Financial data now allows marketers to target customers on their payday

By Tamara Gaffney

It used to be that Christmas arrived on Thanksgiving weekend as merchandisers kept Halloween and fall seasonal stock on the shelves through early November.  Nowadays Christmas starts to appear in stores the first week of October. You can thank the Internet for that.

Christmas shoppers start to budget in October

Adobe Digital Index analyzed nearly 8 billion visits to 100+ financial websites and discovered why.  The data clearly demonstrates that consumers begin to escalate account viewing beginning in October, peaking on December 3^rd at 35% higher volume than a normal day.  As it turns out, retailers that jump on Christmas shopping in October are on the right track.

Access to financial data online or from a mobile device have given consumers unprecedented access to information and planning tools.  Consumers are accessing financial data online at record levels as consumer vis­its to finan­cial sites are up 27% year-over-year (YoY).  Marketers can pick up some valuable clues about consumer shopping by analyzing consumer access of financial records.  As more and more consumers have transitioned to online banking and have access to a variety of planning and budgeting tools, their traffic patterns illustrate their budgeting activates, providing marketers with important clues on how and when to deliver marketing messages.

Financial marketers specifically may find the rise in visit in January when consumers are checking their Christmas bills a great time to target marketing campaigns for credit cards, personal loans, and savings plans as consumers are clearly thinking about financial matters at this time. These offers could also prime the con­sumer for other upsells along the way.

Consumers delay checking on direct deposits

Another time for marketers to reach customers is around their pay cycles.  Spikes in vis­its demon­strate con­sumers are vis­it­ing finan­cial sites three days after a pay period, with the largest num­ber of vis­its occur­ring on the 4^th and 18^th of the month–gen­er­at­ing 10% more traf­fic than other days dur­ing the month. Con­sumers also prefer to visit finan­cial sites dur­ing the week, with Mon­day being the high­est at 19% higher than an aver­age day.

Tar­get­ing con­sumers with dis­counts, pro­mo­tions, or sim­i­lar offers lead­ing up to and on  days when consumers are thinking about their budgets offers the opportunity to increase click through, conversion and average order value as the masses look­ for ways to use  their hard earned money.

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This article is written by Adobe and not by the Quartz editorial staff.