Email is the second most popular channel among financial brands, judging by a new study commissioned by Dianomi, a native ad platform, and Gramercy Institute.

Of the financial marketers polled, 33.7% plan to increase their spending on email in 2020, putting that channel second only to paid search, which will see a rise of 38%.

In contrast, only 2.2% plan to boost their investment in TV. However, 26% apiece will budget more for branding and video advertising. And 18.5% will allocate increases for podcast advertising and 10.9% for connected TV advertising.

Overall, financial brands will increase their marketing spend by 10% next year. 

That said, 47.6% expect to bring more marketing work in-house. And 32.1% will go in the opposite direction.

At the same time, 29.8% will probably increase their agency budgets, and 29.8% will consolidate their outsourcing to one-stop agencies.

Their top marketing goals are brand awareness (28.2%) and customer acquisition (25.9%).

But financial brands face many digital marketing challenges, including:

• Limited budgets — 59.0%
  
• Crowded competitive landscape — 43.4%
  
• Company culture obstacles — 37.4%
  
• Compliance regulations — 21.7%
  
• Economic environment — 16.9%
  
• Brand dissonance — 7.2%
  
• Political environment — 4.8%
  
• Reputational/trust challenges — 3.6%
  
• Supply chain challenges — 3.6%

Indeed, financial marketers are already facing negative effects from the following issues (the respondents were asked to check off three):

• Reporting: Getting accurate campaign data to evaluate success — 82.5%
  
• Increased privacy legislation, e.g., GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — 41.3%
  
• 3rd party cookies and audience targeting — 28.8%
  
• Transparency in pricing — 23.8%
  
• Brand safety issues related to programmatic buying — 13.8%
  
• Paying for robot or out of geo traffic — 13.8%

Asked what their customers value most, the respondents cited these attributes:

• Customer experience — 65.1%
  
• Trust — 60.2%
  
• Innovation — 22.9%
  
• Length of relationship — 19.3%
  
• Price — 14.5%
  
• Other — 4.8%
  
• Location/proximity — 3.6%
  
• Brick and mortar presence — 0.0%

Dianomi and Gramercy Institute surveyed over 100 senior financial marketers.