Getting people through the digital door of your Financial Services (FinServ) site is harder and more expensive than ever before. Customer expectations are at an all-time high, with every digital touchpoint carrying significant weight. You need to make every moment count from the second a customer lands on your site.
This isnβt just about attracting more clicks; itβs about drawing in the right kind of traffic and ensuring your digital experience seamlessly meets those users where they are. This article explores practical, data-driven strategies to boost traffic to your FinServ site so you can make those crucial first moments truly count.
Key traffic data points in Financial ServicesΒ
Understanding how customers interact with your digital platforms is crucial for fostering loyalty. Hereβs a look at the current traffic landscape for Financial Services from Contentsquareβs 2025 Digital Experience Benchmarks report.
Overall traffic decline: in 2024, total visits to FinServ sites dropped by -4.3% year-over-year. This decrease affected both new and returning visitors. Desktop traffic specifically saw a significant decline of -9.8%, while mobile traffic experienced a slight increase of +0.3%.
Paid vs. unpaid traffic: paid search is playing a larger role, now accounting for 11.7% of all FinServ website visits. Conversely, direct traffic has dropped below 50%, settling at 49.7%. Paid traffic converts at a lower rate (1.83%) compared to unpaid traffic (2.66%).
Bounce rates: across the FinServ industry, approximately 56% of all sessions end in a bounce, meaning users leave after viewing only the first page. This problem is even more pronounced for paid social channels, with nearly 9 out of 10 visitors bouncing. The bounce rate for paid social is 87.7%, which is significantly higher than other channels like paid search (54.0%) and organic search (51.7%).
Cost and engagement: the cost per visit for FinServ brands increased by +7% in 2024, which is higher than the average for other industries
Experience-driven growth: companies that prioritize a superior customer experience (CX) see notable business results. Experience-driven enterprises can achieve 1.7 times greater year-over-year revenue growth and 2.3 times higher customer lifetime value compared to their competitors. This highlights the importance of focusing on every digital touchpoint to improve trust and loyalty, which ultimately drives growth.
![[Visual] FinServ Benchmarks](http://images.ctfassets.net/gwbpo1m641r7/3w7nuvg9peEXgZHadTCmNQ/fa0c4b8782e43aadbabc8cc6e8286826/FinServ_Benchmarks.jpg?w=1920&q=100&fit=fill&fm=avif)
4 strategies to drive more traffic to your Financial Services site with Contentsquare
To genuinely improve your traffic performance, you need to deeply understand the context of your visitors and whether your site meets them where they are.Β
Here are 4 ways you can use Contentsquareβs experience intelligence platform to drive more traffic to your site.
1. Understand where your users come from
The first step in boosting traffic is knowing where your users are arriving from. You need to identify which channels bring visitors to your site and, critically, what happens immediately after they arrive. Are they leaving quickly, or are they engaging deeply with your content?
Contentsquare's Journey Analysis capability helps financial services sites increase traffic value by using sunburst chart visualizations to quickly spot what leads to high bounce rates and which pages drive deeper engagement.Β
By visualizing user paths, you can identify exactly where visitors exit and eliminate any barriers causing traffic loss. Financial services companies have achieved significant results including +4% increases in loan applications and 14% reductions in support page visits, proving that understanding different traffic source behaviors allows you to optimize experiences and transform high-bounce visitors into engaged prospects.
![[Visual] Journey analysis on reference mapping](http://images.ctfassets.net/gwbpo1m641r7/30V6WdNQ7xg3mlOFV7DkmY/0e2235977563e2c759fdbd873d51ae59/01-Masthead__1_.png?w=3840&q=100&fit=fill&fm=avif)
β‘οΈReal-life success story: how Admiral optimizes digital quality assurance (QA) with Contentsquare
International financial services group Admiral wanted to make sure their digital customers were getting the same quality service as their phone customers. The companyβs proposition and acquisition team turned to Contentsquare to help.
Using the platformβs Session Replay and Journey Analysis capabilities, Admiral's team discovered a common postcode error was causing friction for 69% of users in their quote journey.Β
By using these insights to prioritize and fix the issue, the team reduced the error rate to just 3.5% and increased their QA analysis outcome score by +15%, from 85% to 98%. This new process allowed them to find problems before customers got in touch, ensuring a more confident and efficient digital experience.
Read the full case study here.
Contentsquareβs Acquisition Analysis helps FinServ marketing teams understand how well different ads and campaigns are working to bring in new customers. This means you can find out which channels, such as search or social, are most effective at getting people to your site. By focusing your budget on these top-performing channels, you can then increase your return on ad spend (ROAS) and lower your customer acquisition cost (CAC).
![[Visual] acquisition-analysis](http://images.ctfassets.net/gwbpo1m641r7/12HAt7kCh8dBN8YH7Ng2NQ/cf28a76c809ac2e5d979a1402dfd0970/acquisition-analysis.png?w=3840&q=100&fit=fill&fm=avif)
And once on your site, itβs important to know what actions those users take, because users coming from different channels perform very differently on site. For example, Contentsquare's Digital Experience Benchmarks report found users coming in from paid search had a low bounce rate at 54%, compared to paid social, which was a much higher at 87.7%.Β
![[Visual] FinServ Bounce Rates 2025 DEB](http://images.ctfassets.net/gwbpo1m641r7/3WpNg6bX3uNgBWG44qImwz/3b1ecf55b78daea7867046aaebb3f541/FinServ_Bounce_Rates_2025_DEB.jpg?w=1920&q=100&fit=fill&fm=avif)
2. Rethink your acquisition mix
As AI tools like ChatGPT change how people search, relying on traditional organic traffic is becoming more challenging. This shift, however, opens the door to diversify your approach. By tapping into high-intent channels, such as industry media networks, comparison sites, and app-based platforms, you can reach and attract valuable financial service customers.
Contentsquareβs AI-powered Sense is your invaluable assistant when it comes to tapping into the right channels. Sense acts as your personal AI agent, surfacing key insights in minutes and recommending next steps that drive real impact.Β
You can ask Sense questions in natural language, and it instantly generates charts, explanations, and recommendations. For example, it can help you understand which acquisition channels are performing best and precisely where you might need to adjust your strategy to maximize results.
Curious about Sense? Watch this video for a deeper understanding:Β
We quickly recognized the potential of Chat with Sense in enabling team members without analytics expertise to perform behavioural data analysis. Anybody can ask Sense a question, you donβt have to be an expert. And itβs so fast: it gets us the insights we need in seconds. This supports the team when brainstorming, formulating hypotheses to validate with further analysis, and implementing quick wins. Itβs a great ally.
3. Connect cross-journey traffic insights
Your customers rarely engage with your brand through a single touchpoint. They move between different channels, devices, and digital propertiesβoften across multiple sessions. Relying on fragmented data can hide how these complex, multi-session journeys impact your acquisition efforts.
With Contentsquareβs Data Connect capability, you can automatically export behavioral, performance, and error data to your company's data warehouse. By combining Contentsquare's digital experience insights with data from other sources, such as CRM or marketing tools, you get a unified view for deeper analysis and data-driven action.
With Contentsquare, FinServ teams can identify which channels, like paid search or email, drive the most traffic and uncover where cross-device experiences may be hurting their acquisition efforts.Β
The platform also provides retroactive data access and unlimited historical storage, which helps data and analytics teams make smarter, more informed decisions.
For Financial Services with a mobile-first approach, mobile analytics is absolutely crucial. With 54% of FinServ traffic now coming from mobile devices, understanding this specific cohort is essential.Β
Contentsquareβs mobile analytics provides tag-free auto-capture and AI-powered insights for mobile apps, ensuring you understand user behavior across devices and platforms seamlessly.
4. Benchmark your acquisition performance against peers
Youβre not operating in isolation. Understanding how your traffic channels perform relative to your competitors can reveal critical opportunities and identify areas where your strategy needs a shift.
Contentsquareβs Benchmarks capability helps you compare your traffic channels against industry peers. Itβs an eye-opening way to see where youβre outperforming, where youβre falling short, and precisely where your acquisition mix needs to evolve.Β
You gain aggregated and anonymized insights on your companyβs performance compared to that of your industry peers, providing a comprehensive look at key trends in traffic, frustration, conversion, and retention. This external perspective ensures your decisions are backed by the broadest possible data, not just internal assumptions.
![[Visual] Heatmaps Leeds Building Society](http://images.ctfassets.net/gwbpo1m641r7/3MW6HOIWVjA5htHvzOfwEC/3446941f09125d35e4416aee3081468c/LBS-image3.png?w=3840&q=100&fit=fill&fm=avif)
π‘Pro tip: to reduce bounce rates on your paid social campaigns, always ensure your landing page headline and visuals directly match your adβs promise. If your ad promotes βAffordable Insurance in 3 Minutesβ, your landing page should immediately deliver on that. This immediate alignment prevents user confusion and frustration, making their first moment on your site a smooth one.
Drive smarter traffic to your site with Contentsquare
Attracting more traffic to your FinServ site isn't just about increasing clicks; it's about understanding every step of your customer's journey and proactively optimizing their experience.Β
With Contentsquare, you're equipped with the insights you need to drive higher-quality traffic, which leads to an increase in engagement and ultimately, more visitors converting into loyal customers. It's time to move with confidence, backed by data, and turn routine visits into high-impact journeys that truly benefit your business and your customers.