Measuring Marketing Success Beyond Clicks: 5 Key Metrics
Banks and financial institutions are shifting marketing measurements from transactional to relational. Embracing more sophisticated metrics can help create better customer connections, experiences and sustainable growth.
By Liz Froment
In 2025, banks and financial institutions are rethinking how they measure marketing success. While traditional metrics like click-through rates (CTR), conversions, and immediate return on investment (ROI) are valuable, they’re no longer the full story.
There’s been a shift toward more sophisticated measures that capture customer engagement, loyalty, and long-term value. 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.
Tracking the right metrics will shape how well banks adapt and refine their strategies to drive meaningful results.
The Shift in Measuring Marketing Success
AI, predictive analytics, and personalization are transforming how banks engage with customers and evaluate those interactions. With generative AI creating more targeted, real-time campaigns, financial institutions have powerful new tools to anticipate and meet customer needs.
"Traditional KPIs like click-through rates and conversions remain important, but community financial institutions (CFIs) are shifting focus to metrics that prioritize relationships, such as Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and engagement quality," Josh DeTar, EVP of evangelism for Tyfone, a digital banking solution for credit unions and community banks, told The Financial Brand.
"CFIs are measuring how personalized campaigns build deeper connections, enhance product adoption, and foster long-term loyalty, aligning with their mission of serving their local communities effectively."
Financial marketers are rethinking how they track performance, moving beyond basic conversion metrics. Here are five key marketing performance trends and KPIs that reflect these changes.
1. Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value is becoming one of the more important KPIs for banks and financial institutions as the focus shifts from just acquiring new customers to building long-term customer relationships.
Personalization and retention drive growth, so measuring CLV helps banks understand the long-term value each customer generates over time, which can align marketing efforts with loyalty and retention.
"The most effective marketing strategies will leverage advanced analytics to create personalized, meaningful financial experiences that drive long-term loyalty and institutional growth," Preetha Pulusani, CEO of DeepTarget, a digital marketing and sales platform for financial institutions, told The Financial Brand. "The key shift is from surface-level metrics toward more sophisticated, holistic metrics prioritizing personalization, customer lifetime value (CLV), and strategic insights."
Rather than relying primarily on historical data or transactional KPIs, Pulusani notes banks can use metrics like customer engagement, journey tracking, and depth of product understanding to measure customer relationships better.
2. Product Adoption
Another key shift for banks is expanding existing customer relationships. Financial institutions are focusing more on the number of products and services customers use as KPIs. Generally, the more products a customer adopts, the stronger the banking relationship becomes.
"Product adoption and the number of products per customer or member are becoming critical indicators of growth and loyalty — particularly for financial institutions, where achieving primacy in an account holder’s financial relationship is key," Marla Pieton, senior director of influencer marketing at Alkami, a digital banking solutions provider, told The Financial Brand.
"When it comes to personalized experiences and customer journey mapping, buyer’s intent data is becoming increasingly important in delivering relevant content and messaging at the right time."
Banks increasingly recognize that growth isn’t just about acquiring new customers but deepening existing relationships through strategic product adoption relevant to their needs at specific points in their financial journey.
Learn more:
- Think Beyond the Clicks: Bank & Credit Union Marketing Demands Holistic KPI Analysis
- Data Blind Spots and Data Opportunities: What Banks and Credit Unions May Be Missing
- How to Bring Your CFO On-Side and Win Support for Your Strategy
3. Engagement Quality
Many surface-level metrics and KPIs fall short of really understanding customer relationships. Shifting toward a view beyond clicks and conversions can help better understand and measure loyalty, trust, and long-term value.
"Metrics like sentiment or quality of engagement play a role in shaping higher brand-level strategies, versus more tactical demand-gen and engagement exercises," says Jonathan Moran, head of martech solutions at SAS, a data and AI solutions provider. "Understanding metrics like customer sentiment about a brand and perceived quality of engagement allows brands to get a more long-term view of customer relationships and outcomes and adjust vision and brand-level strategies accordingly."
As banks shift their focus to engagement, tracking engagement quality goes beyond just initial interactions, especially since consumer behavior changes over time.
"A member’s path as they progress through their financial life is less predictable. We now have more overall engagement measures, including log-ins, transactions, utilization, and more, versus focusing on projected lifetime value," Mitch Rosenbaum, senior vice president of marketing and digital services at Credit Union of Colorado, told The Financial Brand.
Expanding measurement frameworks helps banks capture better data on customer interactions across channels and digital services. Tracking how customers engage and respond over time gives financial institutions a more comprehensive view of the relationship’s overall health.
4. Churn Rate and Retention Metrics
As competition grows and consumers spread their financial needs across multiple institutions, banks are prioritizing churn rate and retention as key performance metrics. Tracking churn offers insights into how well a financial institution maintains engagement and loyalty, helping them identify when customers may be at risk of leaving.
Pulusani notes that predictive and prescriptive analytics are tools to help "forecast future customer behaviors, potential churn risks, and opportunities for proactive engagement."
Understanding and measuring churn can help banks identify at-risk customers and take proactive steps, such as offering personalized products or flagging potential frustrations, can help minimize churn and increase retention over time.
"Most of our younger members’ interaction with Credit Union of Colorado is digital, and they don’t have the same kind of communication style with a digital product that they would if they were in a branch. We see less participation in surveys and comments from younger members, so we evaluate how members interact with our products," says Rosenbaum.
"We’re using AI tools and our digital platforms to get a better measure of engagement, but we also look for where there is mouse thrashing or rage clicking. We assess the user experience metrics and measure how we deliver throughout the process."
5. ROI Attribution
Banks are refining how they measure marketing ROI, moving away from simpler models like last-click attribution. Now, financial institutions are putting more emphasis on multi-touch attribution to assess how various interactions may contribute to customer loyalty and long-term value.
"To link short-term metrics to long-term goals, you need to map immediate actions that customers take to long-term relational metrics. For example, go beyond looking at whether an individual converted in a single campaign or over a single channel," says Moran.
Moran emphasizes that understanding ROI goes beyond immediate conversions. "A great way to do this is via multi-touch (not last-touch) attribution models," he explains. "Accounting for how each touchpoint contributes to both short- and long-term goals helps marketers understand how initial and individual interactions contribute to long-term engagement, retention, advocacy, and loyalty."
Evaluating ROI through multi-touch attribution ensures marketing spend reflects not just the initial conversions but broader relationship building. This approach lets banks identify which campaigns drive lasting value, guiding smarter budget allocation and stronger long-term growth.
Future of Marketing Metrics
Banks and financial institutions are shifting marketing measurements from transactional to relational. Embracing more sophisticated metrics can help capture customer lifetime value and engagement and predict churn rates, creating better customer connections and experiences and driving sustainable growth.