SmarterSends, the distributed marketing platform that lets local teams create and send on-brand messaging with corporate controlled guardrails, today detailed how its platform is purpose-built for the financial services industry and confirmed its first year as a sponsor of the Digital Marketing for Financial Services conference in New York, the financial services marketing industry’s flagship fall event, taking place October 28-29 at the New York Hilton Midtown.
Banks, credit unions, insurance carriers and wealth management firms operate under some of the strictest marketing compliance requirements of any industry, while facing constant pressure to make every branch, advisor and relationship manager feel local and personal. SmarterSends solves both problems at once: corporate sets the templates, approvals and legal controls one time, and every local team gets the creative freedom to personalize and send inside those guardrails, whether the channel is email, SMS, push, in-app or two-way SMS.
“Financial services marketers have spent years choosing between brand control and local relevance, like it’s one or the other,” said Evan Lazarus, co-founder of SmarterSends. “We built SmarterSends so a 200-branch bank or a national wealth management firm doesn’t have to make that trade. Corporate keeps every guardrail it needs for compliance, and the advisor in Cleveland still gets to send a message that sounds like it came from a human being who knows the client, not a corporate blast.”
SmarterSends runs all five channels, email, SMS, push, in-app and two-way SMS, through a single customer profile inside the marketing automation platform a financial brand already uses, including Attentive, Cordial, Braze, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Iterable, Zeta, Acoustic and Airship. The platform is SOC 2 Type II certified, and its Signal Rules Engine turns two-way SMS replies (appointment confirmations, product interest, account alerts) into triggers that feed directly into a brand’s existing segments, journeys and next-best-action workflows. Financial brands running SmarterSends also consolidate billing into a single corporate contract and invoice, with itemized usage reporting by branch for internal chargebacks. M&T Bank is among the regulated brands currently using the platform.
“SmarterSends bridges the gap between our technical and non-technical teams by enabling compliant, personalized marketing communications while providing the governance required in a highly regulated environment,” said Justin L. Mock, Senior Vice President, Performance Marketing Activation, Product Owner for Personalization & Orchestration at M&T Bank. “Beyond the platform itself, their highly responsive team continually partners with us to deliver enhancements that improve the user experience and strengthen operational oversight. We view them as a valued extension of our team.”
SmarterSends will make its first appearance as a sponsor of DMFS New York this year, running live product demonstrations for the marketing, digital and customer experience leaders from banks, credit unions, insurers and wealth management firms who attend. The conference is produced by Strategy Institute and draws senior marketing decision-makers from organizations including MetLife, JPMorgan Chase and RBC Global Asset Management.
“DMFS New York is where the people making these decisions actually are,” Lazarus said. “We’re not there to hand out pens. We’re there to show what it looks like when a bank’s compliance team and its 300 branch marketers stop fighting each other.”
Attendees can find SmarterSends at its booth throughout the event or schedule a meeting in advance at smartersends.com.
