Want fries with that bank statement?

Your bank statement is the last place you expect to be asked "Do you want fries with that?"

But McDonald's is among a number of retailers who are now advertising in online bank statements. They may not just suggest you get fries on your next visit, they'll offer you 10% cash back, with the clickable "coupon" going right on your debit card. You may get the same offer from McDonald's if you've used your debit card to charge a meal at Burger King.

The banks see the advertising money as a way to replace revenue lost by new rules on interchange fees and as a substitute for rewards programs that cost them money. The merchants like the ads because they can target customers who are interested in their products.

The online advertising in bank statements is yet another twist on targeted advertising, which delivers ads to customers based on past behavior. If you have no charges at fast-food restaurants, you won't be offered McDonald's coupons.

This is how Ylan Q. Mui of The Washington Post explains the issue:

Online banking is the latest frontier in the controversial field known as behavioral marketing, in which detailed personal information is used to target advertising. Consumer groups have decried the practice as an invasion of privacy, particularly since users often do not realize who has access to the most intimate details of their lives.

Banks say customers' personal data isn't shared with marketers, and customers can opt not to see the ads in their bank statements.

Cardlytics, the company that supplies the ads to banks, sees its marketing as less invasive than the typical Internet marketing, which collects "cookies" from Internet browsing.

"We don't cookie customers and follow them around the Web," Meghan Keane of the Econsultancy blog quoted Hans Theisen, chief revenue officer, as telling Advertising Age. "It's less infringing upon a customer's privacy than many behavioral-targeting​ companies."

Participating banks and merchants, which include Macy's and Staples as well as McDonald's, like the program, Cardlytics CEO Scott Grimes told the Post, and customers are responding. The company is rolling out a mobile version.

When McDonald's inserted an ad in bank statements in Houston, almost 20% of customers who had eaten at another fast-food restaurant took McDonald's up on its offer for 10% cash back on their next purchase at McDonald's. Among customers who had spent $75 or more at fast-food restaurants in three months, 60% activated the offer, the Post reported.

What do you think? Would you like to see "coupons" from businesses you patronize on your electronic bank statements? Or do you think that this kind of targeted advertising requires sacrificing too much privacy?

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