Signals from the Field

Should you still have a Social Media ad budget? 

Have AI bots taken over, or do real people still regularly engage across Meta ad inventory? 

Is Meta still a trusted digital advertising platform for credit unions? 

We strongly recommend factoring social media into your marketing plan, but stay informed and vigilant, keeping up with frequent shifts and updates.

Every year, Google Marketing Live (GML) unveils a host of new ad tools and AI-driven capabilities. While the announcements sound exciting - keywordless targeting, smarter automation, and new AI assistants - marketers at credit unions need to approach them with a critical eye.

At WebStrategies, we specialize in digital advertising for credit unions, and we’ve learned that Google’s “default” solutions often optimize for media spend rather than meaningful credit union results. Rather than jumping in headfirst, we’re taking a cautious, data-driven approach, testing what’s new, measuring what works, and scaling only what delivers.

Here’s a breakdown of what we’re watching and how credit unions can benefit responsibly.

I’ve worked in digital marketing since 2007, and I’ve never seen a technology disrupt the way we do marketing as quickly as AI. The latest innovation, which is flying under the radar, may be one of the biggest steps forward we’ve seen since the launch of ChatGPT. It’s called MCP.

So what is MCP? And why should credit union marketers care? 

Let’s break down what it is, what it can do, and why it makes tools like HubSpot more important than ever for a credit union. 

Understanding Tracking Pixels and Data Privacy

Data privacy is a growing concern in the credit union world, and rightfully so. Recently, some articles have raised alarms about tracking pixels, painting them as a security risk or a privacy threat. While it’s true that some tracking technologies have been misused, it’s important to distinguish legitimate concerns from misconceptions—and to recognize that responsible use of tracking pixels is both safe and necessary for a credit union's digital marketing efforts.

Love them or hate them, the guidelines of Meta’s ad platform greatly impact the ways credit unions market their services.

Social media advertising for credit unions has changed quite a bit over the past few years. Finding and converting your target audience on Facebook or Instagram at one point felt akin to shooting fish in a barrel; not only could advertisers tap into the demographic attributes and on-platform interests and behaviors provided directly by users, but Facebook’s partnerships with third-party data providers allowed advertisers even more opportunities to target exactly the right person with the right message.

A credit union that has funds in the marketing budget available for brand advertising may consider YouTube or CTV. We've seen success for credit unions driving brand awareness since these rapidly growing channels are cost-effective and scalable. To illustrate the growth of these two platforms:

Equipment manufacturers and B2B marketers typically have a niche target audience that makes broad advertising tactics a waste of money. Instead, campaigns targeted to specific industries, companies, and positions within those companies are more effective because the marketing budget can be honed in on the right people - potential buyers.

Following the news about the Silicon Valley Bank shutdown on Friday, March 10, and Signature Bank on March 12, U.S. banking consumers expressed fear that their money could be at risk. Credit unions addressed member concerns in a variety of ways; in branches, call centers, and digitally.