In 2020, The US Financial Services sector spent over $23 billion in digital advertising across all Digital Channels, according to Emarketer. This trend is expected to continue into 2021 and beyond. With so many financial sector businesses targeting the same audience, it’s leaving businesses scrambling on how to more efficiently use their own digital spend. Now more than ever companies are turning to data modeling to build audiences to maximize their dollars.

Financial Services Advertisers

It’s a new emerging market for the sector. Advertising effectively in not only a highly competitive, but highly regulated market can leave most marketing agencies unable to navigate the world of Financial Services. Agencies providing advertising solutions to the financial services industry need to be well versed in not only focusing on effective content types that target potential customers but understand the tremendous time it takes to stay compliant. With new regulations and advertising publisher policy updates hitting every month it can be difficult to stay on top of it all.

For example, online search giant, Google, for example has just recently provided new ad policies that amount to a “three strikes” rule. Impacts to the financial industry and financial services marketers were not very clear, but when you dive in to the announcement you’ll see that this could lead to an expansion of policy that could impact financial services ads or any financial services providers advertising efforts

4 Tips to Stay Compliant in your Marketing

Here are 4 of our top tips that we recommend for our financial products and how they stay ahead of curve when it comes to compliance and how you can protect your advertising efforts. Keep in mind that you should always consult your industry specific attorney for any legal advice.

1. Read Policies for your Industry

One of the first recommendations is to look to understand what the policies are for your specific industry. As a financial company it’s easy to get lost in the governmental regulations regarding your product or services but overlook the ad policies specific to your industry. Social Media channels and digital platforms all have their own set of ad policies. These policies can impact not only your ad content assets but can even dictate your search engine optimization plan. Cryptocurrency products currently have had a recent implementation of new cryptocurrency policy restrictions on google, requiring certification of your ability to advertise and banning initial coin offerings.

2. Privacy issues and the Digital Experience

All too often we look to improve the digital experience and provide highly personalized experience to your web visitors. One trend though is the limitations on advertising for websites using third party tracking/cookies to provide this experience. We recommend that you make sure that you have for any website a solid privacy policy, terms of service, and cookie policies outlining everything in your digital experience. Even in the United States, it’s important for business owners to comply with GDPR regulations to help stay ahead of the ongoing trend for privacy.

3. Ask Questions to Make Informed Decisions

Can you use a social media influencer in your financial services marketing campaigns? Can I run my online advertising and ask potential customers demographic or financial questions? Am I able to word my financial planning ad in a particular way? When Financial services companies or other highly regulated industries get ready to advertise, it’s good to play the devil’s advocate at times. Asking these questions can help to fully make the right informed decisions on what you can or can’t say.

4. Work with a Company that Knows Compliant Marketing

Many companies will take your business without understanding that there is a difference between a regular marketer and finance marketers. Finance marketers understand the unique policies that could impact your advertising, from credit card polices to personal loans, and help to keep you growing your customer base compliantly.

We here at Creative Direct Marketing Group understand the struggles that the Financial industry has with marketing their financial products. We help you stay compliant with our data, social marketing services digital marketing services, and traditional marketing services all through our highly detailed creative process for every integrated marketing campaign we do.

About the Author

Ryan Bradford is currently the Director of Digital Marketing at Creative Direct Marketing Group. He has spent his 10+ year career in client services and marketing focused on highly regulated markets in branding. He is an expert in highly competitive job markets, nutraceuticals, healthcare, financial sector marketing, Regulation A+ marketing. Focus on data driven results, tracking, and compliance. As a result, Ryan maximizes client KPI’s by focusing on metrics that matter, rather than empty metrics. From designing base websites to strategically tailoring each campaign to a clients needs and KPI’s, you will never find Ryan not seeking some way to improve his clients performance across the digital marketing channels.