How Regions Bank Created a Frictionless Customer Journey with Unified Measurement
“We now know exactly what we are doing with our media spend, who we are targeting, and how we are using our media to do it.” — Michele Elrod, EVP, Head of Marketing
CUSTOMER CHALLENGE
Regions Bank, a full-service financial institution operating across the South, Midwest, and Texas, serves millions through over 1,500 branches, nearly 2,000 ATMs, and a broad media mix that includes TV, radio, digital, and owned properties.
Yet with so many potential touchpoints, the marketing team faced a common—and critical—problem: understanding which combinations of creative, message, and media were truly reducing friction in the customer journey.
Traditional measurement tools Regions was using, like marketing mix modeling, offered slow, retrospective insights and failed to account for the dynamic, interconnected nature of the modern consumer experience. They also undervalued brand-building activity, limiting Regions’ ability to justify investment across the funnel.
To compete against national brands and local challengers alike, Regions needed to shift from siloed measurement toward a unified view—one that could support timely, data-driven decisions and maximize the impact of every marketing dollar.
SOLUTION & INSIGHT
Regions partnered with Marketing Evolution to unify measurement and enable person-level optimization. The first step: building a detailed picture of its audiences by combining first-party data with demographic profiles, TV set-top box data, and digital log files.
From there, cross-channel analysis revealed how each tactic contributed—or didn’t—to business outcomes. The platform returned segment-level and tactic-level media recommendations, identifying the best combinations of message, audience, and media.
This approach gave Regions the ability to act while campaigns were live, refining spend based on what was working in real time.
One particularly valuable insight came from comparing performance across different customer segments. Frequency-to-impact analysis on cable media like ESPN Prime helped the team pinpoint where additional investment would yield the highest return. This insight wasn’t just tactical—it gave the marketing team a strategic lever to improve performance across markets and channels.
By shifting to person-level marketing and optimization across segments:
+100% increase in ROI
+100% lift in incremental revenue driven by new checking account openings
2X contribution to sales Marketing doubled its impact
OUTCOMES
With Marketing Evolution, Regions Bank was able to integrate a broad range of user-level data, including brand insights. This helped reveal what mattered most to potential customers as they considered their banking options.
The insights generated highlighted for Regions Bank that the key to unlocking success in this crowded marketplace was to focus attention on their understanding of and unique relationship with their customers. They learned that focusing attention on the location of their branches in potential account holders’ neighborhoods as well as their commitment to local banking was the key to unlocking higher ROI for their marketing spend
Regions Bank gained the tools to make confident, timely decisions about where to invest next. With a clearer understanding of which touchpoints worked together—and which didn’t—the team was able to remove friction from the customer journey, acquire more new accounts, and deepen existing relationships.
More importantly, marketing earned a seat at the table. By proving its financial impact, the team was able to shift internal perception, accelerate growth, and solidify its role as a driver of business outcomes.
