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WebStrategies recently appeared on credit union talk show CUbroadcast. The show featured CEO Chris Leone and Head of Digital Advertising Emily Niedermaier discussing digital advertising pitfalls that credit unions should avoid.

Many credit union marketing departments are struggling to get results and show a positive ROI with their digital marketing efforts. Having worked with many credit unions, I wanted to share the digital marketing ideas and tactics that have been the most effective for our clients.

We've talked about what factors cause credit union marketing budgets to be higher or lower. But once that budget is in place, how should it be allocated?

We've been playing the digital marketing game for many years now but Apple's recent iOS updates have changed the rules on us. iOS 14.5 and 15 have introduced privacy changes that make digital advertising and email marketing more challenging than ever before.

It's budgeting season for credit unions—how much of your credit union's total marketing budget will go to digital in 2022? We address this question annually because it changes every year. And despite major upheaval in marketing spending in recent history, the digital spending trend is continuing upward.

One challenge we regularly hear from credit union marketers is how to measure digital marketing performance. In fact, it was the highest-ranked pain point in our credit union marketing survey. Heavy workload, lofty goals, low budgets, small staff, and limited digital experience exacerbate this challenge.

The credit union industry is unique compared to most B2C industries. Credit union data is collected and stored across multiple different platforms like their website, perhaps a CRM, their core and LOS. This can make it more complicated for credit union marketers to accurately track their marketing ROI compared to other industries that only rely on a CRM to maintain their data. To get an accurate ROI measurement from each marketing channel, your goal should be to track a customer’s journey from the moment they begin an application to when they hit submit, and beyond.

What do our credit union clients want most? Tracking! Many of our credit union clients come to us because they want better tracking and reporting. They want to be able to show that their digital marketing efforts are making an impact on business, leading to submitted applications.

Credit union marketing teams are often pulled in multiple directions, so where should marketers really focus their attention?

What do our credit union clients want most? Tracking! Many of our credit union clients come to us because they want better tracking and reporting. They want to be able to show that their digital marketing efforts are making an impact on business, leading to submitted applications.