Making waves: what stood out in Alkami Co:lab’s Data & Marketing sessions

San Diego, you delivered the sunshine, the energy, and the big ideas at Alkami Co:lab 2026! From ocean views to bold conversations, this year’s conference brought together forward-thinking financial institutions ready to shape what’s next. Now, let’s rewind and dive into the moments that made the biggest splash!

Across Data & Marketing sessions, attendees explored how to move faster, think smarter, and create more meaningful connections with account holders using financial services data analytics. From new innovations across the Alkami Digital Sales & Service Platform to fresh ways to turn data into action, the conversations were focused on one thing: making every interaction count.

In this recap, we’re breaking down the standout insights, strategies, and real-world perspectives shared by Alkami customers and industry leaders, so you can take what was discussed and put it into motion.

Tides of Innovation: A Data & Marketing Customer Conversation

This session brought together Caleb Wallis, vice president of marketing at Atomic Credit Union (Atomic) and Adriana Freeman, vice president of marketing at Signal Financial Federal Credit Union (Signal) to discuss what happens when data moves from a marketing input to a growth lever.

Caleb shared how the two-person marketing team at Atomic used Alkami and HubSpot to scale from running just one campaign a week to 7–8 campaigns at a time. Adriana added that marketing works best when it is tightly aligned with retail banking, member experience, and leadership priorities, so campaign strategy is measured by revenue contribution and organizational impact, not just clicks.

The strongest proof points came from measurable outcomes.

Signal results

• 90-day certificate of deposit (CD) campaign that delivered 131 new CDs totaling $5M

Atomic results

• 90-day auto loan campaign that generated 246 auto loans totaling $5.9M
• Since launching targeted marketing efforts, Atomic saw 17X growth in monthly conversions (from 30 in February 2025 to 538 in February 2026)

Better targeting, faster execution, and tighter coordination with frontline teams turn marketing into a much larger sales engine.

What’s New in Data & Marketing

This session featured Jeffrey Wright, digital communications and strategy manager at Colony Bank, John Redmond, product manager at Alkami and Mark Leher, director of product management at Alkami. Together, they explored how financial institutions can evolve from fragmented campaign execution to a data-driven growth engine. The conversation centered on recent product enhancements, upcoming innovations, and how financial institutions can drive results that resonate beyond marketing.

A key theme was shifting from activity to impact. New capabilities like programmatic digital advertising, out-of-the-box campaigns, and hyper-personalized messaging enable financial institutions to reach account holders in real moments with relevant offers.

For banks and credit unions looking to launch their own data-driven marketing, Jeffrey suggested starting small with pilot budgets, proving return on investment (ROI) within 90 days, and scaling what works.

Charting Your Course with Data

This session brought together Dave Marx, director of digital strategy and marketing and Jennifer Copp, digital experience product manager, both from Corning Credit Union (Corning), alongside Jason Chilcoat, director of product management at Alkami. The conversation pulled back the curtain on what it actually takes to become a data-informed financial institution, starting from a fragmented environment to building an actionable data foundation. Their journey reflects a broader industry reality: though many banks and credit unions aren’t lacking data, they’re struggling to activate it.

A central theme was the disciplined evolution of data maturity. The team outlined a multi-year progression: first understanding available data, then building a centralized foundation, and only then executing with confidence. By harmonizing data across systems and solving for campaign attribution (like connecting digital engagement to application outcomes), they moved from guesswork to clarity. Just as important, they emphasized that success required organizational change, such as bringing marketing into IT, investing in new roles like data analysts, and aligning teams around shared key performance indicators (KPIs) tied to growth.

How Digital Banking and Data Drive Faster Product Adoption

This session featured Tessa Moretti, AVP, director of marketing and communications at Towpath Credit Union (Towpath) in conversation with Mark Leher, director of product management at Alkami. The discussion centered on Towpath’s full-scale digital transformation, spanning core, loan origination, and digital banking solutions. What emerged is a clear example of a data-informed team leaning into the future of Anticipatory Banking: using technology not simply to keep pace, but to proactively meet account holder expectations and compete far beyond their size.

The most compelling takeaway was how Towpath reframed marketing from a cost center into a measurable growth and efficiency driver.

By activating Alkami’s Data & Marketing capabilities, the Towpath team:

• Gained over 1,500 e-statement enrollments, saving more than $70,000 in mailing costs
• Increased engagement from 1.7 to 2.79 products and services per account holder
• Attributed 18% of funded auto loans in 2025 to targeted campaigns

Read more about Towpath’s success leveling up their digital experience and engagement here.

This is the mindset shift many institutions struggle to operationalize—proving incremental lift, not just activity. Towpath showed that when marketing is tied to outcomes, it becomes defensible, scalable, and central to growth.

Deep Dive in Omnichannel Marketing

This session featured Damian Jakubczyk, senior vice president of digital innovation at Canvas Credit Union (Canvas) and Mark Leher, director of product management at Alkami. Damian and Mark explored how activating data through Alkami’s Data & Marketing capabilities have achieved key outcomes for Canvas, such as driving lending, growing deposits, and boosting engagement.

They highlighted two campaigns by Canvas. The first campaign focused on awareness and adoption of Canvas Easy Rewards Checking, resulting in $1.09 million in deposits. The second was a savings cross-sell campaign aimed at converting existing savings account holders, generating $1.13 million in savings deposits.

Then Damian and Mark discussed the challenge of digital banking adoption and a pilot program designed to reach non-digital banking members through digital channels. They talked about the outcome of the pilot, including how to interpret the lift in digital banking registrations that occurred during the campaign. This pilot demonstrated the importance of interpreting marketing campaign results in context of the totality of a financial institution’s marketing efforts.

Roundtable: Marketing with Meaning

This roundtable highlighted a clear shift: marketing is moving from reactive campaigns to anticipatory growth. The most successful teams are using data to deliver timely, relevant offers grounded in real account holder behavior, while leaning into their strengths, whether that’s segmentation, speed, or cross-team alignment. The biggest opportunity ahead is using data and artificial intelligence (AI) to engage account holders before they express a need.

Hands-On Training: CSI San Diego: From Operational Data & Insights to Key Performance Indicators

This guided session led by Max Parker at Alkami challenged a common trap: more data doesn’t lead to better decisions — clear KPIs do. Instead of overwhelming leaders with dashboards, the focus shifted to using Operational Data & Insights’ reports as an investigative toolkit, helping teams identify a small set of meaningful KPIs that directly answer real business questions. The goal is simple: move from reporting activity to explaining performance, where the digital channel is driving growth, where it’s falling short, and why.