In a fiercely competitive market space, financial service providers must spend money across many marketing channels.

Whether you’re a traditional financial business that’s been around for decades or one of the many disruptors emerging in the FinTech sector, competition has escalated in the financial services marketplace in recent years. Advertising has taken on the atmosphere of an arms race with each company spending more to muscle past rivals on the most productive advertising platforms. The highest-performing companies rely on a sophisticated mix of channels, including organic and paid search, price comparison sites, and TV, reducing the reliance on one funnel for leads and conversions.

Tracking the performance of individual customer touchpoints can be a challenge.

However, omnichannel marketing is more difficult to measure as customer journeys may begin and end in wildly divergent touchpoints. To add to the challenge, financial services companies accumulate enormous amounts of data, which can be difficult to wade through using superficial performance tracking models. Without a way to measure the effectiveness of each touchpoint and with no means of digging deeper into Big Data, financial institutions often end up making marketing decisions based on inaccurate marketing attribution.

Without accurate attribution models, it’s difficult to know which channel is actually delivering ROI.

Average performers tend to make marketing spend decisions based on “last click” data. In other words, they make the assumption that the last touchpoint before conversion has the highest dollar value. Conversely, high-performing financial marketers understand that customers may have been converted by a stimulation channel, such as a social media campaign, before finally reaching out to a response channel, such as a call center, where the conversion is recorded. It would be a costly mistake to decrease spend on the stimulation channel if it is, in fact, the source of the conversions. However, it’s impossible to make the correlation without an accurate attribution model.

A high-yield, data-driven omnichannel marketing strategy requires granular intelligence.

In 2017, Neustar, Inc. and Forbes released a Marketing Accountability report that offered revealing evidence on the cost of underinvestment in measurement. More than 800 CMOs were analyzed, and it became clear from the numbers that measurement is “the real driver of short- and long-term financial success.” The data the top performers studied wasn’t limited to online media either. In fact, the true trailblazers were 50% more effective at measuring the performance of all platforms, from social platforms to offline media.

More sophisticated data collection paired with predictive analytics leads to improved attribution and optimized business growth.

The Neustar report correlates high-performing CMOs who rely on accurate measurement and precise attribution models with 7.5% better business growth than their underperforming competitors. For financial service companies, this means making effective use of historical data to power predictive marketing. Robust predictive marketing programs, in turn, are equipped to accurately forecast consumer needs and tailor individualized experiences.

Improved analytics will necessarily improve the ROI on marketing spend. However, more sophisticated data and advanced predictive analytics also helps financial businesses improve business operations and customer offerings. The ability to dive deep into historical data and to gain discernment regarding customer preferences empowers financial companies to streamline services and to improve products. These data-driven refinements further improve revenue and differentiate competitors in a crowded market.

Morgan & Co. delivers data and differentiates brands.

At Morgan & Co., we’re committed to understanding our clients’ industries at the granular level. We study your marketplace, your competition, and your goals to produce intelligent, tailored strategies that incorporate new ideas and hard-nosed buying. And it’s all supported by analytics that capture the true ROI. Contact us today to learn how we can put predictive analytics and accurate attribution to work for your business.