Targeted Ads are Key

Random flashing banner advertisements may not get a second click when customers are browsing the Internet. But using a bank's customer profiles, along with information gleaned from customer on-line accounts and transactions, to deliver targeted

advertising when customers log-on to the bank could boost cross-sales and, finally, support a revenue model for on-line banking, says Daniel M. Schley, chairman and CEO of Home Financial Network.

HFN is beta testing its Integrated Marketing System, for use with its Home ATM and Internet ATM applications, that promises to deliver targeted marketing campaigns for banks that are much more successful than traditional attempts at cross-selling.

HFN says it has 28 bank clients, including six Integrion banks. At least four are planning to use the Integrated Marketing System when it's launched in the first quarter, says Schley, who declined to name his clients. The product price includes a one-time license fee and monthly maintenance charges.

Schley says the system was developed in response to customers who a year ago desperately needed to be in the on-line marketplace at any cost, but are now getting anxious about producing revenue. "What we're finding is there's a great deal of scrutiny now, not only on the economics of home banking, but also specifically with respect to generating (revenue) or turning home banking into a profitable channel."

Experts in on-line advertising say that targeting is the key to increasing the "click-through" rates of Internet banner advertisements- currently the most common measure of success. Evan Neufeld, senior analyst in on-line advertising at Jupiter Communications in New York, says one company was able to increase click-through rates from the standard one-to- two percent to 50 percent with targeted ads. "The preliminary indications seem to be that targeting, whether it's targeting by context or targeting by kind of third-party technologies, really raises click-throughs much beyond what they are normally and what they would be in other analogous mediums like direct mail."

-sausner tfn.com

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