2025 Banking Marketing Performance Study

MarketingBanks.com partnered with Richardson Marketing to evaluate how well U.S. financial institutions are actually performing in today’s multichannel marketing environment. The original goal was simple: measure where banks are wasting money, where they’re blind, and where they’re unintentionally pushing prospective members away.

2025 Banking Marketing Performance Study: What we found was worse than expected.

Banks are running more campaigns than ever, but they’re not tracking them correctly. They’re investing in analytics tools but not using them. They’re buying CRM systems that are barely turned on. The data exists — the insights don’t.

This study is the first to quantify how deep the problem goes.

Key Findings

1. 71% of banks cannot track a complete customer journey across more than two channels.
Banks push ads, email, social, and in-branch promotions — but almost none of that data connects. Most respondents said they “believed” certain campaigns worked, but had no measurable attribution to back it up. Decisions were being made on instinct, not evidence.

2. Only 18% have GA4 configured properly.
Most institutions installed GA4 because they were forced to when UA sunsetted, but never finished the setup. Event tracking was inconsistent. Funnels were incomplete. Dashboards were mostly cosmetic. A significant number are still comparing GA4 data to old UA metrics, which is why so many teams are getting mismatched numbers and drawing the wrong conclusions from them.

3. 52% of banks with a CRM admit they use less than 20% of its features.
The most expensive tool in their entire tech stack has become a storage locker. Automations aren’t running. Segmentation is surface-level. Many relationship managers are still operating out of personal spreadsheets. CRMs are collecting data, not generating revenue.

4. Marketing automation was the biggest missed opportunity.
Less than one-third of surveyed banks had active automations beyond a basic welcome/onboarding email.
Meanwhile, institutions running advanced automations — lifecycle campaigns, cross-sell triggers, re-engagement flows — reported an average 23% higher conversion rate on both deposit and loan campaigns.

5. Banks are overspending on paid ads due to poor attribution.
Across the institutions we analyzed, 27–40% of paid media budgets were misallocated, simply because they couldn’t see which channels drove real customers versus empty clicks. In many cases, budgets were being shifted toward the channels creating the loudest vanity metrics, not the channels generating long-term account holders.

6. The “multichannel strategy” most banks brag about doesn’t exist.
Most banks are running disconnected efforts, not true multichannel campaigns.
No unified measurement plan.
No cross-platform sequencing.
No shared KPIs across departments.
What passes for “multichannel” today is usually just several unrelated tactics running at the same time with no central strategy holding them together.

1. Strategic Recommendations for Banks and Credit Unions

Based on our findings, here are the top steps banking institutions should take now:

1. Build a Unified Analytics & Attribution Framework

• Adopt a modern analytics tool like GA4 (or comparable) that supports cross-device and cross-channel tracking.
• Define clear KPIs before campaigns begin: new account conversions, product uptake rate, 12-month retention, CPA (cost per acquisition), LTV.
• Ensure tracking spans the full customer journey — web, mobile, branch, email, etc.

2. Invest in CRM & Automation Infrastructure

• Deploy a CRM platform capable of integrations with web, mobile, and branch systems.
• Use automation to trigger follow-up messages, nurture sequences, and personalized offers.
• Segment customers early (e.g. by age, account type, engagement likelihood) to tailor communications, reduce churn, and increase cross-sell opportunities.

3. Run Cross-Channel Campaigns with Attribution in Mind

• Design campaigns that consider the customer lifecycle — from awareness to sign-up to retention.
• Avoid isolated touches. Instead, create coordinated paths across email, digital ads, mobile push, and branch visits.
• Monitor performance across each channel, but evaluate success at the funnel and lifecycle level.

4. Monitor, Analyze & Optimize Continuously

• Review not just the number of leads, but lead quality: how many convert, how many stay, how many add products.
• Use data-driven insights to reallocate budgets toward high-performing channels and tactics.
• Re-evaluate segmentation, messaging, and timing every quarter — banking audiences shift, and so should marketing.

5. Focus on Long-Term Value, Not Short-Term Hype

• Shift KPIs from “impressions,” “clicks,” or “form fills” to “customer lifetime value,” “retention rate,” “product mix growth.”
• Treat marketing as a strategic growth engine, not a cost center.

About Richardson Marketing

Richardson Marketing is a specialized agency focused entirely on the banking sector. We built our team from former marketers, data analysts, compliance specialists, and banking professionals — all sharing a common mission: help banks turn marketing from a blind expense into a predictable, measurable growth engine.

Our services range from analytics architecture and CRM integration to campaign execution, automation design, and full-funnel optimization. We guide banks through the shift from traditional marketing to data-driven, lifecycle-focused engagement.

Call to Action

The 2025 Banking Marketing Performance Study shows one thing clearly: banks that persist with fragmented marketing and outdated tracking will continue to underperform. Meanwhile, institutions that invest in unified data, smart automation, and cross-channel orchestration are already pulling ahead — gaining customers more cheaply, keeping them longer, and improving lifetime value in a significant, measurable way.

If your bank is still guessing which campaigns work, or if you’re seeing marketing spend rise while conversions stagnate — you don’t have to accept that as the cost of doing business. Visit the full study at marketingbanks.com/2025-banking-marketing-performance-study/ to see the complete data and trends.

Then reach out to Richardson Marketing. We’ll help build the infrastructure, strategy, and execution that turns your marketing budget into real, lasting growth.