The days of measuring marketing success by impressions and engagement are over, especially in financial services. Today, marketing leaders are being asked to do more than build brand awareness. They’re expected to drive top-line growth.
According to Adobe’s report, “State of Customer Experience in Financial Services in an AI-Driven World,” 90% of financial services marketing leaders say they’re now expected to directly contribute to revenue. And 96% are being asked to become more efficient while doing so.
This new mandate requires not only a change in metrics but a mindset transformation as well.
Marketing is Now a Growth Engine
Modern financial institutions are retooling their marketing functions to prioritize:
- Pipeline creation
- Product adoption
- Customer lifetime value
Campaigns are no longer judged by vanity KPIs. Success is measured by conversion lift, wallet share, and ROI. That means marketing must operate with the same precision and accountability as sales and finance.
Performance-Driven Marketing Requires New Infrastructure
To meet these expectations, marketing teams need:
- Attribution models that tie spend to outcomes
- Automation platforms that enable real-time optimization
- Journey tracking that connects every touchpoint to business impact
Along with the right tools, financial services marketers will also need to build a culture of continuous improvement and commercial fluency.
Business Fluency is the New Financial Services Marketing Skillset
To lead in this environment, marketers must speak the language of finance. That means understanding:
- Unit economics
- Acquisition cost
- Profitability metrics
Winning teams are breaking down silos between marketing, sales, and product to drive aligned, data-informed execution. Financial services marketing is moving beyond a support function to a strategic partner in growth.
Precision, Accountability, and Impact
By embracing data-driven strategies, building the right infrastructure, and fostering commercial fluency, marketing teams can move from a support function to a strategic driver of revenue. The organizations that succeed will be those that align marketing with business outcomes and lead with precision, accountability, and agility.
Download the full Adobe report to learn more about the top insights shaping financial services marketing and the industry as a whole.
How Perficient and Adobe Help Financial Services Marketers Lead
We help financial services firms modernize their marketing operations from journey orchestration to performance measurement. Together with Adobe, we’re enabling marketing teams to become growth architects, not just brand custodians.
