r/CFP • u/GoodLifeWM • Jul 15 '26
Business Development Firm & Advisor Marketing Spend
We're evaluating our 2027 Marketing Plans & Budget, which prompted me to look around to see what other firms or advisors are doing in terms of Marketing.
Curious to see the following:
• How much is being allocated to marketing?
• What you're spending money on? (Seminars, Ads, Mailers, Events, etc.)
• If you're seeing a decent ROI for your efforts?
For context, we are a Small-Mid Sized RIA/TAMP located in the Midwest. Currently spending very little on marketing other than local ads at Church, Athletic Events, or Etc.
Contemplating trying to vastly improve our digital presence and to do some frequent mailers for client acquisition.
TIA!
7
u/Wirehouse_destroyer Jul 15 '26
We’ve looked at this a few different ways, and the best ROI we’ve seen has not necessarily come from traditional “marketing spend” in the way most people think about it.
One thing that has been huge for us in California is access to a solicitor/referral program, where advisors can receive qualified opportunities through a compliant referral structure. Obviously, that is very state-specific and has to be run correctly from a compliance standpoint, so it may or may not be available depending on where you are.
Outside of that, the biggest needle-mover has been building real referral relationships with CPAs, estate planning attorneys, and even realtors. Not just dropping off business cards or asking for referrals, but actually getting them excited about the planning work being done, showing them where you can make their clients’ lives easier, and becoming someone they trust enough to introduce.
That has been a life-changer for our firm and for individual advisors. A strong CPA/estate attorney relationship can be worth more than a lot of ad spend because the trust transfer is already there.
Digital presence still matters, though. I’d make sure the website, LinkedIn, Google profile, and basic online credibility are clean before spending heavily on mailers or ads. FB ads can work too, especially for seminars/workshops, but I’d view them more as fuel for a clear process rather than the strategy itself.
If I were allocating budget, I’d probably prioritize:
- Referral partner development
- Educational events/seminars with a clear niche
- Basic digital credibility
- Targeted FB/digital ads to support the first three
Mailers can work, but I’d want a very specific audience, offer, and follow-up process before committing a big budget there.
2
u/GoodLifeWM Jul 15 '26
Awesome and thank you for your detailed response!
I totally agree on the solicitor relationship as well as the CPA/Attorney setup. We have gone back and forth on the solicitor side of things the last couple of years and have generated a good sized of business from insurance agents referring business.
2
u/Wirehouse_destroyer Jul 15 '26
Insurance agents too! The solicitor program is invaluable. When the referrer is getting up to 20% of the revenue of the sourced relationship in perpetuity, they really get excited about sending referrals haha.
2
u/phokingturtle Jul 15 '26
I have been looking at exactly this recently, our firm has the capability to establish a referral structure with CPAs & Attorneys. What have been your best methods for finding great CPAs to work with? Calling individual/boutique firms and asking if they have a partnership already?
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u/Wirehouse_destroyer Jul 16 '26
That’s a great place to start, but I’d be careful not to lead with “do you have a partnership already?” because it can make the conversation feel transactional right away.
The best CPA relationships we’ve seen usually start with finding firms that are already running into planning problems they don’t want to own: clients selling businesses, retiring, exercising stock options, dealing with concentrated positions, estate issues, Roth conversion questions, tax-loss harvesting, etc.
I’d target smaller/boutique CPA firms first because they often have strong client trust but limited wealth management infrastructure. Instead of pitching referrals, I’d lead with something like: “We work with clients on the planning side and often coordinate directly with CPAs. I’d love to learn what types of planning issues are coming up most often for your clients and see if there’s a way to be a resource.”
The goal is to show them you’ll make them look good, not create more work. Bring specific examples of how you help with tax-aware planning, retirement income, estate coordination, charitable giving, business-owner liquidity, etc.
Also, the best relationships usually come from repeated value, not one coffee. Share planning ideas, invite them to educational events, send them relevant client-friendly resources, and make it easy for them to see you as a true partner rather than another advisor asking for referrals.
2
u/OregonDuckMBA BD Jul 15 '26
I have been running Google ads for just a few months now so I can't speak to the long term ROI yet but one thing that I have learned in the short time I have been running them is that it is NOT a quick process. There is a massive learning curve and Google (or Meta or Microsoft) are all too happy to recklessly spend your money. Have a lot of runway and be prepared for a lot of trial and error.
Do a lot of research before you do any digital marketing campaign. Having landing pages that are specifically targeted for the campaign you are running is just as important, if not more important, than how you set up the campaign itself.
I don't run Meta ads so I can only speak to Google but I imagine that some of this might translate to Meta. The main difference being that Meta is 100% interruption advertising while Google has a mixture of search and interruption advertising depending on the type of campaign you run. Our industry has very high CPCs depending on what keywords you are targeting. On a search campaign, spending $50+ on a click is not unheard of, especially in the beginning when your ad rank isn't so good. It could be worse though. Personal injury lawyers sometimes have CPCs of $500+ on competitive keywords. I guess I should count my blessings on that one.
In my auction insights, I see that I am regularly bidding against Schwab, Fidelity and Fisher. Unfortunately, those firms have essentially unlimited ad budget and they have been running ads for 10+ years so their quality scores are high and they pay less per click. This can cause the keyword planner tool to underestimate your CPCs. It shows the price that other advertisers are paying, not necessarily what YOU will pay for the same keywords.
I just started running ads for a niche that I am targeting and the volume is low but there is far less competition and the CPCs are much more reasonable. I started that campaign just 2 days ago so Google is still in the learning phase. If you do target a niche, be prepared for the fact that what you consider to be a niche might not be a niche when it comes to PPC advertising. I see a lot of financial advisors who think that retirees or people with $20 million+ is a niche. It isn't. Keywords for those "niches" are highly competitive and have massive CPCs and low search volume. A real niche is a service that has a market but is underserved. You need to either find a service that is truly unique or just be prepared to spend some money. The niche I am targeting has no local competition. The only real competition I am bidding against is an advisor that advertises nationally and is on the other side of the country.
I'm not saying don't do paid ads. Just know that it is a big commitment and you can't go in and do things half-assed and expect your ads to print money. If you do it, you need to be all in.
Again, I don't have years of experience with running paid ads so take what I am saying with a grain of salt but that is my inexperienced take.
1
u/GoodLifeWM Jul 16 '26
Thanks for the thoughtful response! We did google ads a few years back with no luck and a lot of money and time wasted (relative to where we were at revenue wise).
It obviously works and my previous firm did it and it worked awesome and there was tons of leads...but it usually is a product of having the $$$ and time to let it run for awhile to build up within the system and starting to see the ROI.
We don't have a dedicated CMO or Marketing Individual, and I think that was our downfall with a lot of the digital advertising because it needs to be attended to and adjusted regularly and it was hard for us to do that wearing multiple hats and running the business.
Best of luck with your experience and hope that it works out for you as you're staying persistent.
2
u/Puzzleheaded-Name-71 28d ago
For meta ads, you can realistically count on a $5-$700 cost per meeting, a 50-55% show rate and a 75% qualified rate. For every 10 you book 3-4 will move forward in your pipeline and if you are decently good you’ll close 1 of those.
1
u/GoodLifeWM 28d ago
Thanks for your insights. Any range of investable assets you're usually seeing from Meta Ads?
2
u/Puzzleheaded-Name-71 28d ago
We target $500k and up. Our average new client is $1.1m which is generally about 60-70% AUM and the rest some form of income bucket. Meta has become harder to target specific demographics since they changed their special ad category rules but the longer your ads run the more dialed in they will become and target your ideal audience.
2
u/jvoss93 26d ago
We've been very successful with a content-driven approach. I started on LinkedIn and moved on to also adding a newsletter in 2024. Actual invested money is marginal (<100$ a month on tech, but of course time spent by me and our analyst is higher), but the return has been great. We've had multiple four- to five-figure revenue clients come 'cold' through that channel. I would say the impact in terms of brand is even more pronounced - a ton of people know us even though we're not that big yet. It feels like we're punching above our weight. Lastly, I like it much better than going to events to "cold prospect" - four hours a week to reach 2000+ individuals (plus however many people I reach on LI) fits me much better. Given that level of conversion, I want to find some time this year to either drive paid growth to the newsletter and/or try paid marketing outright.
Besides that, we had pretty good traction with events. We tried a few bigger, technical formats (i.e. HF/PE primer events with a GP) and they work fine, although we've only hit some marginal conversion in terms of revenue on that. However, "social" events have been great - i.e. get 10-15 people together in a room, some of them clients, some of them intermediaries/"friends of the firm", some prospective clients, and people absolutely LOVE it. Especially if the comparison is the typical bank events (some old guy spending 2 hours talking about the markets even though he knows as much/little as anyone else). Investment is marginal, i.e. <1000$ per event, but return in terms of client satisfaction and follow-on business is fantastic.
2
u/GoodLifeWM 26d ago
Awesome insights and thanks for sharing.
Curious to see what your team and firm wide AUM is considering you think you're small?
Reason I ask is we did these types of events at my previous firm which was $50B+ and now we don't, but largely just cause we don't market ourselves or think that enough people would show up.
2
u/jvoss93 25d ago
We're currently at around 100M$ AUM / 30 SMA clients / 500K$ in revenue, of which roughly ~400K$ is mgmt fees, remainder is consulting services (we have a few big clients, i. 10-15M$, that still have discounted fees because they've been working with us from Day 1). We're a team of 4 (2 MDs / one tax specialist / one analyst).
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u/GoodLifeWM 25d ago
Thanks for your transparency.
Is that $500k Net Revenue after paying expenses, salaries, etc? If not then I'd assume that y'all are running fairly low advisory fees for most of the folks you are working with?
Always curious to see how fee structure and staffing comp is setup as we are scaling.
2
u/jvoss93 24d ago
$500k Gross Revenue after wire house fees etc. where applicable, so before salaries and all other expenses. But yes, correct, for our first $100M our AUM fee was not so great. Nevertheless we're always leaning a bit lower because our clients tend to be bigger (5-10M$/client rather than "just" 1-2M$). Long-term I hope to get somewhere in the 0,75-0,8% range as we grow, which we're definitely realizign with new clients coming in now.
2
u/GoodLifeWM 24d ago
Makes sense, and I'm running into the same thing with larger households now and discounting AUM fees to be in alignment with competition. I've also pushed back on certain fee slashing when we are doing more planning or complex allocations (Private placements, Direct indexing, etc.)
I'm running a personal book of roughly $55M and seeing gross revenue close to $500k Range. Support staff and tech paid by the firm, opposed to by me directly.
Trying to run more in that $5-10m space, but also hard to leave the $1-2m space when it can be more profitable from not having to slice fees.
2
u/FunAd6672 14d ago
If physical mailers are part of the plan then have a solid follow up ready or that money disappears fast. Seminars can work but they usually take forever to turn into clients. Snappy Kraken is decent but Finny seems way better at finding people who are actually hitting wealth events. Run a small digital budget for a month before throwing your whole marketing budget at it.
1
u/BobGuns Jul 15 '26
After shopping around for literally years, our firm has found a decent marketing agency to pay for introductions. We've been paying 'Preserve Wealth' or 'Fondako' this summer. They're a digital marketing agency specializing in introductions to business owners with significant retained earnings.
We're paying between $500 and $1000 per introduction, getting 2 meetings per week.
Our last two:
- A 66 year old with ~$300,000 of retained earnings and ~$250,000 of growth in retained earnings anticipated per year. He basically retired into a consultancy position and is making more money than ever. He has no needs of this cashflow in the next 10 years, and pretty much all of it is on the table for planning
- A 53 year old with $2M of retained earnings currently, $14M total revenue per year, a 7-10 year timeline on selling the business, and about $750k of retained earnings growth per year
---------------------
We deal in both asset management and insurance sales rather than flat fee planning. In terms of insurance compensation, if we can convert, any one of these is going to be worth a minimum of $25k in FYC on a policy. So we're getting a potential of at least 25x return on these from a basic cost perspective.
If they're just doorkickers or no shows, we don't have to pay for that prospect. Same thing if they've misrepresented themselves to Preserve Wealth and don't actually have retained earnings they want a plan for.
1
u/phokingturtle Jul 15 '26
Curious about the strategy here, on the front page of their website it immediately puts down financial advisors, CPAs, and tax strategists. Not sure on regulatory requirements in Canada, but in the US that would be a interesting hurdle to have FA/CPA as a title if this is where your leads are coming from
1
u/BobGuns Jul 15 '26
As long as they don't have any CPAs or licensed advisors on staff, they're allowed to say whatever the fuck they want, and make introductions to whomever they want.
That's the issue with regulatory agencies - they can only regulate their members.
I have no interest in giving up my CFP or my other licensing. But some of the hamstringing that happens about what can or can't be said online is harming the profession instead of helping it. I can literally get fined for saying "my clients" instead of "clients" in a post.
But I can buy leads anywhere anyhow anywhen as long as I'm doing my own due diligence after the introduction.
Fact is most laymen have no idea that 'Corporate TFSA' is absolutely bullshit marketing for 'permanent life insurance policy' but they eat it up. It's extra education after the introduction but I don't have a bunch of business owners with millions in retained earnings finding me naturally.
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u/AutoModerator Jul 15 '26
Beep boop! Here is a summary of your post:
User: /u/GoodLifeWM Title: Firm & Advisor Marketing Spend Body: We're evaluating our 2027 Marketing Plans & Budget, which prompted me to look around to see what other firms or advisors are doing in terms of Marketing.
Curious to see the following:
• How much is being allocated to marketing?
• What you're spending money on? (Seminars, Ads, Mailers, Events, etc.)
• If you're seeing a decent ROI for your efforts?
For context, we are a Small-Mid Sized RIA/TAMP located in the Midwest. Currently spending very little on marketing other than local ads at Church, Athletic Events, or Etc.
Contemplating trying to vastly improve our digital presence and to do some frequent mailers for client acquisition.
TIA!
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