Offering financial support through customer life stage journeys is part of the play.

For marketers, millennials represent high engagement across social platforms and elevated price sensitivity amid cost-of-living pressures.

This FAQ discusses how the holiday marketing season is evolving into a longer, leaner, and more competitive period, driven by economic headwinds, earlier shopping behavior, and the growing importance of retail media. It outlines why marketers must plan earlier, prioritize measurable and omnichannel strategies, and avoid overconcentrating spend around the Cyber Five to capture demand across an extended season.

PayPal rolled out Transaction Graph Insights & Measurement at CES to gives advertisers and merchants a clearer, cross-merchant view of how people actually shop and purchase—and early results suggest meaningful impact.

Block will pilot a real-time credit scoring model called Cash App Score, per a press release. Users’ Cash App Scores are based on financial behaviors within the Cash App ecosystem: deposit frequency, spending habits, savings activity, and repayment history, and other metrics. Cash App’s micro loans have acted as a proof of concept for its proprietary underwriting model, which it now likely wants to expand into larger-value (and more lucrative) lending. Giving consumers a visible—and highly manipulable—score can boost loan value and overall engagement.

FICO introduced a new model for pricing and licensing its score for tri-merge resellers—vendors that consolidate credit reports and provide reporting to mortgage lenders, per The Wall Street Journal. This is another shot in the protracted war between FICO and the credit bureaus. VantageScore is a credible threat to FICO’s dominance, but the bureaus will lose the markup on the FICO scores that they were distributing. In addition, margins will get squeezed as they lose the markup from resales.

The news: Klarna and Afterpay will not share the majority of their consumers’ loan information with credit bureaus until they can receive confirmation that their customers will not be penalized for seeking buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans. Our take: Affirm’s early plunge into credit reporting has been blunted against its competitors’ refusal to participate in the system, but it still takes the reputational lead in terms of being a “trustworthy” provider.

Fandom has partnered with Experian and Audigent to enhance its AI-driven Helix platform, integrating over 2,400 syndicated audience segments to deliver deeper fan insights. The move empowers marketers to combine third-party data with first-party fan behavior, unlocking targeting based on motivations, not just demographics. Early results show significant brand lift in awareness and purchase intent. This partnership marks Fandom’s evolution into a data-rich media platform, aiming to help advertisers tap into emotional fandom signals across CTV, mobile, and digital. Despite criticism over ad clutter, the platform’s scale and Gen Z reach position it as a leader in culture-driven targeting.

The news: FICO will release credit scores that incorporate buy now, pay later (BNPL) reporting this autumn, per a press release. Our take: Reporting BNPL data to the credit bureaus would be a solid step toward combatting BNPL’s “phantom debt” criticism.

The BNPL provider is taking the lead on credit reporting as the industry waits for regulatory clarity

This leaves the BNPL industry back at square one in terms of regulation, creating uncertainty for providers

Issuers can tap these models to reach a new customer segment and boost their credit card account openings

BNPL credit reporting has been hotly debated, but Affirm argues it will help consumers build credit

Its expansion reflects a financial sector trend of finding new modes for profit generation amid market volatility.

Growth in digital account openings for credit cards is slowing, thanks to tightening standards and changing generational behaviors. But issuers are utilizing new tools to keep it afloat.

With some legacy identifiers already in the history books and the rest on the chopping block, the digital ad industry is finally getting serious about adopting targeting and measurement practices that don’t rely on cookies and mobile IDs.

UK-based Monese’s in-house Credit Builder product lets customers develop credit histories through savings deposits. The data could also grow its lending.

Customer-friendly services—like switching current accounts and data sharing through open banking—helped almost one in three UK consumers form new banking relationships.

Clearscore is now valued at $645 million thanks to lenders eager to use its open banking-powered marketplace for matchmaking with borrowers—as some credit bureaus are already doing.

Revamping a century-old business magazine is like changing car tires at 100 mph, according to Salah Zalatimo, chief digital officer at Forbes. Like a Nascar pit crew, the team responsible for transforming a company like Forbes has to work quickly and precisely.