Today in our tumultuous financial sector, we have varying degrees of online visibility as consumers. Some banks are more transparent and others honestly have very little clue when it comes to trying to be accessible for their clients.
We thought it would be interesting to examine who dominates the online marketing channels and frankly has been keeping up to date with how many consumers access their banking institutions.
In exploring the digital realm, it becomes intriguing to identify which banks dominate the online marketing channels and stay abreast of the evolving consumer trends in accessing financial services.
For valuable insights for internet marketers keen on understanding the nuances of the banking sector’s online strategies and consumer engagement, this exploration can provide essential benchmarks and perspectives.
Understanding how leading banks navigate the digital space can offer crucial lessons for internet marketers looking to enhance their strategies and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing in the financial domain.
To start off, let’s look at who the traditional organizations believe our behemoths of monetary tools are in the United States. The Federal Reserve keeps a list of which banks own the most financial assets and the top 10 are as follows:
Largest banks by assets
- JP Morgan Chase – https://www.jpmorgan.com
- Bank of America – https://www.bankofamerica.com/
- Wells Fargo – https://www.wellsfargo.com/
- Citigroup – https://www.citigroup.com
- US Bancorp – https://www.usbank.com
- PNC Financial – https://www.pnc.com
- Capital One – https://www.capitalone.com/
- TD Bank – https://www.td.com
- The Bank of New York Mellon – https://www.bnymellon.com/
- State Street Corporation – http://www.statestreet.com
According to the Federal Reserve, these are the largest banks in the United States based on consolidated assets.
The largest banks by market capitalization (asset based ranking)
- JP Morgan Chase – https://www.jpmorgan.com (1)
- Bank of America – https://www.bankofamerica.com/ (2)
- Wells Fargo – https://www.wellsfargo.com/ (3)
- Citigroup – https://www.citigroup.com (4)
- TD Bank – https://www.td.com (8)
- Goldman Sachs – https://www.goldmansachs.com/ (13)
- US Bancorp – https://www.usbank.com (5)
- Morgan Stanley – https://www.morganstanley.com/ (19)
- PNC Financial – https://www.pnc.com (6)
- The Bank of New York Mellon – https://www.bnymellon.com/ (9)
According to the wikipedia, these are the largest banks in the United States based on market capitalization.
Highest amount of traffic online
This is US Banks (or Intl ones who have divisions focusing on the US) and not the banks outside its borders.
- (1) JP Morgan Chase – https://www.jpmorgan.com – NOT in the top 5000
- (19) Chase.com – #250; 83.6 mil visits; 28.2 mil unique visitors
- (3) Wells Fargo
- wellsfargo.com – #305, 92.6 mil visits; 24 mil unique visitors
- (7) Capital One
- capitalone.com – #281, 76.8 mil visits; 28.8 mil unique visitors
- (2) Bank of America
- bankofamerica.com – #452, 54 mil visits; 20.8 mil unique visitors
- (24) American Express – https://www.americanexpress.com – #710, 37.4 mil visits; 17 mil unique visitors
- (4) Citigroup – https://www.citigroup.com
- citi.com – #1100, 26.9 mil visits; 13.7 mil unique visitors
- citibankonline.com – #1774, 18.5 mil visits; 9 mil unique visitors
- (28) Discover Financial – https://www.discover.com – #1256, 24.7 mil visits; 11.1 mil unique visitors
- (8) TD Bank
- td.com – #1473, 23.3 mil visits; 6.7 mil unique visitors
- (6) PNC Financial
- pnc.com, #1643 – 23.9 mil visits; 5.7 mil unique visitors
- (5) US Bancorp
- usbank.com – #1903, 17.1 mil visits; 5.7 mil unique visitors
- (n/a) USAA – https://www.usaa.com – #1942, 17.3 mil visits; 7.6 mil unique visitors
- (n/a) Charles Schwab Corporation – https://www.schwab.com – #2213, 14.2 mil visits; 5 mil unique visitors
- (23) Regions Financial Corporation – https://www.regions.com – #2310, 19.1 mil visits; 3 mil unique visitors
- (n/a) State Farm – https://www.statefarm.com – #3002, 11.9 mil visits; 6.6 mil unique visitors
- (n/a) E-Trade – https://us.etrade.com – #3214, 11.1 mil visits; 2.6 mil unique visitors
- (13) SunTrust Banks – https://www.suntrust.com – #3327, 10.9 mil visits; 2.6 mil unique visitors
- (n/a) Synchrony Financial – https://www.mysynchrony.com – #3366, 10.8 mil visits; 5.8 mil unique visitors
- synchronycredit.com – #4027, 9.2 mil visits; 4.6 mil unique visitors
- (12) BB&T – https://www.bbt.com/ – #3585, 12.8 mil visits; 2.7 mil unique visitors
- (16) Ally Financial – https://www.ally.com – #4175, 9.9 mil visits; 4 mil unique visitors
- (18) Fifth Third Bank – https://www.53.com – #4206, 10.2 mil visits; 2.3 mil unique visitors
- (56) CIBC Bank USA – https://us.cibc.com – #4514, 8.3 mil visits; 2.5 mil unique visitors
- (26) Barclays – https://www.banking.barclaysus.com
- barclaycardus.com – #4773, 7.8 mil visits; 3.8 mil unique visitors
- (14) Goldman Sachs – https://www.goldmansachs.com – NOT in the top 5000
- (20) Morgan Stanley – https://www.morganstanley.com – NOT in the top 5000
- (61) The Bank of New York Mellon – https://www.bnymellon.com – NOT in the top 5000
- (11) State Street Corporation – http://www.statestreet.com – NOT in the top 5000
Above, we listed the top banks by assets in parentheses (Number). For example, Wells Fargo was considered the 2nd largest bank by consolidated assets according to the Federal reserve. If their main domain name/url/website address was ranked as a top website, we placed the information next to it. If not, we would list the websites that appear to be the ones they use primarily for customers and attracting more business. For instance, Wellsfargo.com was the main website for Wells Fargo and is considered the 305th best site according to SEMRush in terms of overall traffic — this would include organic SEO traffic and all other forms like paid or social. It obtained over 92 million visits over the most recent 30 day period with 24 million unique visitors. They basically are doing a very good job.
High Performing Digital Banks
While our survey is very informal and we haven’t been able to examine every factor available, it does appear that some banks are doing a better job online than their competitors. A couple are:
- (23) Regions Financial Corporation – https://www.regions.com – #2310, 19.1 mil visits; 3 mil unique visitors
Among our list, it’s the 14th best online. While it still might mean being the 2310th best online property, it’s doing well for banks. As we can see, banks aren’t the savviest when it comes to the online world. Rather, it hasn’t become as high of a priority as their offline entities and it’s relatively clear from our survey’s results. It’s even MORE clear when you scroll down to see that there are some banks that don’t even have secure websites.
- (56) CIBC Bank USA – https://us.cibc.com – #4514, 8.3 mil visits; 2.5 mil unique visitors
CIBC ranks 56th overall according to the Federal Reserve, but from our vantage point, it does the 22nd best job of taking care of their online constituents. Considered a Canadian bank and founded in the country north of the U.S., this financial institution ranks above well known players like domestic brand Barclays or large International ones like HSBC, KeyCorp and UBS.
Banks with Weaker Visibility Online
- (5) US Bancorp
- usbank.com – #1903, 17.1 mil visits; 5.7 mil unique visitors
- (8) TD Bank
- td.com – #1473, 23.3 mil visits; 6.7 mil unique visitors
While US Bancorp has a significant consolidated asset base, it lags compared to the bank that has close to $100 billion less in assets (PNC) and TD Bank which has almost $170 billion less than them in holdings. Despite their larger asset base, TD has 36% more visits a month to their main site and 17.5% more unique visitors they can market to regularly.
- (6) PNC Financial
- pnc.com, #1643 – 23.9 mil visits; 5.7 mil unique visitors
- (7) Capital One
- capitalone.com – #281, 76.8 mil visits; 28.8 mil unique visitors
While PNC might be outdoing the bank right above them in assets, it still is failing to beat TD Bank who they outdo by almost $100 billion or Capital One who they outdo by almost 3/4’s of that. Of course the latter might be considered more of a credit card company, but it is fast becoming a competitor in the banking arena and their online presence may be a part of the reason. Capital One has basically 300% the online traffic and more than 400% more in unique visitors as you can see below.
And you can see towards the bottom of the list of “highest amount of traffic online,” the following could probably do a better with their digital presence:
- (16) Ally Financial – https://www.ally.com – #4175, 9.9 mil visits; 4 mil unique visitors
- (18) Fifth Third Bank – https://www.53.com – #4206, 10.2 mil visits; 2.3 mil unique visitors
- (56) CIBC Bank USA – https://us.cibc.com – #4514, 8.3 mil visits; 2.5 mil unique visitors
- (26) Barclays – https://www.banking.barclaysus.com
- barclaycardus.com – #4773, 7.8 mil visits; 3.8 mil unique visitors
- (14) Goldman Sachs – https://www.goldmansachs.com – NOT in the top 5000
- (20) Morgan Stanley – https://www.morganstanley.com – NOT in the top 5000
- (61) The Bank of New York Mellon – https://www.bnymellon.com – NOT in the top 5000
- (11) State Street Corporation – http://www.statestreet.com – NOT in the top 5000
Otherwise, we may soon see these institutions in the Internet graveyard like previous competitors of Amazon and all the other disruptors in this word.
INsecure banks
One of the biggest factors that helps Google decide if one site deserves a higher position vs. the other is the nature of the site’s security. In the past, companies made decisions to save money and in the past, it didn’t matter in terms of search marketing visibility. However, today, it’s a very important factor and frankly, being insecure is passe. It’s also a simple fix, but out of all the sectors that should be secure more than others is the financial industry. Surprisingly, multiple “top banks by assets” were insecure in our findings.
On top of that, given the amount of hacking that exists today, you would think out of all the businesses that exist, banks would do their best to make their sites secure. Unfortunately, in our quick check, we found some of the larger ones failed with this important factor.
- First Horizon National Corporation – http://www.firsthorizon.com (NOT secure? Are you kidding me?) The subsidiary banks are secure (it appears) – NOT in the top 5000 incl subsidiary sites
- PacWest Bancorp – http://www.pacwestbancorp.com/ (NOT secure?) – NOT in the top 5000
- Sterling Bancorp – http://www.sterlingbancorp.com/ (NOT secure) – NOT in the top 5000
- TCF Financial Corporation – http://ir.tcfbank.com/ (NOT secure?) – NOT in the top 5000
- First National of Nebraska – http://www.fnni.com (NOT secure) – NOT in the top 5000
Online Search Opportunity Every Day for Banks
How many people search for a bank every day?
- Every month, they search “bank” 3.35 million times
- In the same period, they search “atm” & “credit card” 1.5 million times each
- They search “online banking” 1 milion times a month
So, with just these 4 phrases, it could be argued 245,000 searches a day (if every month was 30 days) are being conducted and that space could be leveraged. If you added branded terms and a more comprehensive sweep of all the potential phrases out there that banks would love to be in front of, it would easily be the millions per day. And the US hasn’t even touched the online world like countries throughout the world are doing. The quick check displayed Indian banks who are moving faster in this area with their brands already gaining acceptance by the billions of Indians who are comfortable with banking online.
Companies like Credit Karma or Nerd Wallet came out of nowhere to build their businesses around all the permutations of “credit card” searches out there.
Before these companies, BankRate.com built a business around what you see on their homepage as the 6 pillars to their success:
Across 1,300,000+ keywords, they generate “free online traffic” basically filling their coffers with leads galore:
And they’re savvy enough to realize the free is not enough to rest on their laurels. They even spend a ton online paying for even more keywords like:
If the executives or managers listened to their subordinates who told them it would be a great idea to market to these terms online, perhaps these companies wouldn’t have popped up from nowhere.
Other Banks to consider by total assets
- TIAA – https://www.tiaa.org – NOT in the top 5000
- HSBC Bank USA – https://www.us.hsbc.com – NOT in the top 5000
- MUFG Union Bank – https://www.unionbank.com (owned by Mitsubishi) – NOT in the top 5000
- BBVA USA – https://www.bbvausa.com – NOT in the top 5000 (main intl site appears to be #2753, 12.7 mil visits; 2.9 mil unique visitors
- Santander Bank – https://www.santanderbank.com – NOT in the top 5000 (4 Intl Props are in top 5000 [uk, argentina, spain, brasil])
- Citizens Financial Group – https://www.citizensbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- BMO Harris Bank – https://www.bmoharris.com – NOT in the top 5000
- KeyCorp – https://www.key.com – NOT in the top 5000
- UBS – https://www.ubs.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Deutsche Bank – https://www.db.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Credit Suisse – https://www.credit-suisse.com – NOT in the top 5000
- RBC Bank – https://www.rbcbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Northern Trust – https://www.northerntrust.com – NOT in the top 5000
- BNP Paribas – https://group.bnpparibas – NOT in the top 5000
- M&T Bank – https://www.mtb.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Huntington Bancshares – https://www.huntington.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Comerica – https://www.comerica.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Zions Bancorporation – https://www.zionsbancorp.com/ (the worst) – NOT in the top 5000
- Sillicon Valley Bank – https://www.svb.com – NOT in the top 5000
- New York Community Bank – https://www.mynycb.com – NOT in the top 5000
- CIT Group – https://www.cit.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Popular, Inc. (San Juan, PR) – https://www.popular.com – NOT in the top 5000
- People’s United Financial – https://www.peoples.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Synovus – https://www.synovus.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Mutual of Omaha – https://www.mutualofomaha.com – NOT in the top 5000
- East West Bank – https://www.eastwestbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- First Horizon National Corporation – http://www.firsthorizon.com (NOT secure? Are you kidding me?) The subsidiary banks are secure (it appears) – NOT in the top 5000 incl subsidiary sites
- BOK Financial Corporation – https://www.bokfinancial.com/ (investors page is #1 above the home) – NOT in the top 5000
- Mizuho Financial Group – https://www.mizuho-fg.com – NOT in the top 5000
- John Deere Capital Corporation – NOT in the top 5000 https://www.deere.com/en/finance/financing/account-management/ (fails to show up anywhere using “John Deere Capital Corporation” as the search, but https://www.deere.com/en/finance/financing/ does show up using “john deere financing” as #1
- Raymond James Financial – https://www.raymondjames.com – NOT in the top 5000
- First Citizens BancShares – https://www.firstcitizens.com – NOT in the top 5000
- FNB Corporation – https://www.fnb-online.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Associated Banc-Corp – https://www.associatedbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- BankUnited – https://www.bankunited.com – NOT in the top 5000 – interesting title “BankUnited – 1-877-779-2265”
- Valley National Bank – https://www.valley.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Wintrust Financial – https://www.wintrust.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Frost Bank – https://www.frostbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- IberiaBank – https://www.iberiabank.com/persona – NOT in the top 5000
- Sterling Bancorp – http://www.sterlingbancorp.com/ (NOT secure) – NOT in the top 5000
- Hancock Whitney – https://www.hancockwhitney.com – – NOT in the top 5000
- Texas Capital Bank – https://www.texascapitalbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Webster Bank – https://public.websteronline.com/personal (from here, just copy the whole url) – NOT in the top 5000
- Umpqua Holidings Corporation – https://www.umpquabank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Investors Bank – https://www.myinvestorsbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- PacWest Bancorp – http://www.pacwestbancorp.com/ (NOT secure?) – NOT in the top 5000
- Pinnacle Fianancial Partners – https://www.pnfp.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Commerce Bancshares – https://www.commercebank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- TCF Financial Corporation – http://ir.tcfbank.com/ (NOT secure?) – NOT in the top 5000
- Stifel – https://www.stifel.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Western Alliance Bank – https://www.westernalliancebancorporation.com – NOT in the top 5000
- UMB Financial Corporation – https://www.umb.com (showed up #1 for “personal banking” in the seattle area) – NOT in the top 5000
- Utrecht-America (Rabobank) – https://www.rabobankamerica.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group – https://www.smfg.co.jp/english – NOT in the top 5000
- Prosperity Bancshares – https://www.prosperitybankusa.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Chemical Financial Corporation – https://www.chemicalbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- First National of Nebraska – http://www.fnni.com (NOT secure) – NOT in the top 5000
- Bank OZK – https://www.ozk.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Fulton Financial Corporation – https://www.fult.com – NOT in the top 5000
- First Hawaiian Bank – https://www.fhb.com/en – NOT in the top 5000
- Old National Bank – https://www.oldnational.com – NOT in the top 5000
- United Bank (West Virginia) – https://www.bankwithunited.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Flagstar Bank – https://www.flagstar.com – NOT in the top 5000
- MidFirst Bank – https://www.midfirst.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Macy’s (financing?) – https://www.macys.com/my-credit/gateway/guest – NOT in the top 5000, but the credit gateway did show 250,000+ visits/mo organically
- Arvest Bank – https://www.arvest.com – NOT in the top 5000
- FirstBank Holding Co – https://www.efirstbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Cadence Bank – https://cadencebank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Bank of Hawaii – https://www.boh.com/personal – NOT in the top 5000
- Cathay Bank – https://www.cathaybank.com/home – NOT in the top 5000
- Atlantic Union Bank – https://www.atlanticunionbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Washington Federal – https://www.washingtonfederal.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Simmons Bank – https://simmonsbank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- First Midwest Bank – https://www.firstmidwest.com – NOT in the top 5000
- South State Bank – https://www.southstatebank.com – NOT in the top 5000
- Bank of Hope – https://www.bankofhope.com – NOT in the top 5000
Disclaimer: By no means is this a scientific study and signals for people who bank with these companies to consider. The survey was simply done to show that there could be better online visibility and if taken seriously, there are many strategies these institutions could implement to enhance their ability to survive in today’s dog eat dog digital world. We’ve seen many companies fail to appreciate the fast moving digital space and periodically we examine an industry to see how they are doing in general. If you represent one of these banks or another financial institution who is curious how your digital marketing is doing, feel free to contact us at any time at hello@seattleorganicseo.com
