• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, June 7, 2019

Hopefully, mortgage lenders are better at assessing risk than they are at running their marketing stacks.

Only 17% use marketing automation tools compared with 51% in business as a whole, according to Marketing Technology Report 2019, a survey of the 500 top lenders by NestReady. And even fewer use email solutions — so few that the study omits them.  

On the other hand, 60% are using audience data platforms and 56% utilize a tag management solution to help them deploy a variety of marketing technologies across their website from a centralized location. 

But the point remains: lenders are lagging behind retail and other sectors, especially when it comes to analytics. The average large brand uses four to five analytics platforms. The average top-500 mortgage lender relies on two. 

That said, mortgage lenders represent a huge market for vendors of such solutions. 

Among the web analytics platforms, Google Analytics is used by over 400 lenders surveyed. Other solutions don’t even come close — Hover Intent, Omniture Site and Hotjar are each used by around 35 respondents, and Twitter Analytics is used by 25. 

Among retargeting platforms, Google Remarketing is preferred by 66.12% of those who use one. Bing is second, with a 19% usage rate. 

But only 42% use at least one retargeting platform, compared with 90% of large retail brands.

For their audience data platform, 50 respondents use Adobe DMP, 42 use Bizo and 31 deploy Rapleaf. Niche solution Rapleaf, is used by a small percentage of lenders to match email lists with audience data intelligence. 

Of those who use marketing automation, 26 each choose Adobe and HubSpot and 12 utilize Pardot.

For AB testing and conversion/content optimization, 22.92% cite Adobe Target Standard, 14.58% use Adobe Experience, 14.58% use Manager and 14.58% use Optimizely. 

The report excludes email campaign platforms, ad servers and call tracking because of low usage.

Email campaign tools showed “low adoption, with just 2% of top lenders using a standalone tool,” the report states. “Between marketing automation tools, stricter privacy legislation, and the growing adoption of demand side and audience data platforms, a decline in this category was not unexpected.