By Karen Epper Hoffman
For many banks, online has become the first and foremost delivery channel, and therefore the central portal for marketing efforts for existing and prospective customers.
However, many of these customers that open accounts online take a ‘set and forget’ approach to banking — and hence are not open to further marketing or engagement. And even more consumers are experiencing digital marketing fatigue, overwhelmed by the constant deluge of online messaging about financial services, as well as other products and services. Hence, banks are feeling greater pressure to up their digital marketing game to the next level.
“Banks need to connect marketing to a fuller understanding of the customer,” says Nina Owens, managing director of financial services strategy for Publicis Sapient. “Many institutions still run product-based campaigns, which lead to generic offers that rarely convert into new accounts.”
Banks will see “stronger acquisition by connecting customer data across products and behaviors so they can identify life moments such as buying a home, starting a business or building wealth,” she says, adding that “instead of broad campaigns, [banks should] focus on recognizing intent and engaging at the moment a customer is actually evaluating a financial decision.”
Jennie Platt, chief marketing officer at TD Bank U.S., says “the most effective digital marketing today is built on integration. Banks that connect data, channels, and platforms can reduce noise, increase relevance and move faster.” TD Bank’s own digital marketing focus has been built on “integrat[ing] data across platforms and channels. With insights flowing across paid, owned, and in‑person touchpoints, we deliver consistent, highly personalized experiences and create better outcomes for both clients and the business,” she says.
“Digital marketing works best when it’s paired with strong brand storytelling, clear value propositions and onboarding experiences that feel personal from day one,” Platt adds. “When awareness, incentives and advice are connected end‑to‑end, banks are better positioned to turn initial interest into long-term client relationships built on loyalty and deep engagement.”
Spencer Schrage, managing director of North America for M+C Saatchi Consulting, points out that banks are operating in “a category that’s being democratized, but many are still bringing legacy assumptions about what customers value. The shift is from wealth accumulation to value creation, and from passive financial management to more proactive, everyday engagement.”
As the customer base changes increasingly from Boomer and Generation X demographics to Millennials and Generation Z, banks need to consider the demands and preferences of these consumers in their marketing messages. “Younger generations aren’t motivated purely by building wealth. They’re asking what to do with it, how it fits into their lives and whether it creates any real personal impact,” says Schrage. “That needs to translate into tangible actions.”
Schrage suggests banks should build their marketing and product experience messaging around “real money moments — when someone gets paid, when they’re managing day-to-day spending, or when they want to reward themselves for a small win — not just the big life milestones.”
These marketing messages should segue into “more interactive, empowering tools and onboarding experiences that help customers actively optimize their money in real time,” says Schrage. “Banking should feel less like passive management and more like a daily utility for turning money into tangible value.”
Digital marketing is not an island
Banks are increasingly learning the importance of using online and mobile marketing messages to propel customers and prospects into action using the various tools that are becoming available on these platforms, as well as more closely integrating these campaigns with messaging through other channels.
Kennedy Van Rossum, senior marketing manager for the $2 billion-asset, family-owned Bank Iowa, points out that “success in the digital space often has less to do with messaging or channels and more to do with product and experience offerings. It’s not necessarily how banks are marketing, but more often, what they are marketing that creates a mismatch.”
Legacy banks that are marketing on digital platforms are typically “competing with online financial companies that offer instant paycheck access, earned wage advances, real-time credit building, AI-powered money coaching and other services right at customers’ fingertips and requiring zero physical engagement with a bank,” Van Rossum says. “In other words, the offer needs to match the platform.”
However, she points out that direct mail and “physical space media is far from dead. It offers a lot of value when combined with digital efforts.” If nothing else, digital marketing helps repeat and reaffirm messaging from other more traditional channels. “People need to see something multiple times before they make a decision,” Van Rossum adds. “A bank’s presence feels more tangible, not to mention more credible, as it shows up across more channels.”
In a recent marketing campaign, Bank Iowa hit the same households “in their mailbox and in their feeds. They may have opened accounts in the branch, but the influence happened elsewhere,” she says.
Sharon Cook, head of strategic marketing and growth at Vericast, believe that banks should consider how their marketing programs drive “local relevance and build trust, both online and offline.” According to a recent Vericast study, 43% of consumers are more likely to consider doing business with a bank that highlights its local community. “FIs should pair digital acquisition with community-based narratives, local partnerships and geographically targeted messaging that reflect real customer needs,” Cook says. “Banks should consider how messaging differs for different age cohorts beyond traditional lifecycle marketing.”
Douglas Longenecker, founder and CEO of NKST, a Summit, NJ-based business consultancy, points out that “one of the best ways for community or regional banks … to improve their digital marketing programs is to stop treating digital marketing as the primary engine of growth and start using it as a component of a connected engagement” leading to customer acquisition and retention.
Longenecker has worked with financial companies including First Commerce Bank, DiTech Home Loans, Ephrata National Bank and Susquehanna Bancshares (now Truist).
To that end, Longenecker says that banks “should stop measuring marketing success primarily by standard digital metrics, like impressions, clicks or even application starts [ie: media conversions] and start measuring it by opened-and-funded accounts, direct deposit conversion, and first-90-day engagement.”
“That shifts the conversation from campaign performance to growth performance,” Longenecker adds. “The bottom line is that digital marketing should not operate in isolation. It needs to be tied directly to onboarding, activation, and early relationship building.”
The AI of it all
Nikhil Lele, Americas banking and capital markets consulting leader for E&Y, sees many banks discovering that traditional digital marketing tactics, even when well-funded and data-rich, are falling short because they stop at engagement rather than conversion and relationship building, which will drastically evolve with technology, particularly AI.
He says banks will see more new accounts when digital marketing is paired with “agentic decisioning and onboarding, not just better targeting … using AI agents to interpret intent in real-time and immediately remove friction, whether that’s recommending the right account, prefilling applications or guiding funding and payroll setup.”
According to Lele, digital channel marketing creates interest, “but agentic systems convert that interest into action by turning customer data into timely, explainable next steps built on trust.”
“As consumer expectations evolve alongside advances in AI, banks need to rethink how they acquire and onboard customers across channels, moving from static campaigns to more intelligent, continuous experiences,” Lele adds. He says the next phase of growth will be driven by agentic banking, where AI-powered systems turn data into real-time, trusted actions that guide customers seamlessly from discovery to account opening and long-term engagement.
Longenecker agrees that AI is “changing how people discover banks. More people are posing search questions like, ‘best bank for teens,’ or ‘best checking account for a freelancer,’ and the answers now includes AI summaries, business data, reviews and reputation signals.”
As a result, he says that banks need to become more relatable, authoritative and consistent across the web if they want to show up and get chosen, by offering clearer product pages written in plain language; stronger local listings and review management; more credible comparison content; FAQ structures that answer real consumer questions; leadership and expert content that reinforces authority; and consistent data across website, listings, profiles and third-party sources.
“AI search rewards institutions that are easier to understand, to verify, and to trust,” Longenecker says. “That is bigger than just an SEO strategy. It is a discoverability strategy.”
