketplace. This may mean shifting your marketing investments away from the way you might have invested 5-10 years ago to ensure you’re getting in front of the right audience at the right time. The goal of bank marketing is not only to attract new customers but also to retain existing ones by offering personalized products, such as savings accounts, loans, credit cards, and investment services.

Why is Marketing for Banks and Financial Institutions Important?

Marketing is especially important for banks and financial institutions for many reasons, including:

1. Brand Awareness and Visibility

In a crowded market, building brand awareness is very important for banks to stand out. Effective marketing helps increase visibility, making sure that potential customers recognize and remember your brand. Common ways for banks to increase their visibility in the digital marketing space include channels like Programmatic or Display ads, Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Content Marketing or SEO. By leveraging a marketing strategy across various channels, banks can create a strong brand awareness, driving an increase in traffic and engagement on your website.

2. Revenue Growth

Effective marketing strategies are directly tied to revenue growth for banks and financial institutions. By attracting new customers, promoting relevant products, and encouraging existing customers to use additional services, marketing drives increased revenue. Whether it’s upselling services like loans, credit cards, or investment products, or improving customer retention, a well-executed marketing strategy can significantly impact the bottom line.

An important component of this is using closed-loop reporting and analytics, which allows banks to track the entire customer journey—from the initial marketing interaction to conversion. This allows for direct insights into the true ROI of specific campaigns, helping marketers understand what drives revenue and optimize future strategies. By measuring the true effectiveness of campaigns, banks can make data-driven decisions that lead to more precise targeting, higher conversion rates, and long-term profitability.

3. Promotion of Products and Services

Banks offer a wide range of services such as credit cards, loans, savings accounts, lines of credit, and more. Strong marketing ensures that both potential and existing customers are aware of these services. Promoting the right product at the right time is important for growth overall, allowing banks to meet customer needs and stay competitive. Channels can include paid media, SEO and content marketing, email marketing, and more.

4. Customer Trust and Relationships

In an industry built on trust, marketing helps establish credibility and transparency. By consistently communicating your banks’ value proposition, banks can build lasting relationships with customers. According to a J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction StudySM conducted, 13% of bank customers say they are likely to switch banking institutions within the next 12 months. This trend is driven by a decline in trust and stagnant customer satisfaction levels. How banks communicate with their customers, address their concerns, and offer relevant products and services can significantly improve customer retention and foster loyalty. Ensuring consistent marketing messaging across channels, effective email communication, and a well-executed cross-sell strategy are just a few ways to strengthen customer trust and relationships.

5. Digital Transformation

We’ve come a long way in terms of technology, particularly in the banking world. With the rise of online banking and mobile apps, financial institutions must continuously evolve their marketing strategies to engage digitally savvy customers. Modern marketing efforts should prioritize personalization, adopt omnichannel approaches, and leverage data heavily to drive decision-making and optimize strategies.

Why Are Moments Important in Financial Services Marketing?

As the world becomes more digital, consumer behavior has shifted toward “micro-moments”—real-time, intent actions like searching for information or marketing decisions on the go. Mobile devices have fractured the consumer journey into non-linear paths, with shorter attention spans and less brand loyalty.

In financial services, this means banks need to capture customers in these key moments, addressing immediate needs like “I want to buy,” “I want to know,” or “I want to do.” Marketing strategies must be customized to respond to customers’ real-time intent, delivering relevant and personalized experiences when it matters most.

Live Events and Customer Intent

Live events, such as career changes, marriage, or buying a home, often prompt new financial decisions. Banks can use digital tools to predict these life events and offer timely solutions. By leveraging search intent, predictive analytics, and machine learning, financial institutions can identify the best time to engage their audience and tailor marketing messages to fit specific life milestones.

This approach allows banks to be present when customers are making critical financial decisions, providing solutions that feel personalized and relevant.

Winning Moments with Targeted Digital Marketing

To win these important moments, financial institutions must use data-driven strategies to understand their audience. Tools like paid search and programmatic advertising help banks control their messaging and reach customers when they are most likely to convert. By integrating customer data, search behavior, and intent signals, banks can create personalized interactions that resonate with customers at the right time.

For example, let’s say you're developing a brand awareness campaign strategy and your digital marketing agency recommends leveraging Programmatic advertising due to the breadth of audience availability. You can test multiple audience segments, such as the ones below, to identify which segment generates stronger engagement and optimize your budget allocation accordingly.

With one of our programmatic partners, StackAdapt, I may recommend splitting the budget between third-party audiences, browsing audiences, and remarketing audiences to see which targeting strategy drives stronger results. What that could look like from a targeting perspective is the following:

Third-party audiences:

Third-party audiences consist of data aggregated by third-party data providers, which can be used across various ad formats like display, native, video, connected TV (CTV), and audio. For banks or financial institutions, micro-moment audiences that could be particularly relevant include first-time home buyers, real estate intent buyers, and high-income home improvement buyers. These third-party audiences allow you to reach potential customers actively looking for solutions based on the life moment they are going through.

Browsing audiences:

Browsing audiences are created based on a targeted list of keywords that are contextually relevant to your bank or financial institution. A recommended strategy here is to use top-converting search terms from your paid search campaigns, segmented by intent, to contextually target audiences across the web. This strategy ensures that you're reaching users who are actively researching on websites the content that is relevant to your services.

Remarketing audiences:

Remarketing audiences can be segmented using tools like Google Analytics 4. For instance, you could target users who visited your lending or mortgage page and spent more than three minutes there. The messaging for this segment should be highly tailored to address their specific needs during the home-buying process, highlighting how your bank’s solutions can help them achieve their goals.

A more personalized marketing strategy ensures that marketing is not only timely but also relevant, making it more likely to drive engagement and conversions.

Controlling the Marketing Message

In a world where consumers expect immediate and accurate information, controlling your bank’s messaging across all channels is important. Paid search, for example, allows banks to customize their message directly to users who are searching for specific financial products or services. This can further be enhanced by not only aligning the ad messaging but also the landing page that the user then lands on. Paid ads and customized landing pages allow banks to control messaging in ways that organic can’t. They allow them to ensure that ads accurately portray their brand across all bank marketing and advertising efforts.

This level of control ensures that your customers receive the right information when they need it, strengthening the overall customer experience.

In channels such as Google Ads, there are some restrictions when it comes to advertising in the financial sector, so ensure you align with their advertising policies. You can read more information on what is approved or not approved here.

How We Helped Our Banking Client Control Their Digital Messaging

Workshop Digital helped a regional bank navigate a major acquisition. While such significant changes come with inherent risks, they also provide an opportunity to engage a new audience. During a merger or acquisition, clear and consistent messaging is critical, especially for keeping existing customers informed and attracting new ones.

In this case, we observed a significant increase in branded searches during the client’s merger. If users had only encountered organic search results, they would have been directed to an outdated homepage, causing confusion and frustration. Furthermore, several news outlets had covered the merger, potentially diverting traffic from the bank’s own pages.

To address these challenges, we implemented paid media advertising strategies that delivered high-converting pages directly to our client’s audience. We crafted messaging that emphasized trust and convenience, creating tailored ad copy for current customers, prospective customers, and non-branded searchers. For existing customers, the messaging reassured them that they would continue to receive the same high-quality service. For new customers, we highlighted the innovative features and convenience of the newly merged bank.

Here’s how Workshop Digital optimized our client’s PPC efforts during the acquisition:

Ad Copy & Landing Pages:

We developed fresh ad copy and sitelink assets to inform customers about the merger, ensuring they had easy access to important updates. Dedicated paid search landing pages consolidated useful information and drove conversions.

Geo-Targeting:

Using radius targeting, we focused on zip codes surrounding each branch to reach users most likely to open an account. This helped ensure the ads were highly relevant to the right audience.

Remarketing:

We curated separate messaging for current customers and potential new customers, ensuring that each audience received the most relevant and personalized information based on their relationship with the bank.

Promotional Offers:

Shortly after the merger, we ran promotional campaigns designed to attract new customers in the expanded geographic areas, offering incentives to open new accounts.

After six months, we saw significant improvements in key metrics. Branded conversions increased, while branded cost per conversion decreased. Conversions by product type were led by branded search traffic, accounting for over 76% of total conversions. These results indicate a successful acquisition, with the bank expanding its presence in a new geographic market and effectively informing both new and existing customers about the changes.

How Digital Marketing Drives Revenue and Growth for Financial Businesses

To drive revenue and growth, it’s essential to truly understand your audience—what they need, when they need it, and how your products or services can solve their problems. You must ensure your messaging is clear and controlled, delivering the right information at the right time. Above all, treat your customers as individuals, reaching them in ways they expect and value.

When integrated with traditional marketing strategies, digital marketing can significantly amplify a bank’s ability to engage customers and increase revenue. By leveraging a range of tactics and strategies, from personalized messaging to data-driven targeting, financial institutions can ensure consistent communication across all touchpoints while maximizing the return on their marketing investments.

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