Why Personalization, Mobile and Trust Are Driving Consumer Banking’s Ad Strategies in 2025
Banks are shifting their ad spend in 2025 to reflect changing consumer trends, with a strong focus on mobile platforms, personalized messaging, and trust-building content. Digital now dominates budgets as financial institutions prioritize performance-driven strategies over broad campaigns.
By Liz Froment, Contributor at The Financial Brand
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Bank marketers are under pressure to do more with less in 2025. Economic uncertainty, tighter margins and shifting consumer expectations are forcing a reevaluation of what banks should say to attract consumers and where and how they say it.
Data from Vericast and BAI shows digital advertising now accounts for most of bank marketing spend. Digital channels represent nearly 62% of budgets, compared to just 38% for offline channels, with mobile-first platforms taking the lead.
It reflects a broader industry trend: moving from more generic, awareness-driven campaigns towards personalized strategies prioritizing measurable, performance-based outcomes.
However, while this reallocation of consumer ad spending does follow digital trends, it’s also a response to greater awareness of how consumers discover, evaluate and build trust with financial institutions. This new approach emphasizes personalization, data-driven targeting and smarter alignment to capture more of the fragmented attention of consumers.
Mobile Now Leads the Media Mix
In 2025, mobile is at the center of the shift toward digital. Consumers increasingly rely on smartphones to manage their financial lives, so banks are adapting by reallocating ad budgets toward mobile-first platforms and formats, especially video. Digital video ad spend is projected to hit over $72 billion in 2025, up 14% from last year.
"Consumers are increasingly transacting, researching and managing their finances entirely through mobile," Sharon Cook, vice president, marketing strategy at Vericast, tells The Financial Brand. "In fact, for many, their phone is now their primary banking channel. That shift is driving more spend into mobile-optimized media — particularly app-based environments, social platforms like Instagram and TikTok and in-app programmatic display."
That trend is playing out across banks of all sizes. "Increased mobile usage and the demand for seamless, on-the-go convenience are leading us to prioritize mobile-optimized platforms and ad formats that connect customers to our digital banking services," says Brooke Waters, vice president and director of marketing and business development at Oconee State Bank.
At Bank Iowa, the numbers tell a similar story. "The shift to online banking is undeniable, especially with the mainstream banking industry’s push to attract a younger audience," says Josh Fleming, director of marketing at Bank Iowa. "Our digital media budget continues to grow. It now accounts for north of 25% of our total marketing spend and has become one of our most reliable engines for lead generation and conversion."
As consumers spend more time inside mobile apps and streaming platforms, short-form content is becoming the go-to format. For bank marketers, that means designing creative that performs well on mobile — quick, vertical and built for sound-off scrolling. "When it comes to reaching Gen Z and younger Millennials, we are prioritizing owned social content — such as short-form videos, quick financial tips and authentic storytelling — delivered primarily through Instagram," Waters says.
Trust is the New Differentiator
With performance pressures rising, bank marketers are moving away from one-size-fits-all generic marketing campaigns and prioritizing strategies that build trust. That shift is changing where dollars go. Banks don’t need to show up on every platform, but the right ones with tailored content that feels credible and relevant when consumers are ready to engage.
"Shifting trust dynamics are causing us to move dollars away from broad, impersonal platforms and invest more heavily in owned content, such as our website, educational resources and staff for social media management, where we can build more authentic, long-term relationships," says Waters. "We are actually decreasing our investment in SEO and SEM spend and reallocating those dollars toward people-focused owned media."
This realignment reflects what many banks focus on in 2025: building direct connections through content they fully control. As ad fatigue grows and content overload increases, consumers are becoming more selective with their attention.
As a result, banks are investing in channels they can directly control, such as mobile apps, social media, direct mail and content embedded within digital banking environments. Cook adds, "Our product roadmap at Vericast is increasingly focused on formats that blend local relevance, convenience and measurability — and we’re doubling down on those that prove they can influence both discovery and decision-making." This level of control makes it easier for banks to build lasting consumer trust through relevant, consistent communication.
"This shift allows us to better align with how consumers want to discover and evaluate financial solutions — through trust, transparency and meaningful engagement rather than traditional paid search tactics," says Waters.
Dig Deeper:
- Owned Media Is Now Mission-Critical for Financial Marketers
- Your Bank’s Marketing Budget Isn’t the Problem – Your Strategy Is
- Messaging Mastery: Tailoring Your Brand for Every Audience in Digital Advertising
Personalization is the New Performance Standard
As consumer attention fragments and expectations rise, relevance has become the baseline. For banks, that means moving beyond demographic targeting and embracing strategies that adapt to how people actually research, decide and act. Personalization and performance now go hand in hand — and Gen Z is accelerating the shift.
Approximately 72% of Gen Z expect banking to be tailored to their needs. This generation wants advice, products and services that resonate with their personal journey. So, for reaching younger generations, personalization isn’t always just about targeting. Banks need to consider trust, relevancy and credibility when building an outreach strategy.
"Reaching Gen Z isn’t just about being present on new platforms — it’s about adapting to how they consume, evaluate and trust information," says Cook. "At Vericast, we’re helping financial institutions engage this generation through data-informed, mobile-native and creatively authentic strategies that meet them where they are and invite them into lasting relationships."
The shift toward personalization also drives new investments in AI, data and dynamic content delivery. "Forward-thinking banks and credit unions are recognizing that their proprietary data represents one of their most valuable assets for effective marketing," Preetha Pulusani, CEO of DeepTarget, a digital marketing and sales platform for financial institutions, tells The Financial Brand. "Rather than simply increasing spend on traditional channels, institutions are enhancing the intelligence behind their media placements."
Pulusani notes that more financial institutions are investing in solutions that use behavior insights, transaction patterns and life-stage indicators to drive relevance. That includes a growing interest in tools that support hyper-personalized messaging and dynamic content experiences. Rather than relying on static ads, banks are looking at ways to help customers compare options, visualize outcomes and receive tailored recommendations based on their actual financial activity.
These strategies can help support retention and relationship building, especially as acquisition costs continue to rise and are becoming a core part of how banks approach long-term growth.
The Pressure is on Performance
Banks don’t need to focus on more channels — they need better outcomes from the ones that matter. With budgets tightening and expectations on the rise, the pressure is on to deliver campaigns that perform, connect and follow the trends that matter to consumers.
That means knowing which channels align with how consumers discover and evaluate financial products and adjusting spend to reflect where those decisions are happening now.
