• by Ruth Arber , Op-Ed Contributor, May 16, 2016

Nearly half of U.S. adults (46.9%) used mobile banking  by the end of 2015, according to eMarketer. More consumers are accessing financial accounts plus insurance coverage on-the-go and in real time through mobile devices for various reasons: to monitor transactions, pay bills and friends, check policies, process claims, and more. As such, advertisers in the financial services industry are using digital channels to acquire customers, boost customer relationships, and upsell premium services. 

 

Mobile and social media  are becoming progressively intertwined, with American adults spending 65 minutes on social channels each day in 2015 and upwards of 60% taking place on mobile devices. On Facebook, 76% of millennials’ money conversations happen on mobile. Unlike traditional and mass media like direct mail and TV, native ads on Facebook and other social platforms can be highly targeted to specific audiences based on demographics, location, interests, Web behavior, and other aspects of consumer identity. 

When interacting with consumers on social networks, financial services companies must comply with specific laws and follow regulatory guidance. The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission clarifies how companies can communicate with investors and shareholders on social media. 

Financial service companies  can build awareness for a product, service, or brand message by driving reach and frequency of key target audiences with high-impact social advertising formats. 

      Use Facebook’s Brand Awareness ad objective, which uses a combination of real-time proxy metrics, including reach and relative attention to the campaign. This will maximize not only reach but also ad recall, which can be measured through a Nielsen Brand Effect study. 

      Looking to drive cost-efficient reach across platforms? One in every five minutes on mobile devices is spent on either Facebook or Instagram. Optimize a campaign by running ads across Facebook and Instagram within a single ad set, with the option to use the same creative for both platforms. The combined inventory allows advertisers to drive additional and efficient reach, and can deliver lower costs than advertising on Facebook or Instagram alone or independently for website conversion, website click, mobile app install, and video view objectives.

      Develop your target audience profile using a range of targeting types across each social platform:

--      For Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, use third-party audience segments from Acxiom and Oracle Data Cloud (Datalogix) such as households that contain specific cardholders, users whose home insurance renewal is coming up, or people who have made purchases with store cards or who have a financial loan. Include CRM and website audiences and build lookalikes to find similar potential customers.

--     Be sure to include your core audiences, such as CRM audiences, website audiences, and lookalikes.  

--       A consumer survey by Millward Brown found that 47% of active Pinners are more likely to experience a major life event within the next six months— for example, buying a home, having a baby, or getting married. Brands can become part of the conversation by using Pinterest’s interest targeting, which allows you to reach users based on their affinity for certain things such as home renovations, budget planning, student debt, cars, or weddings. 

      Social video has had huge success due to its native format (up to 100% screen share-of-voice), auto-play functionality, and suite of analytics, which has resulted in cost-efficient costs per view and costs per completed view. Use video as a part of your awareness creative to communicate product/brand messages in a highly engaging format. If you want to also drive traffic to a website, add links at the end of your video or try Facebook’s Video Link ad, which has a clickable text area below the ad so users can click through to a site. 

      Nielsen’s Brand Effect measurement studies allow advertisers to measure brand metrics such as brand awareness, brand favorability, and purchase intent. 

Social media, with its extensive ad formats and targeting capabilities, gives financial service companies the opportunity to build and maintain relationships with customers. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat enable banks, insurance providers, and other financial institutions to humanize their brand with relevant, valuable content targeted to audiences across a range of life circumstances.