49% of Consumers Google Your Institution Before Deciding. What Do They Find?

When a consumer is ready to open a new account or switch institutions, their first move is almost always digital. Forty-nine percent of consumers in our study use Google Search to research specific financial products. Thirty-four percent rely on friends and family recommendations. Twenty-eight percent check online reviews.

Your search presence — organic rankings, review scores, local pack visibility — is not a nice-to-have. It is the frontline of your marketing operation.

In 2026, ‘searching’ no longer means only typing keywords into Google. A growing and accelerating share of financial research is happening inside AI-powered tools: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overview, Claude, and others. When a consumer asks one of these tools ‘what is the best local bank in [city]’ or ‘should I use a credit union or a bank for my auto loan’ — the answer they receive is generated by a model, not a search results page.

The question is whether your institution is part of that answer.

Your digital reputation is a Millennial acquisition tool. If your Google reviews are sparse or unmanaged, you are losing Millennial prospects before they ever visit your website. If your website doesn’t clearly communicate fees, rates, and requirements within the first two clicks, you are losing them on arrival.

Millennials also use the widest range of channels of any generation in the survey — Google Search, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, financial websites, and word of mouth all play meaningful roles in their research process. Being present on only one or two channels is not enough to be visible to this cohort.

The institutions that win Millennial primary relationships are the ones that show up clearly, honestly, and consistently across all the places Millennials look. That’s not a campaign. It’s a communications strategy.