A recent survey has highlighted gaps in knowledge among Australia's financial services marketing teams - particularly when it comes to applying analytics to digital marketing campaigns. The survey, run by Nigel Roberts, managing director of financial services marketing agency Yell Creative, covered all sectors of the industry, including retail banking, insurance, fintech, fund managers and superannuation funds. Marketing managers were asked where they were focusing their investments. The responses had quite a few surprises, said Roberts. Less surprisingly, he found there was a huge emphasis on digital marketing, while traditional print and TV advertising channels were becoming far less popular. "There is a clear intention to increase spending on all forms of digital marketing, including websites, display and search. The survey found 68 per cent of managers plan to increase content creation and even more on ensuring that content is promoted and discovered."Optimisation of on-site content is a big priority, with 79 per cent of marketers increasing their investment," said Roberts. Given the increasing importance of delivering financial services online, therefore, the general "hesitancy" in this area was unexpected, Roberts said.For instance, while all financial services companies said they wanted to be more consumer centric, few marketers have a strong grip on what skills are needed. And where they are deficient is in applying metrics to measure return on their investments. Complexity, lack of clear strategic input and lack of time and resources to apply lessons learned are all high on the list of difficulties admitted to by respondents."The financial services establishment faces a real challenge to become truly customer centric. This can only be met through massive investment in data management and platforms, yet very few organisations say they have the resources to undertake such investment," Roberts said.On his numbers, the barriers to measuring marketing ROI are many and varied, given the proliferation of channels on offer, each with different metrics of success."The approach to marketing has gone from a visible to a much more indirect one," Roberts said. "The measurement [of marketing spend], though, has become much more direct and much more accountable - and that's a shift which not everyone has caught up to. Some are doing it very well, some not so."In an era of stricter cost controls this is going to be a fraught exercise - all the more so when there are four big banks - owning 80 per cent of every market - and all fighting for a share of wallet from the same customers.Social media, though, was not a big priority for the respondents. One in three marketing managers will increase their investment in social media management systems, with more than half the managers surveyed (55 per cent) planning to keep their spending at current levels. Seven per cent said they didn't view social media as a marketing priority.This is in part because financial services marketers have long had concerns about how to use social media, according to Roberts. He said that, given the risks with managing reputation and giving general financial