• by Barbie Romero , Yesterday

Ally’s Sr Director, Digital Marketing also shares how purpose-driven marketing and authentic storytelling are fueling stronger customer connections and driving measurable impact.

1. Ally’s commitment to spend equally on media in men’s and women’s sports has really started a movement. How does Ally define success in this new landscape for sports media?

With three years behind us now, the 50/50 pledge has cemented Ally in the sports zeitgeist and has positive impacts on our business. Women’s sports fans are 77% more favorable to Ally, leading to more efficient customer conversion. And as we know from the “Brand as Performance” study we completed with TransUnion and MMA Global two years ago, when we are able to create favorable and focused marketing efforts with them, it’s ultimately more efficient holistically than a singularly focused performance campaign.  For example, when we recently announced our new league-wide deal with the WNBA, we got many comments on social media about consumers opening accounts because of our commitment to women’s sports.

Leaning into women’s sports moments has also been efficient at driving business outcomes.  We amplified our partnership announcement with the WNBA through messaging in our media moments by running a pulsed campaign on TikTok where we showed up alongside women’s sports clips, both professional and amateur, or featuring female athletes, and we saw similar results to when we run ads that highlight our banking products.

2. I loved the revival of Ally’s Banksgiving campaign last year! What tangible impact have you seen on customer engagement and overall brand perception since bringing it back?

Last Thanksgiving, we brought back one of our favorite initiatives:Banksgiving.Originally launched in 2018, this campaign showcases the heart and soul of Ally – our call center – and the incredible allyship our employees demonstrate every day.

But the media landscape has changed since then, so we knew the best way to reintroduce this story with a fresh twist was to take it to social. Our goal was simple: show how Ally is bridging the empathy gap in customer service by showing what banking looks like when you truly care.

Bringing Banksgiving back was exactly the feel-good moment we needed at the end of 2024. Not only did we generate considerable external momentum, but also a moment of extreme pride for all Ally employees, especially our frontline employees.

We saw record breaking engagement across both Instagram and TikTok throughout the campaign including 35MM+ impressions across social platforms (TikTok, Meta and Pinterest), nearly 17MM video plays, with 2x higher video-view rate than our always-on campaign averages and we increased our TikTok following by 26%. Additionally, we were able to expand our reach to 27.2MM viewers of the campaign with a :30 spot featured just before the Beyonce half-time show on the Netflix Christmas Day game.

3. With more potential customers turning to Google and AI-powered search to find top financial institutions, what strategies is Ally using to capture their attention and stand out in this evolving landscape?

Our SEO team has been really involved in investigating and navigating changes with SERP and AI but also thinking about how consumer’s search behaviors have evolved more broadly.  We want to make sure Ally is top of mind when a prospective customer knows exactly what banking solution they need or if they’ve got a longer question in their search query where an AI answer is likely to render and ensuring our content is discoverable and relevant.  We also know that more consumers are broadening their search radius, using on average five different platforms to source information. On social, we were early testers of keyword targeting across TikTok, Reddit, and Meta to see how different queries and placements are driving results in our marketing mix.

4. What’s an under-the-radar marketing tactic or channel that you’ve found surprisingly effective?

As much optimizing as we do on the buy-side of the equation, I think our team has been just as diligent on optimizing the sell-side of programmatic to ensure that we are maximizing the value of every impression served.  We’ve seen a lot of improvements by focusing on fewer but more premium connection points either through PGs, PMPs, or consolidating the providers.

5. What’s a piece of financial advice you swear by in your own life?

It’s hard to pick just one piece of financial advice because I think a lot of those good financial habits build on each other.  If I had to pick one, it’d be that you don’t need to upgrade your lifestyle every time you get a pay bump. I think that puts an emphasis on saving first, growing your rainy-day fund or making sure you’ve built a strong foundation in order to do something you really want and value. 

And when I say something, you really want and value, in our house growing up you couldn’t just want it, you had to love it or require it. So much of our personal money mantras come from how we experience money and observe how it’s used in your upbringing. Ally has a great program that we’ve started called Money Roots, a free, first-of-its-kind financial education program grounded in money psychology. It helps people unlock potential by getting to the root of their money behaviors.  We very much saved first, spent second growing up. Birthday money always went into a piggy bank or bank account first and it didn’t come out unless it was something you needed (loved or required) not wanted and you could maintain that safe level of savings as a foundation.  As an adult that looks like always making coffee at home, only shopping sales or thrifting quality pieces, or only buying a new car when I need it and keeping it long after paying it off.  It made it hurt less when the air conditioner died, and we had to replace it and having enough of a financial safety net that it didn’t mean we had to cancel a family vacation later that summer.

If you’re interested in submitting content for future editions, please reach out to our Managing Editor, Barbie Romero at Barbie@MediaPost.com.