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A Guide to Bank Customer Segmentation
18 juillet 2024, par ErinBanking customers are more diverse, complex, and demanding than ever. As a result, banks have to work harder to win their loyalty, with 75% saying they would switch to a bank that better fits their needs.
The problem is banking customers’ demands are increasingly varied amid economic uncertainties, increased competition, and generational shifts.
If banks want to retain their customers, they can’t treat them all the same. They need a bank customer segmentation strategy that allows them to reach specific customer groups and cater to their unique demands.
What is customer segmentation?
Customer segmentation divides a customer base into distinct groups based on shared characteristics or behaviours.
This allows companies to analyse the behaviours and needs of different customer groups. Banks can use these insights to target segments with relevant marketing throughout the customer cycle, e.g., new customers, inactive customers, loyal customers, etc.
You combine data points from multiple segmentation categories to create a customer segment. The most common customer segmentation categories include:
- Demographic segmentation
- Website activity segmentation
- Geographic segmentation
- Purchase history segmentation
- Product-based segmentation
- Customer lifecycle segmentation
- Technographic segmentation
- Channel preference segmentation
- Value-based segmentation
By combining segmentation categories, you can create detailed customer segments. For example, high-value customers based in a particular market, using a specific product, and approaching the end of the lifecycle. This segment is ideal for customer retention campaigns, localised for their market and personalised to satisfy their needs.
Matomo’s privacy-centric web analytics solution helps you capture data from the first visit. Unlike Google Analytics, Matomo doesn’t use data sampling (more on this later) or AI to fill in data gaps. You get 100% accurate data for reliable insights and customer segmentation.
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Why is customer segmentation important for banks?
Customer segmentation allows you to address the needs of specific groups instead of treating all of your customers the same. This has never been more important amid a surge in bank switching, with three in four customers ready to switch to a provider that better suits their needs.
Younger customers are the most likely to switch, with 19% of 18-24 year olds changing their primary bank in the past year (PDF).
Customer expectations are changing, driven by economic uncertainties, declining trust in traditional banking, and the rise of fintech. Even as economic pressures lift, banks need to catch up with the demands of maturing millennials, Gen Z, and future generations of banking customers.
Switching is the new normal, especially for tech-savvy customers encouraged by an expanding world of digital banking options.
To retain customers, banks need to know them better and understand how their needs change over time. Customer retention provides the insights banks need to understand these needs at a granular level and the means to target specific customer groups with relevant messages.
At its core, customer segmentation is essential to banks for two key reasons:
- Customer retention: Holding on to customers for longer by satisfying their personal needs.
- Customer lifetime value: Maximising ongoing customer revenue through retention, purchase frequency, cross-selling, and upselling.
Here are some actionable bank customer segmentation strategies that can achieve these two objectives:
Prevent switching with segment analysis
Use customer segmentation to prevent them from switching to rivals by knowing what they want from you. Analyse customer needs and how they change throughout the lifecycle. Third-party data reveals general trends, but what do your customers want?
Use first-party customer data and segmentation to go beyond industry trends. Know exactly what your customers want from you and how to deliver targeted messages to each segment — e.g., first-time homebuyers vs. retirement planners.
Keep customers active with segment targeting
Target customer segments to keep customers engaged and motivated. Create ultra-relevant marketing messages and deliver them with precision to distinct customer segments. Nurture customer motivation by continuing to address their problems and aspirations.
Improve the quality of services and products
Knowing your customers’ needs in greater detail allows you to adapt your products and messages to cater to the most important segments. Customers switch banks because they feel their needs are better met elsewhere. Prevent this by implementing customer segmentation insights into product development and marketing.
Personalise customer experiences by layering segments
Layer segments to create ultra-specific target customer groups for personalised services and marketing campaigns. For example, top-spending customers are one of your most important segments, but there’s only so much you can do with this. However, you can divide this group into even narrower target audiences by layering multiple segments.
For example, segmenting top-spending customers by product type can create more relevant messaging. You can also segment recent activity and pinpoint specific usage segments, such as those with a recent drop in transactions.
Now, you have a three-layered segment of high-spending customers who use specific products less often and whom you can target with re-engagement campaigns.
Maximise customer lifetime value
Bringing all of this together, customer segmentation helps you maximise customer lifetime value in several ways:
- Prevent switching
- Enhance engagement and motivation
- Re-engage customers
- Cross-selling, upselling
- Personalised customer loyalty incentives
The longer you retain customers, the more you can learn about them, and the more effective your lifetime value campaigns will be.
Balancing bank customer segmentation with privacy and marketing regulations
Of course, customer segmentation uses a lot of data, which raises important legal and ethical questions. First, you need to comply with data and privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. Second, you also have to consider the privacy expectations of your customers, who are increasingly aware of privacy issues and rising security threats targeting financial service providers.
If you aim to retain and maximise customer value, respecting their privacy and protecting their data are non-negotiables.
Regulators are clamping down on finance
Regulatory scrutiny towards the finance industry is intensifying, largely driven by the rise of fintech and the growing threat of cyber attacks. Not only was 2023 a record-breaking year for finance security breaches but several compromises of major US providers “exposed shortcomings in the current supervisory framework and have put considerable public pressure on banking authorities to reevaluate their supervisory and examination programs” (Deloitte).
Banks face some of the strictest consumer protections and marketing regulations, but the digital age creates new threats.
In 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warned that digital marketers must comply with finance consumer protections when targeting audiences. CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said: “When Big Tech firms use sophisticated behavioural targeting techniques to market financial products, they must adhere to federal consumer financial protection laws.”
This couldn’t be more relevant to customer segmentation and the tools banks use to conduct it.
Customer data in the hands of agencies and big tech
Banks should pay attention to the words of CFPB Director Rohit Chopra when partnering with marketing agencies and choosing analytics tools. Digital marketing agencies are rarely experts in financial regulations, and tech giants like Google don’t have the best track record for adhering to them.
Google is constantly in the EU courts over its data use. In 2022, the EU ruled that the previous version of Google Analytics violated EU privacy regulations. Google Analytics 4 was promptly released but didn’t resolve all the issues.
Meanwhile, any company that inadvertently misuses Google Analytics is legally responsible for its compliance with data regulations.
Banks need a privacy-centric alternative to Google Analytics
Google’s track record with data regulation compliance is a big issue, but it’s not the only one. Google Analytics uses data sampling, which Google defines as the “practice of analysing a subset of data to uncover meaningful information from a larger data set.”
This means Google Analytics places thresholds on how much of your data it analyses — anything after that is calculated assumptions. We’ve explained why this is such a problem before, and GA4 relies on data sampling even more than the previous version.
In short, banks should question whether they can trust Google with their customer data and whether they can trust Google Analytics to provide accurate data in the first place. And they do. 80% of financial marketers say they’re concerned about ad tech bias from major providers like Google and Meta.
Matomo is the privacy-centric alternative to Google Analytics, giving you 100% data ownership and compliant web analytics. With no data sampling, Matomo provides 20-40% more data to help you make accurate, informed decisions. Get the data you need for customer segmentation without putting their data at risk.
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Bank customer segmentation examples
Now, let’s look at some customer segments you create and layer to target specific customer groups.
Visit-based segmentation
Visit segmentation filters audiences based on the pages they visit on your website and the behaviors they exhibit—for example, first-time visitors vs. returning visitors or landing page visitors vs. blog page visitors.
If you look at HSBC’s website, you’ll see it is structured into several categories for key customer personas. One of its segments is international customers living in the US, so it has pages and resources expats, people working in the US, people studying in the US, etc.
By combining visit-based segmentation with ultra-relevant pages for specific target audiences, HSBC can track each group’s demand and interest and analyse their behaviours. It can determine which audiences are returning, which products they want, and which messages convert them.
Demographic segmentation
Demographic segmentation divides customers by attributes such as age, gender, and location. However, you can also combine these insights with other non-personal data to better understand specific audiences.
For example, in Matomo, you can segment audiences based on the language of their browser, the country they’re visiting from, and other characteristics. So, in this case, HSBC could differentiate between visitors already residing in the US and those outside of the country looking for information on moving there.
It could determine which countries they’re visiting, which languages to localise for, and which networks to run ultra-relevant social campaigns on.
Interaction-based segmentation
Interaction-based segmentation uses events and goals to segment users based on their actions on your website. For example, you can segment audiences who visit specific URLs, such as a loan application page, or those who don’t complete an action, such as failing to complete a form.
With events and goals set up, you can track the actions visitors complete before making purchases. You can monitor topical interests, page visits, content interactions, and pathways toward conversions, which feed into their customer journey.
From here, you can segment customers based on their path leading up to their first purchase, follow-up purchases, and other actions.
Purchase-based segmentation
Purchase-based segmentation allows you to analyse the customer behaviours related to their purchase history and spending habits. For example, you can track the journey of repeat customers or identify first-time buyers showing interest in other products/services.
You can implement these insights into your cross-selling and upselling campaigns with relevant messages designed to increase retention and customer lifetime value.
Get reliable website analytics for your bank customer segmentation needs
With customers switching in greater numbers, banks need to prioritise customer retention and lifetime value. Customer segmentation allows you to target specific customer groups and address their unique needs — the perfect strategy to stop them from moving to another provider.
Quality, accurate data is the key ingredient of an effective bank customer segmentation strategy. Don’t accept data sampling from Google Analytics or any other tool that limits the amount of your own data you can access. Choose a web analytics tool like Matamo that unlocks the full potential of your website analytics to get the most out of bank customer segmentation.
Matomo is trusted by over 1 million websites globally, including many banks, for its accuracy, compliance, and reliability. Discover why financial institutions rely on Matomo to meet their web analytics needs.
Start collecting the insights you need for granular, layered segmentation — without putting your bank customer data at risk. Request a demo of Matomo now.
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Export your data from Universal Analytics or Universal Analytics 360
26 juin 2024, par Erin
How to export your data
We would love for you to try Matomo, but first let’s get your data from Google:Import your data to Matomo
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21 day free trial. No credit card required.
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What is Web Log Analytics and Why You Should Use It
26 juin 2024, par ErinCan’t use JavaScript tracking on your website? Need a more secure and privacy-friendly way to understand your website visitors? Web log analytics is your answer. This method pulls data directly from your server logs, offering a secure and privacy-respecting alternative.
In this blog, we cover what web log analytics is, how it compares to JavaScript tracking, who it is best suited for, and why it might be the right choice for you.
What are server logs?
Before diving in, let’s start with the basics: What are server logs? Think of your web server as a diary that notes every visit to your website. Each time someone visits, the server records details like:
- User agent: Information about the visitor’s browser and operating system.
- Timestamp: The exact time the request was made.
- Requested URL: The specific page or resource the visitor requested.
These “diary entries” are called server logs, and they provide a detailed record of all interactions with your website.
Server log example
Here’s what a server log looks like:
192.XXX.X.X – – [24/Jun/2024:14:32:01 +0000] “GET /index.html HTTP/1.1” 200 1024 “https://www.example.com/referrer.html” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36”
192.XXX.X.X – – [24/Jun/2024:14:32:02 +0000] “GET /style.css HTTP/1.1” 200 3456 “https://www.example.com/index.html” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36”
192.XXX.X.X – – [24/Jun/2024:14:32:03 +0000] “GET /script.js HTTP/1.1” 200 7890 “https://www.example.com/index.html” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36”
192.XXX.X.X – – [24/Jun/2024:14:32:04 +0000] “GET /images/logo.png HTTP/1.1” 200 1234 “https://www.example.com/index.html” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36”
Breakdown of the log entry
Each line in the server log represents a single request made by a visitor to your website. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what each part means:
- IP Address: 192.XXX.X.X
- This is the IP address of the visitor’s device.
- User Identifier: – –
- These fields are typically used for user identification and authentication, which are not applicable here, hence the hyphens.
- Timestamp: [24/Jun/2024:14:32:01 +0000]
- The date and time of the request, including the timezone.
- Request Line: “GET /index.html HTTP/1.1”
- The request method (GET), the requested resource (/index.html), and the HTTP version (HTTP/1.1).
- Response Code: 200
- The HTTP status code indicates the result of the request (200 means OK).
- Response Size: 1024
- The size of the response in bytes.
- Referrer: “https://www.example.com/referrer.html“
- The URL of the referring page that led the visitor to the current page.
- User Agent: “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36”
- Information about the visitor’s browser and operating system.
In the example above, there are multiple log entries for different resources (HTML page, CSS file, JavaScript file, and an image). This shows that when a visitor loads a webpage, multiple requests are made to load all the necessary resources.
What is web log analytics?
Web log analytics is one of many methods for tracking visitors to your site.
Web log analytics is the process of analysing server log files to track and understand website visitors. Unlike traditional methods that use JavaScript tracking codes embedded in web pages, web log analytics pulls data directly from these server logs.
How it works:
- Visitor request: A visitor’s browser requests your website.
- Server logging: The server logs the request details.
- Analysis: These logs are analysed to extract useful information about your visitors and their activities.
Web log analytics vs. JavaScript tracking
JavaScript tracking
JavaScript tracking is the most common method used to track website visitors. It involves embedding a JavaScript code snippet into your web pages. This code collects data on visitor interactions and sends it to a web analytics platform.
Differences and benefits:
Privacy:
- Web log analytics: Since it doesn’t require embedding tracking codes, it is considered less intrusive and helps maintain higher privacy standards.
- JavaScript tracking: Embeds tracking codes directly on your website, which can be more invasive and raise privacy concerns.
Ease of setup:
- Web log analytics: No need to modify your website’s code. All you need is access to your server logs.
- JavaScript tracking: Requires adding tracking code on your web pages. This is generally an easier setup process.
Data collection:
- Web log analytics: Contain requests of users with adblockers (ghostery, adblock, adblock plus, privacy badger, etc.) sometimes making it more accurate. However, it may miss certain interactive elements like screen resolution or user events. It may also over-report data.
- JavaScript tracking: Can collect a wide range of data, including Custom dimensions, Ecommerce tracking, Heatmaps, Session recordings, Media and Form analytics, etc.
Why choose web log analytics?
Enhanced privacy
Avoiding embedded tracking codes means there’s no JavaScript running on your visitors’ browsers. This significantly reduces the risk of data leakage and enhances overall privacy.
Comprehensive data collection
It isn’t affected by ad blockers or browser tracking protections, ensuring you capture more complete and accurate data about your visitors.
Historical data analysis
You can import and analyse historical log files, giving you insights into long-term visitor behaviour and trends.
Simple setup
Since it relies on server logs, there’s no need to alter your website’s code. This makes setup straightforward and minimises potential technical issues.
Who should use web log analytics?
Web log analytics is particularly suited for businesses that prioritise data privacy and security.
Organisations that handle sensitive data, such as banks, healthcare providers, and government agencies, can benefit from the enhanced privacy.
By avoiding JavaScript tracking, these entities minimise data exposure and comply with strict privacy regulations like Sarbanes Oxley and PCI.
Why use Matomo for web log analytics?
Matomo stands out as a top choice for web log analytics because it prioritises privacy and data ownership
Here’s why:
- Complete data control: You own all your data, so you don’t have to worry about third-party access.
- IP anonymisation: Matomo anonymises IP addresses to further protect user privacy.
- Bot filtering: Automatically excludes bots from your reports, ensuring you get accurate data.
- Simple migration: You can easily switch from other tools like AWStats by importing your historical logs into Matomo.
- Server log recognition: Recognises most server log formats (Apache, Nginx, IIS, etc.).
Start using web log analytics
Web log analytics offers a secure, privacy-focused alternative to traditional JavaScript tracking methods. By analysing server logs, you get valuable insights into your website traffic while maintaining high privacy standards.
If you’re serious about privacy and want reliable data, give Matomo’s web log analytics a try.
Start your 21-day free trial now. No credit card required.
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SEO for Financial Services : The Ultimate Guide
26 juin 2024, par ErinYou know that having a digital marketing strategy is crucial for helping your financial services business capture the attention and trust of potential customers and thrive in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.
The question is — what’s the best way to go about improving your ranking in SERPs and driving organic traffic to your website?
That’s where SEO strategies for financial services come into play.
This article will cover everything your company needs to know about SEO for financial services — from the unique challenges you’ll face to the proven tips and strategies you can implement to boost your ranking in SERPs.
What is SEO for financial services?
SEO — short for search engine optimisation — refers to optimising your content and website for search engines, particularly Google.
The main goal of an SEO strategy is to make your site search-engine-friendly, show that you’re a trusted source and increase the likelihood of appearing in SERPs when potential customers look up relevant keywords — ultimately driving organic visibility and traffic.
Now, when it comes to evaluating the success of your financial services SEO strategy, there are certain key performance indicators (KPIs) you should keep track of — including:
- SEO ranking, or the position your web pages show up in SERPs for specific search terms (the terms and phrases identified during keyword research)
- SEO Score, which shows a website’s overall SEO health and indicates how well it will rank in SERPs
- Impressions, or the number of times users saw your pages when they looked up relevant search terms
- Organic traffic, or the number of people that visit your website via search engines
- Engagement metrics, such as time on page, pages per session, and bounce rate
- Conversion rates from website traffic, including both “hard” conversions (lead generation and purchases) and “soft” conversions (such as newsletter subscriptions)
It’s important to note that the financial services industry is incredibly competitive — especially given the large-scale digital transformations in the financial sector and the rise of fintech companies.
According to a 2022 report, the global market for financial services was valued at $25.51 trillion. Moreover, it’s expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.7%, reaching $58.69 trillion by 2031.
Importance and challenges of financial services SEO
The financial services industry is changing rapidly, mainly driven by globalisation, innovation, shifting economies, and compliance risks. It’s crucial for financial service companies to develop effective SEO strategies that align with the opportunities and challenges unique to this sector.
Certain benefits of a well-executed SEO strategy, namely, better search engine rankings, driving more search traffic, delivering a better user experience, and maximising ROI and promoting business growth, are “universal.”
Financial services SEO efforts can provide a number of benefits. It can help you:
- Improve lead generation and customer acquisition; the more search traffic you get, the higher the chances of converting visitors into potential clients
- Build a strong online presence and brand awareness, which comes as a result of increased visibility in organic search results and reaching a wider audience
- Increase your credibility and authority within the industry, primarily through high-quality content that shows your expertise and backlinks from authoritative websites
- Gain a competitive edge by analysing and outranking your main competitors
That said, financial services companies face some unique challenges:
High competition: The digital arena for financial services is highly competitive, with numerous companies vying for the same business.
YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content: Google’s YMYL framework places higher scrutiny on financial content, demanding higher standards for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. We’ll cover this topic in greater detail shortly.
Regulatory changes and compliance: The financial services sector is characterised by constant regulatory changes and new compliance requirements that businesses must navigate. Sometimes this makes it difficult to gather insights and market to your audience.
As a privacy-fist, compliant web analytics solution Matomo can provide valuable insights to support your SEO efforts. Matomo ensures compliance with privacy laws — including GDPR, CCPA and more — and provides 20-40% more comprehensive data than Google Analytics.
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Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
8 proven strategies for implementing SEO for financial services
SEO for financial services involves a wide range of strategies — including keyword optimisation, technical SEO, content marketing, link building and other off-page SEO activities — that can help your website rank higher in SERPs.
Of course, it’s not just about better search rankings. It’s about attracting the right search traffic to your website — potential clients interested in your financial services.
Here are some proven financial services SEO strategies you should implement:
1. Build trust and topical authority
Financial services content typically covers more complex topics that could impact the reader’s financial stability and well-being — or, as Google calls them, “Your Money or Your Life” topics (YMYL). As such, it’s subject to much stricter quality standards.
To improve your YMYL content, you’ll need to apply the E-E-A-T framework — short for “Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust”.
This is a key part of Google’s search rater guidelines for evaluating a website’s quality and credibility.
The E-E-A-T standards become even more relevant to financial topics such as investment strategies, financial advice, taxes, and retirement planning.
In that sense, the overarching goal of your content strategy should be to build customer trust by demonstrating real expertise and topical authority through in-depth educational content.
2. Earn reputable external links through link-building
You also need to monitor your off-page SEO—factors outside your website that can’t be directly controlled but can still build trust and contribute to better ranking in SERPs.
These include everything from social media engagement and unlinked brand mentions in blog posts, news articles, user reviews and social media discussions — to inbound links from other reputable websites in the finance industry.
That brings us to high-quality backlinks as a significant factor for YMYL content that can improve your financial services website’s SEO performance:
Earning external links can improve your domain authority and reinforce your brand’s position as a reliable source in the financial services niche — which, in turn, can contribute to better search engine rankings and drive more website traffic.
Here are a few link-building strategies you can try:
- Use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to look for reputable websites and then request for them to link to your site
- Demonstrate your expertise and get backlinks from reputable media outlets through Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
- Reach out to authoritative websites that mention your company without linking to you directly and ask them to include a link to your websit
3. Conduct an SEO audit
An SEO audit is a key step in developing and implementing a successful financial SEO strategy. It sets the foundation for all your future efforts — and allows you to measure progress further down the line.
You’ll need to perform a comprehensive SEO audit, covering both the existing content and technical aspects of your website — including:
- Indexing issues
- Internal linking and site architecture
- Duplicate content
- Backlink profile
- Broken links
- Page titles and metadata
It’s possible to do this manually, third-party tools will allow you to dig deeper and speed up the process. Ahrefs and Screaming Frog — to name a few — can help you evaluate your website’s overall health and structure. And, with a web analytics platform like Matomo you can easily measure the success of your SEO efforts.
But this shouldn’t be a one-time thing; be sure to perform audits regularly — ideally every six months.
4. Understand your target audience
You can’t create helpful content without learning about your customers’ needs, pain points and preferences.
For example, a financial service provider focusing on individuals nearing retirement would prioritise content that educates on retirement planning strategies, investment options for seniors, and tax-efficient withdrawal strategies, aiming to guide clients through the transition from saving to managing retirement funds effectively.
In contrast, a provider targeting small business owners would emphasise content related to small business loans, funding options, and financial management advice tailored to entrepreneurs seeking to expand their businesses and navigate financial challenges effectively.
So, before you dive into keyword research and content creation, ensure you have a deep understanding of your target audience.
Identifying different audience categories and developing detailed customer personas for each segment is crucial for creating content that resonates with them and aligns with their search intent.
Matomo’s Segmentation tool can be of huge help here. It allows you to divide your audience into smaller groups based on factors like demographics and website interactions:
In addition to that, you can:
- Engage with your frontline teams that interact directly with clients to gain deeper insights into prospects’ needs and concerns
- Track social media channels and other online discussions related to the financial world and your audience
- Gather qualitative insights from your site visitors through the Matomo Surveys plugin (questions like “What financial services are you most interested in?” or “Are there any specific financial topics you would like us to cover in more detail?” will help you understand your visitors better)
- Watch out for financial trends and developments that could directly impact your audience’s needs and preferences
5. Identify new opportunities through keyword research
Comprehensive keyword research can help you identify key search terms — specific phrases that potential customers may use when looking up things related to their finances.
It’s best to start with a brainstorming session and assemble a list of relevant topics and core keywords. Once you have an initial list, use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to get more keyword ideas based on your seed keywords, including:
- More specific long-tail keywords — and often less competitive — indicate a clearer intent to convert. For example:
- “low-risk investment options for retirees”
- “financial planning for freelancers”
- “small business loan requirements”
- Keywords that your competitors already rank for. For instance:
- If a competing investment firm ranks for “best investment strategies for beginners,” targeting similar keywords can attract novice investors.
- A competitor’s high ranking for “life insurance quotes online” suggests potential to optimise your own content around similar terms.
- Location-specific keywords (if you have physical store locations)
Google Search Console can provide information about the search terms you’re already ranking for — including underperforming content that may benefit from further optimisation. If you want deeper SEO insights, you can import your search keywords into Matomo.
While you’re at it, try Matomo’s Site Search feature, too. It will show you the exact terms and phrases visitors enter when using your website’s search bar — and you can use that information to find more content opportunities.
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Of course, not all keywords are equal — and it would be impossible to target them all. Instead, prioritise keywords based on two factors:
- Search volume, which indicates the “popularity” of a particular query
- Keyword difficulty, which indicates how hard it’ll be to rank for a specific term, depending on domain authority, search volume and competition
6. Find your main organic competitors
Besides performing an SEO audit, finding your core keywords, and researching your target market, competitor analysis is another crucial aspect of SEO for finance companies.
Before you start, it’s important to differentiate between your main organic search competitors and your direct industry competitors:
You’ll always have direct competitors — other financial services brands offering similar products and services and targeting the same audience as you.
However, regarding search results, your financial services business won’t be in a “bubble” specifically reserved for the financial industry. Depending on the specific search queries — and the search intent behind them — SERPs could feature a wider range of online content, from niche finance blogs to news websites, and huge financial publications.
Even if another company doesn’t offer the same services, they’re an organic competitor if you’re both ranking for the same keywords.
Once you determine who your main organic competitors are, you can analyse their websites to:
- Check how they’re getting search traffic
- See which types of content they’re publishing
- Find and fill in any potential content gaps
- Assess the quality of their backlink profile
- See if they currently have any featured snippets
7. Consider local SEO
According to a 2023 survey, 21% of US-based consumers report using the internet to look up local businesses daily, while another 32% do so multiple times a week.
Local SEO is worth investing in as a financial service provider, especially with physical locations. Prospective clients will typically look up nearby financial services when they need additional information or are ready to engage in financial planning, investment, or other financial activities.
Here are a few suggestions on how to optimise your site for local searches:
- Create listings on online business directories, like Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business)
- If your financial service company operates in more than one physical location, be sure to create a separate Google Business Profile for each one
- Identify location-specific keywords that will help you rank in local SERPs
- Make sure that your name, address, and phone number (NAP) citations are correct and consistent
- Leverage positive customer reviews and testimonials as social proof
8. Optimise technical aspects of your website
Technical SEO — which primarily deals with the website’s underlying structure — is another crucial factor that financial services brands must monitor.
It’s an umbrella term that covers a wide range of elements, including:
- Site speed
- Indexing issues
- Broken links, orphaned pages, improper redirects
- On-page optimisation
- Mobile responsiveness
In 2020, Google introduced Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics that measure web page performance in three key areas — loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability.
Given that they’re now a part of Google’s core ranking systems, you should consider using Matomo’s SEO Web Vitals feature to monitor these crucial metrics. Here’s why:
When technical aspects of your website — namely, site speed and mobile responsiveness — are properly optimised, you can deliver a better user experience. That’s what Google seeks to reward.
Plus, it can be a critical brand differentiator for your business.
Conclusion
Investing in SEO for financial services is crucial for boosting online visibility and driving organic traffic and business growth. However, one thing to keep in mind is that SEO efforts shouldn’t be a one-time thing:
SEO is an ongoing process, and it will take time to establish your company as a trustworthy source and see real results.
You can start building that trust by using a web analytics platform that offers crucial insights for improving your website’s ranking in SERPs and maintains full compliance with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
That’s why Matomo is trusted by more than 1 million websites around the globe. As an ethical alternative to Google Analytics that doesn’t rely on data sampling, Matomo is not only easy to use but more accurate, too — providing 20-40% more data compared to GA4.
Sign up for a 21-day free trial and see how Matomo can support your financial services SEO strategy. No credit card required.
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A Guide to Ethical Web Analytics in 2024
17 juin 2024, par ErinUser data is more valuable and sought after than ever.
Ninety-four percent of respondents in Cisco’s Data Privacy Benchmark Study said their customers wouldn’t buy from them if their data weren’t protected, with 95% saying privacy was a business imperative.
Unfortunately, the data collection practices of most businesses are far from acceptable and often put their customers’ privacy at risk.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can ethically collect valuable and insightful customer data—you just need the right tools.
In this article, we show you what an ethical web analytics solution can look like, why Google Analytics is a problem and how you can collect data without risking your customers’ privacy.
What is ethical web analytics?
Ethical web analytics put user privacy first. These platforms prioritise privacy and transparency by only collecting necessary data, avoiding implicit user identification and openly communicating data practices and tracking methods.
Ethical tools adhere to data protection laws like GDPR as standard (meaning businesses using these tools never have to worry about fines or disruptions). In other words, ethical web analytics refrain from exploiting and profiting from user behaviour and data.
Unfortunately, most traditional data solutions collect as much data as possible without users’ knowledge or consent.
Why does digital privacy matter?
Digital privacy matters because companies have repeatedly proven they will collect and use data for financial gain. It also presents security risks. Unsecured user data can lead to identity theft, cyberattacks and harassment.
Big tech companies like Google and Meta are often to blame for all this. These companies collect millions of user data points — like age, gender, income, political beliefs and location. Worse still, they share this information with interested third parties.
After public outrage over data breaches and other privacy scandals, consumers are taking active steps to disallow tracking where possible. IAPP’s Privacy and Consumer Trust Report finds that 68% of consumers across 19 countries are somewhat or very concerned about their digital privacy.
There’s no way around it: companies of all sizes and shapes need to consider how they handle and protect customers’ private information.
Why should you use an ethical web analytics tool?
When companies use ethical web analytics tools they can build customer trust, boost their brand reputation, improve data security practices and future proof their website tracking solution.
Boost brand reputation
The fallout from a data privacy scandal can be severe.
Just look at what happened to Facebook during the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The eponymous consulting firm harvested 50 million Facebook profiles and used that information to target people with political messages. Due to the instant public backlash, Facebook’s stock tanked, and use of the “delete Facebook” hashtag increased by 423% in the following days.
That’s because consumers care about data privacy, according to Deloitte’s Connected Consumer Study:
- Almost 90 percent agree they should be able to view and delete data companies collect
- 77 percent want the government to introduce stricter regulations
- Half feel the benefits they get from online services outweigh data privacy concerns.
If you can prove you buck the trend by collecting data using ethical methods, it can boost your brand’s reputation.
Build trust with customers
At the same time, collecting data in an ethical way can help you build customer trust. You’ll go a long way to changing consumer perceptions, too. Almost half of consumers don’t like sharing data, and 57% believe companies sell their data.
This additional trust should generate a positive ROI for your business. According to Cisco’s Data Privacy Benchmark Study, the average company gains $180 for every $100 they invest in privacy.
Improve data security
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report, the average cost of a data breach is nearly $4.5 million. This kind of scenario becomes much less likely when you use an ethical tool that collects less data overall and anonymises the data you do collect.
Futureproof your web analytics solution
The obvious risk of not complying with privacy regulations is a fine — which can be up to €20 million, or 4% of worldwide annual revenue in the case of GDPR.
It’s not just fines and penalties you risk if you fail to comply with privacy regulations like GDPR. For some companies, especially larger ones, the biggest risk of non-compliance with privacy regulations is the potential sudden need to abandon Google Analytics and switch to an ethical alternative.
If Data Protection Authorities ban Google Analytics again, as has happened in Austria, France, and other countries, businesses will be forced to drop everything and make an immediate transition to a compliant web analytics solution.
When an organisation’s entire marketing operation relies on data, migrating to a new solution can be incredibly painful and time-consuming. So, the sooner you switch to an ethical tool, the less of a headache the process will be.
The problem with Google Analytics
Google Analytics (GA) is the most popular analytics platform in the world, but it’s a world away from being an ethical tool. Here’s why:
You don’t have data ownership
Google Analytics is attractive to businesses of all sizes because of its price. Everyone loves getting something for free, but there’s still a cost — your and your customers’ data.
That’s because Google combines the data you collect with information from the millions of other websites it tracks to inform its advertising efforts. It may also use your data to train large language models like Gemini.
It has a rocky history with GDPR laws
Google and EU regulators haven’t always got along. For example, the German Data Protection Authority is investigating 200,000 pending cases against websites using GA. The platform has also been banned and added back to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework several times over the past few years.
You can use GA to collect data about EU customers right now, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to do so in the future.
It requires a specific setup to remain compliant
While you can currently use GA in a GDPR-compliant way — owing to its inclusion in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework — you have to set it up in a very specific way. That’s because the platform’s compliance depends on what data you collect, how you inform users and the level of consent you acquire. You’ll still need to include an extensive privacy policy on your website.
What does ethical web analytics look like?
An ethical web analytics solution should put user privacy first, ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR, give businesses 100% control of the data they collect and be completely transparent about data collection and storage practices.
100% data ownership
You don’t fully control customer data when you use Google Analytics. The search giant uses your data for its own advertising purposes and may also use it to train large language models like Gemini.
When you choose an ethical web analytics alternative like Matomo, you can ensure you completely own your data.
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Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
Respects user privacy
It’s possible to track and measure user behaviour without collecting personally identifiable information (PII). Just look at the ethical web analytics tools we’ve reviewed below.
These platforms respect user privacy and conform to strict privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA by incorporating some or all of the following features:
- Opt-out mechanisms to let users refuse tracking
- IP addresses anonymisation and other data anonymisation techniques
- DoNotTrack options
- Shorter expiration dates for tracking cookies
In Matomo’s case, it’s all of the above. Better still, you can check our privacy credentials yourself. Our software’s source code is open source on GitHub and accessible to anyone at any time.
Compliant with government regulations
While Google’s history with data regulations is tumultuous, an ethical web analytics platform should follow even the strictest privacy laws, including GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, LGPD and PECR.
But why stop there? Matomo has been approved by the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) as one of the few web analytics tools that French sites can use to collect data without tracking consent. So you don’t need an annoying consent banner popping up on your website anymore.
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Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
Complete transparency
Ethical web analytics tools will be upfront about their data collection practices, whether that’s in the U.S., EU, or on your own private servers. Look for a solution that refrains from collecting personally identifiable information, shows where data is stored, and lets you alter tracking methods to increase privacy even further.
Some solutions, like Matomo, will increase transparency further by providing open source software. Anyone can find our source code on GitHub to see exactly how our platform tracks and stores user data. This means our code is regularly examined and reviewed by a community of developers, making it more secure, too.
Ethical web analytics solutions
There are several options for an ethical web analytics tool. We list three of the best providers below.
Matomo
Matomo is an open source web analytics tool and privacy-focused Google Analytics alternative used by over one million sites globally.
Matomo is fully compliant with prominent global privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA, meaning you never have to worry about collecting consent when tracking user behaviour.
The data you collect is completely accurate since Matomo doesn’t use data sampling and is 100% yours. We don’t share data with third parties but can prove it. Our product source code is publicly available on GitHub. As a community-led project, you can download and install it yourself for free.
With Matomo, you get a full range of web analytics capabilities and behavioural analytics. That includes your standard metrics (think visitors, traffic sources, bounce rates, etc.), advanced features to analyse user behaviour like A/B Testing, Form Analytics, Heatmaps and Session Recordings.
Migrating to Matomo is easy. You can even import historical Google Analytics data to generate meaningful insights immediately.
Try Matomo for Free
Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
Fathom
Fathom Analytics is a lightweight privacy-focused analytics solution that launched in 2018. It aims to be an easy-to-use Google Analytics alternative that doesn’t compromise privacy.
Like Matomo, Fathom complies with all major privacy regulations, including GDPR and CCPA. It also provides 100% accurate, unsampled reports and doesn’t share your data with third parties.
While Fathom provides fairly comprehensive analytics reports, it doesn’t have some of Matomo’s more advanced features. That includes e-commerce tracking, heatmaps, session recordings, and more.
Plausible
Plausible Analytics is another open source Google Analytics alternative that was built and hosted in the EU.
Launched in 2019, Plausible is a newer player in the privacy-focused analytics market. Still, its ultra-lightweight script makes it an attractive option for organisations that prioritise speed over everything else.
Like Matomo and Fathom, Plausible is GDPR and CCPA-compliant by design. Nor is there any cap on the amount of data you collect or any debate over whether the data is accurate (Plausible doesn’t use data sampling) or who owns the data (you do).
Matomo makes it easy to migrate to an ethical web analytics alternative
There’s no reason to put your users’ privacy at risk, especially when there are so many benefits to choosing an ethical tool. Whether you want to avoid fines, build trust with your customers, or simply know you’re doing the right thing, choosing a privacy-focused, ethical solution like Matomo is taking a massive step in the right direction.
Making the switch is easy, too. Matomo is one of the few options that lets you import historical Google Analytics data, so starting from scratch is unnecessary.
Get started today by trying Matomo for free for 21-days. No credit card required.
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21 day free trial. No credit card required.
