Highlights

• Banking and financial services industry updates
  • The financial services continue to push for growth. The last quarter of 2021 saw a huge influx of marketing investments and acquisitions have been growing in scale and sophistication, led by millennials and Gen Z.
  • Consumer spending continues at a record level coupled with high payment rates. Consumer spending is well above pre-pandemic levels in all segments except travel.
  • Banks are seeing small increases in balances but the expectation is that balances will eventually grow as the impact of Govt. spending winds down and consumers continue to spend.
  • Growth in online and card-not-present spending continued, even as offline spending recovered, demonstrating the lasting impact of the behavioral changes accelerated by the pandemic.
  • Digital customer engagement has seen sustained growth over the past few quarters. Banks and financial services companies continue to enhance the capabilities of their digital assistants and services to build better digital engagement.
• Performance marketing platforms updates
  • Omni-channel and improving digital experiences present a big opportunity for most companies as consumers, now more digital, return to the post-pandemic world.
  • Search remains a dominant channel and continues to evolve in terms of using AI and ML to drive a better understanding of users’ intent and including a lot more formats in search beyond text  -images, video etc.
  • YouTube is gradually picking up speed – helping deliver a combination of reach and targeting.  Short video formats have been taking off across platforms
  • Privacy continues to be a key issue – Google is moving away from FLoC and moving to a new privacy methodology with Topics.
  • Apple’s privacy update has impacted the ability for performance targeting in social platforms – both Facebook and YouTube for performance saw an impact.
• iQuanti’s thought leadership webinars conducted in Q4 2021