Fintech media seek balance between monetization and trust

One auction for in-house and third-party ads

The number of ad slots is limited, and platforms have to choose between the bank's own products and external advertisers. Ekaterina Strelnikova, Executive Director of SberAds, suggested not dividing inventory into "ours" and "theirs." "I wouldn't divide it into ours and theirs here, because for the end user what really matters is the relevance of the offer at the right moment," she said.

At T-Bank, the problem is solved through a shared auction of internal and external offers. The mechanism not only grows ad revenue but also pushes internal marketing teams to improve communication efficiency, Nazarenko said. Khokhlov added: developing such systems will require calculating effective cost per mille (eCPM), conversion forecasting, and accounting for customer lifetime value (LTV).

Protection against "push blindness"

Push notifications attract advertisers, but overload leads users to disable them entirely — Nazarenko called this "push blindness." At T-Bank, the system for controlling communication frequency took shape even before the launch of partner advertising: it relies on analytics, testing, and user metrics. External offers are built into existing limits, so mass messaging to a single client is technically impossible.

Khokhlov emphasized: the load must be managed with a product approach — through A/B tests, monitoring key metrics, support requests, and complaints. Shklyaev reminded that the fintech media market is still taking shape, and platforms can grow without artificially increasing contact frequency.

Performance or brand?

Participants disagreed on the channel's role in the marketing funnel. Shklyaev noted: banking apps are no longer just financial tools — users consume entertainment content and stories, which opens up opportunities for emotional communication. Nazarenko cited the example of T-Bank's gaming services, used regularly by hundreds of thousands of clients. At the same time, advertiser selection remains strict: "If we are trying to promote or push someone within T-Bank, we trust that brand by default and we share the trust we have with that brand."

Khokhlov took a more reserved position: building mass awareness for federal brands still requires higher-reach channels.

Verification and receipts

In the second part of the discussion, experts addressed independent impression verification. Shklyaev stated the requirement plainly: "If you're selling impressions, please, you need someone independent who will report how many impressions there were." For performance advertising, the issue is partially resolved by evaluating final actions and transactions, but media advertising requires Brand Lift and Sales Lift measurements over a long horizon.

Khokhlov pointed to technical limitations: a third-party pixel in a mobile app does not always correctly count unique reach and attribution. A separate challenge is analyzing sales of specific products in FMCG and retail: banking transactions show the amount and category of a purchase, but not the contents of the receipt. Nazarenko reported that T-Bank has been developing product receipt recognition for several years, based on partner data and receipts uploaded by users — product recognition quality has exceeded 75%.

Strelnikova noted the prospects of combining anonymized banking and receipt data, recommendation technologies, and auction mechanisms with product information. In closing, Alexander Papkov proposed developing measurement and ad data handling standards at an industry level — in his view, common principles of transparency will allow the market to grow faster.