I spent a few hours at OMFINCON this week. The speaker lineup was genuinely strong. Topics like AI, GEO and the changing search landscape were everywhere. Speakers such as Dominik Wojcik and Andre Alpar discussed how AI is reshaping visibility, marketing and customer acquisition. In the end, I did not make it into a single talk.
The conversations outside were simply too interesting. Most of my time was spent talking to banks, affiliates, networks, partners, potential partners and even competitors.
Growth Is Becoming Harder
Even though AI was present in almost every discussion, many conversations eventually shifted toward growth and how difficult profitable growth in financial marketing has become.
A recurring topic was the growing tension between efficiency and new customer acquisition. Several people talked about increasingly aggressive optimization models, stricter performance steering and the challenge of scaling large budgets profitably.
Another interesting topic was the growing mid funnel problem in organic acquisition. Visibility alone no longer seems to be enough. The real battle increasingly happens between discovery and conversion.
Momentum Around Interest Based Products
Interest rates and the current momentum around savings and financing products were another major topic throughout the event. Several conversations focused on savings deposits, rising search demand and the increasingly aggressive competition between banks. At the same time, many market participants seem to be searching for simple and scalable growth opportunities.
On the one hand, the industry is heavily focused on AI, automation and efficiency. On the other hand, many companies are still trying to find scalable growth areas in an increasingly competitive environment.
Sometimes the most interesting part of a conference is not the stage, but the conversations happening in between.
