Take a look at how Geezeo has integrated its new marketing platform into the company’s white-label personal financial management solution, and you’ll get a glimpse into the future of targeted online advertising for banks and credit unions. Geezeo is, quite simply, taking advertising behind the firewall to new levels.
First, let’s start with the basics. Online personal financial management (or PFM for short) is a set of tools that enables users to aggregate various accounts into one, singular, integrated view. Once a financial institution’s database has been interfaced with a PFM solution, it gives users the power to track expenses, create budgets and set savings and spending goals. Some systems will even show how one user’s habits compare to others.
STANFORD FCU – OVERVIEW OF GEEZEO PFM
This credit union does a nice job illustrating how Geezeo’s basic system works. There are videos and screenshots demonstrating the PFM platform in action from the end user’s perspective. If you aren’t sure how PFM works, take a look. If you already offer PFM tools, take note of how Stanford FCU is using its website to support its initiative.
As you can imagine, there is tremendous marketing potential lurking within the data warehoused by a PFM platform. Wise to this fact, Geezeo decided to integrate a system for targeting ads to users who match certain criteria. With Geezeo’s Integrated Marketing Platform 1.0, you can create segments based on demographic profile, types of financial accounts, and transaction data, so you can present high-propensity offers that are both relevant and timely. For instance, a financial institution might choose to market boat loans to every user who has a savings goal set up for a new boat, along with anyone who may have made a purchase at Bass Pro Shops. Pretty powerful stuff, eh?
“A one-size-fits-all strategy to banner ads typically results in very low conversions,” says Bryan Clagett, Geezeo’s Chief Marketing Officer.
According to Geezeo’s President and Co-Founder of Geezeo, Peter Glyman, “No more that 10% of financial institutions are doing any sort of marketing behind the firewall.”
“Very few do it right,” he adds. “Most of it is generic and ineffective.”
“You should be creating targeted landing pages for targeted ads,” Clagett notes.
How Geezeo’s Integrated Marketing Platform Works
Step 1 – Define a List
You start at the Geezeo administrative dashboard and select the Marketing tab. This is where you are going to create a targeted profile of users who you want to view your ad. You can specify demographic information like age and gender, geographic information like city, state and zip, or financial information like net worth and account balance.
“A lot of banks and credit unions are not satisfied with the level of control they have today,” notes Glyman.
One of the coolest features of Geezeo’s integrated marketing platform is that you can target users who have shopped at a specific store. For instance, you could target people shopping at Lowe’s or Home Depot with ads for home equity loans. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Step 2 – Create Campaign
Give your campaign a name, specify the date it will expire, then pick a size and upload the corresponding ad file from your desktop. Choose the destination URL you want your ad pointing at, and voila…Your campaign is running.
“The average marketer can get a campaign up and running in three minutes,” promises Geezeo’s Glyman.
EXAMPLE
Here you can see a crude example illustrating the location and context of Geezeo’s targeted ads.
MOBILE & TEXT ADS
Mobile ad functionality and text messaging — both push and pull — are options that can be added.
REPORTS
You can run basic reports to monitor the number of impressions, click-throughs and click-through rate.
Geezeo says the beginning of the year is the ideal time to launch a PFM platform because you can tap into the vibe of New Years resolutions. It can take anywhere from 3-6 months to get the typical system up and fully running, depending on the core data system and level of customization desired. That means now is the perfect time for your financial institution’s senior leadership to be discussing PFM.
Perspective and Analysis
PFM tools like Geezeo’s not only give consumers financial information they want, bundled in a simple, powerful and attractive package, they can help you make money.
Geezeo is quick to remind financial institutions of the risks involved with using a third-party vendor to offer PFM tools. “There’s tremendous value in offering it through your own brand,” notes Geezeo’s Clagett. “You are handing cross-selling opportunities over to your competitors.”
If your financial institution has struggled to foster collaboration between Marketing and IT departments, PFM is the way to go. It’s easy for both camps to get excited and start working together.
Geezeo’s initial version of its integrated marketing platform is only in its infancy, but it’s where the future is headed. And Geezeo has ambitious plans on the horizon. The company says it will soon be adding more merchant-level marketing, with ad alerts at the transaction level. To how that works, just look at the screenshot below:
