At a Glance

A regional bank built a sustained brand presence and drove measurable financial product conversions through a year-long multichannel partnership with Advance Local.

  • 10.8 million impressions delivered across key markets throughout 2025
  • Over25,000 clicks to the client’s website
  • Four sponsored articles generated 1.65 million impressions and over 4,000 clicks

The Challenge

A regional bank came to us with a clear goal to grow brand awareness, earn a position of thought leadership in their market, and turn that into new customer applications.

As a community bank, trust and credibility are everything. Messaging, creative, and placement all needed to reflect that. The bank also wanted to do something less common in the financial industry by taking a public stance on economic issues and offer genuine guidance to businesses in their region.

Our Approach

We designed a full-year, multi-tactic campaign combining brand awareness and performance objectives across two core solutions.

Display advertising with evergreen and seasonally refreshed creative ran throughout 2025, keeping the bank top-of-mind across key markets. The campaign maintained consistent brand presence while adapting messaging to relevant moments throughout the year.

Four sponsored articles were produced and published across our trusted publishing sites. Topics were chosen to position the bank as a local economic authority. Each article was amplified with native display advertising, driving qualified readers into the content and then on to the bank’s site.

Results

  • 10.8 million impressions delivered into the bank’s markets throughout 2025
  • Over 25,000 clicks to the client’s website at a .23% click-through rate, reflecting strong ongoing audience engagement
  • 1.65 million impressions generated across four sponsored thought leadership articles
  • Over 4,000 clicks to the articles, with standout performance from a piece on tariffs that sent high-quality, niche traffic directly to the bank’s site

Why it Works

Financial brands operate in a high-trust category. Audiences need to see a bank in credible, familiar environments before they act. Our combination of established local credibility, first-party audience data, and sponsored content capabilities created a system where brand visibility and thought leadership work together rather than in isolation.

What Came Next

The success of the 2025 campaign created a foundation for expanded investment heading into 2026.

The campaign is expanding into OTT/CTV to ensure we are reaching their audience wherever they are, while keeping the advertising highly targeted.

The bank also commissioned a statewide market research project to measure brand awareness and consumer sentiment across the region, which will further improve on the already impressive results.

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