How Are Navy Federal & USAA Finding Similar Digital Marketing Success?

With their digital appetites whetted with new capabilities in financial services, consumer demand for more intuitive, highly-customized experiences continues to ratchet up with their searching methods for financial brands.

Austin, Texas-based Adthena, which provides artificial intelligence-powered search intelligence, announced the findings of its “Q4 2019 CMO Search Intelligence Report,” which evaluated the state of the finance search landscape to help chief marketing officers optimize performance.

CMOs have invested millions of dollars in optimizing customer experience, according to the analysis, but as competition from digital-first companies continues to increase across the industry, the way in which consumers search for and interact with financial brands online continually changes. The study also examined how the finance search landscape and CMOs are adapting their strategies to keep pace.

The report analyzed the search engine marketing performance of 350 companies across the U.S. finance market to provide insight into the strategies and opportunities for CMOs to optimize their performance. The report discovered digitally native companies are seeing an advantage in their search engine marketing (SEM) performance with the ability to understand and adapt experiences to meet customers’ evolving needs online. Meanwhile, legacy finance companies are spending more money to achieve the same results as their digital-counterparts, signaling an inefficiency in their customer journey.

“Brand recognition and high-dollar campaigns are no longer enough to break through to today’s consumers,” Ashley Fletcher, vice president of marketing at Adthena, said. “A brand could have the most innovative offering on the market but if they aren’t able to reach the right consumer at the right time with the right message and experience, they will fail to see results.”

Key takeaways from the “Q4 2019 CMO Search Intelligence Report,” U.S. Finance Industry:

• Capitalizing on a defined customer base: Membership-based organizations like Navy Federal Credit Union and USAA are finding SEM success with a personalized understanding of their audience.
• PayPal’s grand entrance: The payments giant is doubling down on its SEM strategy and currently leading the finance search market, tied with Chase.
• Top dogs tumble: Credit Karma, Wells Fargo and Experian dropped from the top 10 list, after leading the finance search market in the third quarter of 2019.
• USAA sweeps the boards: With its digital-first business model and narrowly-defined audience, USAA is the only company to appear in the top 10 for banking, insurance and the overall finance search market in the final quarter of 2019.

“Companies that provide the best online and mobile experiences, from the research stage of the customer journey – which includes SEM – through to product usage will come out on top,” the Adthena report said. “Navy Federal Credit Union, like USAA, prioritizes its banking customers’ user experiences and serves a targeted customer base.” In addition, “this deep understanding and commitment to personalization can translate into targeted and impactful SEM efforts for the credit union. When an organization like Navy Federal knows what its prospects want and need at every stage of the customer journey and can deliver that through search, it can tap into the true value of SEM.”

The study also noted with 2020 quickly approaching, priorities for CMOs are set to shift from customer experience alone to bottom-line results. Therefore, not only will marketing need to deliver relevant, personalized experiences, but also ensure these activities contribute to overall business growth. “Couple these mounting expectations with the increasing threat to job security the CMO role is under hot debate and dwindling across sectors – and marketing executives have a lot on their plate heading into 2020,” the report suggested. To meet these rising expectations, CMOs must continuously fine-tune SEM strategies to ensure they are staying on top of changing consumer preferences, market opportunities and, most importantly, driving measurable results.

The report pulled its data in October 2019. The score analyzed more than 600,000 generic and brand terms across the Google search landscape to provide an in-depth assessment of search performance in the finance market. Within finance, specific search categories include banking, credit cards, insurance, accounting and auditing, ATM sales and processing, business finance, business news and media, financial planning and management, grant, scholarship and financial aid, investing, money transfer and wire services.