SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.— Credit unions may be pouring too much of their marketing money into the wrong places—and one of the clearest signals in new research is that a channel many institutions already know well isn’t the one delivering the best perceived return.
A new report from Cornerstone Advisors, authored by Abbie Jones, Ron Shevlin and Elizabeth Gujral, found that while paid search commands the largest share of marketing budgets at banks and credit unions, email marketing was most often cited as the channel delivering the strongest ROI, underscoring what the firm described as a broad disconnect between where institutions spend and where they believe they get results.
In “The Marketing ROI Gap in Banking: How Financial Institutions Spend, Measure, and (Struggle to) Prove Marketing’s Value,” Cornerstone said the mismatch matters especially for community institutions such as credit unions that operate with tighter budgets while facing megabanks and fintechs that can outspend them on digital acquisition. The firm said the data suggests many institutions are still relying on familiar channels and legacy budgeting habits rather than hard evidence of performance—an issue that can leave credit unions overexposed in expensive channels where larger rivals hold a structural advantage.
The report, commissioned by Fintel Connect and based on a January-February 2026 survey of 126 senior executives at U.S. banks and credit unions, found that 52% of respondents were from credit unions and that institutions across both sectors spend an average of 10 basis points of assets on marketing annually. For credit unions specifically, the average came in at 0.1070% of assets, versus 0.0969% for banks, and nearly 31% of credit unions said they expected their 2026 marketing budget to rise by more than 10% from the prior year.
But Cornerstone’s core warning for credit unions is that more spending does not necessarily mean smarter spending. The study found 46% of respondents said paid search was among the two channels taking the largest share of budget, while only 12% said email marketing was one of the top budget recipients. Yet when asked which channels deliver the strongest ROI, 48% named email marketing, ahead of paid search at 38%. Cornerstone said that suggests channel allocations are being driven not just by performance, but by “accessibility and familiarity,” which can be costly for credit unions competing in auction-based ad markets dominated by bigger institutions.
Underused Opportunity
Another notable takeaway for credit unions: affiliate/partner marketing may be the most underused opportunity in the mix. Only about 32% of institutions said they actively invest in affiliate/partner marketing, but 21% called it the most underleveraged channel in their organization. Cornerstone said that channel ranked second overall in its effectiveness ratings and stood out particularly for customer and lead quality. Cornerstone argued that unlike paid search, affiliate and partner channels can better align with the local trust and relationship advantages community institutions already possess.
Just as troubling, Cornerstone said many banks and credit unions still lack the systems to prove what is working. Six in 10 executives said their core or CRM system limits their ability to measure marketing ROI, 28% said they do not have reliable attribution, and not a single respondent said their institution could reliably attribute all six outcome measures Cornerstone asked about, including account openings, funded accounts, balances and profitability. Meanwhile, 31% said they believe they are crediting the wrong marketing source more than a quarter of the time, while another 26% said they were not sure.
The report also found that 75% of institutions rank new accounts opened among their top three marketing success metrics and 56% cite funded loan volume, but only 25% put marketing-sourced deposits or balances in that top tier—an important finding for credit unions that increasingly need stable, lower-cost funding and relationship depth, not just raw account counts. Cornerstone warned that institutions may be optimizing for volume without sufficiently measuring quality, which can produce growth that looks good in dashboards but does not necessarily translate into long-term member value.
Cornerstone said marketing in many financial institutions is still treated as a support function instead of a growth function, pointing to prior research in which just 39% of senior executives said marketing was a critical contributor to strategic decision-making. The firm argued that until marketing leaders—especially at community institutions—build stronger ties to finance and IT, improve data quality, and develop a true core competency, debates over which channel is “best” will keep distracting from the larger problem: whether marketing is actually being used to lead growth or simply promote decisions made elsewhere.