As every financial professional knows well, today’s bank isn’t your parents’ bank.
In fact, most consumers see banks more as a concept than as a big building down at the corner. 77% of consumers now prefer managing their bank accounts through a mobile app or computer, and among Gen Z and Millennials, that number climbs to 63% and 67% respectively. Post-pandemic habits have become permanent habits. Consumers deal with banks remotely the same way they deal with every other service provider in their lives.
Regional banks sit at the heart of the local economy and community and often have the most loyalty. But as access to digital banking heats up, and competition with “trillionaire” banks, superregionals and even fintech competitors becomes fiercer, smaller regional banks need to employ new customer engagement strategies. A 2024 Capital Performance Group study found that community banks with reported marketing expenses consistently outperformed peers on deposit and loan growth, and 59% of community bank executives planned to increase digital marketing spend heading into 2025.
The good news is customers now accustomed to remote communications can be more readily reached by digital marketing, and digital marketing can be addressable, sequenced, responsive and measured in efficient ways suited to regional banks’ more limited marketing budgets.
Connecting the Right Offers to the Right People
Digital marketing is no longer just about efficiency. If used strategically, it can more effectively communicate to account holders and would-be customers how the neighborhood bank better understands the needs of the specific community.
In an age when a consumer can switch banks in a few moments while sitting at home, banks must incentivize customer relationships with specific benefits, beyond any imaging campaign. Not many customers feel warm and fuzzy about a bank brand these days.
Conveying specific offers like rates, fees or financial products that address the needs of senior citizens, small farmers, startup tech companies or other vital groups in the community requires a measured stream of targeted messages that provide clear routes for customer action.
The key is reaching the right person with the right product at the right time. A first-time homebuyer in their late twenties needs a different message than a retiree looking at wealth preservation. Digital marketing makes that distinction possible at scale, something a billboard or newspaper ad never could.
It’s All About the Data
Getting specific and conveying the right digital products to the right set of consumers, both current account holders and prospects, means having the right customer and consumer data and ensuring it’s up-to-date, accurate and properly linked to be able to activate effective campaigns.
This is where most regional banks hit a wall. Their customer data lives in siloed systems. The mortgage database doesn’t talk to the checking account records. The credit card portfolio sits in a separate platform. And none of it connects to external behavioral signals that indicate what a prospect actually needs right now.
As an example, if the housing market is hot in a given regional bank’s territory, good deals on mortgages can be emphasized. If the housing market cools, a digital campaign can be refocused relatively quickly, compared to traditional marketing. Or if a neighborhood includes many consumers in the upper income brackets, a regional bank can utilize its customer records or first-party data to upsell those customers into wealth management services.
As third-party cookies have crumbled and marketers have less access to consumer’s online data footprints, first-party data has become the center ring of a brand’s customer knowledge, and the more successful brands will be those that can best leverage their first-party data.
First-party data enables cross-selling to one’s current customers, and the greater the relevancy of banking services, the higher the level of customer retention. Regional banks can power digital marketing with first-party data to direct the most relevant services toward their current customers, whether that’s for wealth management, mortgages or credit cards.
And first-party data can also be utilized to find potential new customers, by messaging consumers who meet profiles similar to current customers. This is where identity resolution becomes critical. When a bank can link its existing customer profiles to a broader identity graph, it can find lookalike audiences who share the same financial behaviors, life stages, and geographic characteristics as its best account holders.
Beyond first-party data, targeted search terms, such as those seeking better interest or mortgage rates, can become another layer of outreach digital marketing to build a customer base, when utilized in search engine ads.
Message Sequencing Across Channels
A key part of an effective digital marketing strategy is balancing between being noticeable in a crowded media landscape and being annoying. To accomplish this tightrope act, experienced digital marketers utilize carefully calibrated sequences of messages, across multiple platforms and at different points in the marketing funnel that stretches from potential customers to current customers.
Such sequencing is one of digital marketing’s great strengths, and it is now boosted by the rise of ad-supported streaming TV services, since viewers’ logins enable a degree of addressability. According to Nielsen’s Q1 2026 data, ad-supported TV now represents nearly 73% of overall TV viewing, and streaming alone accounts for 47.5% of total TV time. That’s not a niche channel anymore. That’s where the audience lives.
For regional banks, this opens up a powerful sequencing opportunity:
Top of funnel: CTV ads on streaming services expose a broad swath of potential customers to the bank’s messaging. These ads deliver 90%+ video completion rates because they’re non-skippable, and household-level targeting means you’re reaching people within your actual service area rather than paying for wasted impressions three states away.
Middle of funnel: Display and native ads on banking, financial planning, and local news websites address consumers who are interested but have not yet signed up. Layering PPC, CTV, and native ads together creates more touchpoints and lowers overall acquisition costs.
Bottom of funnel: Targeted emails reinforce that messaging further down the funnel, reaching existing customers with personalized product offers based on their account history and life stage signals.
The beauty of this approach is that each channel reinforces the others. A prospect sees a CTV spot about competitive mortgage rates on Tuesday evening. Wednesday morning, a display ad appears while they’re reading local news. Thursday, a personalized email arrives with a rate comparison and a link to apply. That’s not three separate campaigns. That’s one coordinated omnichannel sequence built around a single identity.
Efficiency Plus Measurability
With regional banks’ more limited budgets, relevant messaging and message sequencing need measurability as well as efficiency. Even without third-party cookies, digital marketing offers opportunities for such accountability.
If a digital ad leads to a quick online purchase, such as signing up for a new checking account, that trail can be tracked. But even complex banking products like mortgages, or less trackable events like increased foot traffic to a branch office, can be measured by comparing incremental increases to similar bumps in digital campaigns.
And environments built around first-party data, such as Connected TV or email, lend themselves readily to measuring success without violating customer privacy. Because CTV targeting uses household-level identity matching rather than cookies, regional banks can attribute new account openings back to specific ad exposures without relying on deprecated tracking methods.
The attribution models available today go well beyond last-click. Multi-touch attribution shows how each channel in the sequence contributed to the final conversion, giving marketing teams the data they need to optimize spend allocation across CTV, display, email, and search.
Growth Tied to Digital
McKinsey research found that “growth leaders in developed markets increased total sales 10 percent by generating 40 percent growth in the digital channel while holding branch sales declines to single digits.” The research firm added that “a multichannel approach is 3.2 times more effective at boosting sales than reliance on a single channel.”
Those findings have only become more relevant since. Deposit acquisition remains the top priority for bank marketers in 2025 and 2026, fueled by new customer acquisition, deepening existing customer relationships, and improved retention. The banks winning that race are the ones investing in digital channels with proper data infrastructure behind them.
Digital marketing is an intrinsic part of how regional banks reach and keep customers these days. Enabling a finely-honed sequence of messages to find, develop and maintain the relationships and relevant services is key to these bankers’ longevity.
The better that regional banks fit their services and products to the needs of their particular communities, and the better they convey that match through their marketing, the better they will perform in this new landscape. Speed is the mid-market’s edge. A regional bank can rebuild its digital brand, publish authoritative content, and adopt new targeting tactics in one quarter. A global institution needs a year of committee reviews to do the same.
That speed advantage only matters if it’s backed by accurate, real-time data and the ability to activate it across channels. The regional banks that invest in both will be the ones still growing five years from now.
FAQ
What digital marketing channels work best for regional banks?
A combination of CTV advertising for brand awareness, display and native ads for mid-funnel engagement, and targeted email for conversion performs best. Layering these channels in a coordinated sequence lowers acquisition costs and increases conversion rates compared to single-channel approaches.
How can regional banks compete with larger banks in digital marketing?
Regional banks have a speed advantage. They can launch campaigns faster, personalize messaging to local communities, and leverage first-party customer data without the bureaucratic delays that slow down national institutions. Identity-driven targeting allows them to reach the right prospects within their service area without wasting budget on broad, untargeted campaigns.
Why is first-party data important for bank marketing?
With third-party cookies deprecated, first-party data (account history, transaction patterns, customer demographics) is the most reliable foundation for personalized marketing. It enables cross-selling to existing customers and, when matched against an identity graph, helps find new prospects who resemble a bank’s best account holders.
How much should a regional bank spend on digital marketing?
Most community banks allocate a digital marketing budget based on the number of net-new funded relationships they need, then refine by local competition, product priorities, and internal capacity. The 2024 Capital Performance Group study showed that banks with consistent marketing investment outperformed peers on both deposit and loan growth.
What is CTV advertising for banks?
CTV (Connected TV) advertising delivers video ads on streaming platforms like Hulu, Peacock, and Tubi. For regional banks, CTV offers household-level geographic targeting, 90%+ video completion rates, and the ability to reach cord-cutters who no longer see traditional TV commercials. It’s particularly effective for top-of-funnel brand awareness within a specific service area.
