Stand-out financial marketing campaigns connect brand, audience, and business value
Financial services marketing has come a long way from the era of monolithic messaging and basic tracking tools, like click-through rates and impressions. Today’s savvy financial brands are moving toward more sophisticated measures of effectiveness to not just reach – but also resonate – with customers. “What’s critical for banks moving forward isn’t just tracking how campaigns perform in the short term but connecting those results to long-term growth,” says Liz Froment, contributor to the Financial Brand. “AI, predictive analytics, and personalization are transforming how banks engage with customers and evaluate those interactions.”
While traditional key performance indicators (KPIs) still matter, financial institutions are moving their marketing toward growing relationships, with metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and engagement quality. More robust measurement approaches include multi-touch attribution and product adoption tracking to better capture the full customer journey. Best-in-class bank and credit union campaigns prioritize long-term brand engagement over short-term gains. This continues the shift from volume to value as financial marketing emphasizes the quality of interactions with customers and prospects.
Creating a best-in-class campaign starts by aligning financial marketing and growth goals. A recent Vericast survey of financial institutions found that only 45% of marketing budgets increased in 2025 and 36% stayed flat. With marketing money so tight, it’s critical for campaigns to measure deposit growth and new customer onboarding. “By using precise data and KPIs, CMOs can demonstrate a return on marketing investment to better resonate with the chief financial officer and better support their marketing efforts and budget needs,” says Vericast’s Alexa Bennett in BAI Banking Strategies. Having a data-based strategy will strengthen internal credibility and lead to more successful and integrated marketing campaigns.
While it’s clear customers want meaningful marketing, too few financial institutions are leveraging the kind of data-driven, human-focused messaging that drives business value. Data from Persado reveals that 54% of consumers found that financial marketing is “somewhat, hardly, or not at all” personalized to their needs and preferences. Even more striking is the fact that two-thirds of those surveyed said that their financial institution’s marketing materials do not resonate emotionally. The lack of connection results in real loss, as 45% of consumers report they’d consider switching banks for one that delivers more personalized experiences.
“Modern consumers expect personalized, seamless experiences,” says Katie Quilligan, from BankTech Ventures, and Alana Levine, from Fintel Connect, in their bylined article, “Your Bank’s Marketing Budget Isn’t the Problem – Your Strategy Is” in the Financial Brand. “Personalization is key to strengthening relationships and increasing customer lifetime value.” When done well, personalized marketing becomes a powerful differentiator in a crowded and commoditized marketplace. The best financial services marketing campaigns combine customer insights with creative execution to deliver relevance, authenticity, and real value to customers.
Building on the launch of its new brand, Everwise Credit Union developed an awareness campaign that spotlights how the institution empowers people with the tools to pave the path to their financial futures. The goal: creating emotional resonance to deepen existing customer relationships and build new ones. The brand campaign combined bold visuals and storytelling to highlight the everyday moments where members feel supported. By elevating everyday authentic experiences, Everwise positioned themselves as a trusted partner in members’ lives.
From broadcast to social media, the campaign created a cohesive connection by featuring relatable stories and images to ground the new brand in real-life relevance. The award-winning Little Moments campaign content also showcased creative excellence and industry impact. The result was a unified message that built on the brand, making it feel instantly recognizable and emotionally engaging. By spotlighting Everwise members, they brought humanity and heart to their marketing.
While many financial institutions laser-focus on messaging, brand infrastructure is also critical to campaign effectiveness. Streamlining their brand design and guidelines enabled Byline Bank to deliver more impactful on-brand marketing. Byline recognized the importance of simplifying and streamlining their brand assets to tell a strong, unified story that connects clearly with audiences. To achieve greater cohesion, the bank took a less-is-more approach that incorporated unified colors, textures, and photo styles to reinforce the brand’s identity and spotlight new content.
Optimizing their brand guidelines and improving workflows enabled Byline’s marketing team to become more agile in their campaign development, more data-driven in their targeting, and better able to deliver personalization at scale. Ultimately, this brand-system transformation made Byline Bank’s front-end marketing more effective and efficient. The streamlined system also armed internal teams with clear tools and standards for delivering consistent, high-quality creative across every channel. Stronger connections between strategy and execution underscored the critical role infrastructure plays in campaign success.
Spotlighting the strong relationships between customers and employees put Park National Bank in the position to establish their financial brand as a trusted partner. The customer-centric, local values in their “What Means a Lot To You, Means a Lot to Us” campaign featured people’s stories: first-time home buyers, small business owners, new parents, retirees, and the bankers who make it their mission to help and support them. The campaign included a mix of digital ads along with television and radio spots, out-of-home billboards and signage, print ads, and drive-through banners – building familiarity and trust at every turn.
The holistic campaign reinforced the brand across multiple touchpoints. Using award-winning video content added depth and warmth to the message. Moreover, the regional scope of Park’s campaign strengthened the bank’s brand equity while reinforcing their deepening commitment to the community. The campaign highlights how even larger regional banks can create messaging that resonates emotionally with customers and the community. By celebrating real stories and shared values, Park turned its brand promise into something people could see, feel, and believe in. It’s marketing that builds on relationships.
When done right, marketing is a growth engine – not a cost center. The best financial services marketing campaigns create an emotional connection with customers and the community, resulting in real ROI that drives business growth. Most successful bank and credit union campaigns aren’t one-offs. Rather, they are a product of smart strategy, creative storytelling, and data-driven insights that map back to core business goals. The three campaigns highlighted showcase how standout financial marketing focuses on brand fundamentals, reinforces institutional values, and optimizes the marketing process.
If you’re a financial institution leader looking to create better brand and marketing campaigns, get in touch with the brand experience experts at Adrenaline.
Adrenaline is an end-to-end brand experience company serving the financial industry. We move brands and businesses ahead by delivering on every aspect of their experience across digital and physical channels, from strategy through implementation. Our multi-disciplinary team works with leadership to advise on purpose, position, culture, and retail growth strategies. We create brands people love and engage audiences from employees to customers with story-led design and insights-driven marketing; and we design and build transformative brand experiences across branch networks, leading the construction and implementation of physical spaces that drive business advantage and make the brand experience real.
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