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2026 Event Trends: Experience Will Outperform Information

Posted on by Jill Hamilton

As you start mapping out your 2026 marketing strategy, it’s worth asking a simple question:

Why would someone attend your event?

Advisors, asset managers, and fintech leaders are overwhelmed with content. Between webinars, podcasts, LinkedIn posts, and AI summaries, information is everywhere, and it’s available instantly.

Genuine connection isn’t as easy to access.

In 2026, events won’t stand out because of how much information they offer. They’ll stand out because of how they make people feel and who they bring into the room.

People Don’t Show Up for Slides

For years, many agendas were built around volume: more panels, more speakers, more sessions. But today, professionals can get insights without boarding a flight or even leaving their desk.

They attend in-person events to:

  • Meet people they wouldn’t have access to otherwise
  • Have candid conversations
  • Strengthen relationships
  • Step away from their day-to-day responsibilities

If your event is just a webinar with better catering, it’s going to be a hard sell.

Prioritize Purposeful Connections

The events that will win in 2026 will be intentionally designed around valuable interactions. We’re increasingly seeing a shift toward:

  • Smaller, curated gatherings
  • Roundtables instead of traditional panels
  • Facilitated discussions that invite participation
  • Dinners with thoughtful seating arrangements

These formats create space for real dialogue, which builds trust and connection in our industry. Here’s a practical look at the strategies we’ve seen foster meaningful conversation and engagement:

  • Keep attendees together in one space rather than multiple breakout rooms
  • Use rounds for seating instead of classroom- or theater-style seating
  • Trade long slide decks for graphics pictures, and short videos
  • Experiment with fireside chats
  • Shift from speaker-centric sessions to peer-to-peer learning environments

The Real Advantage

As budgets tighten, leadership teams are looking beyond attendance numbers to more qualitative results:

  • Did we strengthen relationships?
  • Did we facilitate meaningful introductions?
  • Would they attend again?

In a competitive marketplace where many firms offer similar services and AI continues to threaten authenticity, delivering a unique and valuable experience can become a powerful differentiator.

As you plan for 2026, consider this:

Are you simply delivering information, or are you intentionally designing an experience people won’t forget?

If you’re looking to create more thoughtful, experience-driven events next year, we’d be happy to help you build a strategy that aligns with your growth goals. Get in touch with us here.

Are You Earning the Right to Ask? Why Short-Term Marketing Wins Create Long-Term Risk

Posted on by Kelly Waltrich

Recently, I hosted a webinar with Sheryl O’Connor, CEO of IncomeConductor, focused on the importance of building trust with prospective clients, and how to do so in a world where generic AI content is stripping firms of what makes them unique and relatable.

One idea kept resurfacing:

Are you earning the right to ask?

  • For demos.
  • For meetings or phone calls.
  • For event attendance.
  • For attention and engagement.

Too much marketing today skips straight to the ask, assuming prospects know who we are, understand what we do, and owe us their time simply because we showed up in their inbox or LinkedIn feed.

They don’t.

And I can say this with confidence because I see it every day.

What Firms Ask Us For

At Intention.ly, 99% of companies that come to us are chasing those accelerated wins.

They want:

  • Leads now
  • Quick wins
  • Lower cost per meeting this quarter
  • Campaigns that “start working immediately”

To be clear, we’re very good at delivering that. We can generate demand fast. We know how to activate channels, sharpen CTAs, and create near-term momentum.

But we’re also upfront about the fact that if that’s all your firm is doing, you’re not setting yourself up for long-term success.

I’ll show you why using stories from two firms I recently talked to. 

Company A: Chasing the Quick, Cheap Lead

The mindset: “Get us leads now. We can worry about brand later.”

What their marketing looks like:

  • Cold outbound emails pushing demos
  • Paid campaigns optimized for clicks rather than audience fit or relevance
  • Feature-heavy content
  • Positioning that sounds like every competitor: “Streamline your workflow and save time”

The experience for prospects:

  • They see the company’s name for the first time in a cold pitch
  • They have no context for what makes this solution different from the five other tools they saw this month
  • They’re being pushed to book a demo before understanding if this even solves their problem

Short-term reality:

  • They generate 60 demo requests a month
  • The marketing dashboard shows green arrows for short-term success metrics
  • Leadership feels momentum

Long-term reality:

  • Only a few of those demos are qualified prospects
  • Cost per qualified lead continues to climb
  • Sales cycles drag on for months because trust and education happen entirely in the sales process
  • Brand awareness never improves

Because they continue to prioritize short-term attention over long-term success, they’re trapped in a cycle of paying more for the same attention, forever renting demand instead of owning it.

Company B: Laying the Foundation First

The mindset: “Let’s add value and earn attention before we ask for it.”

What their marketing looks like:

  • Consistent thought leadership addressing real problems their audience faces
  • Educational content that demonstrates deep understanding of the market
  • Stories showing honest results, including challenges and timelines
  • Positioning rooted in a clear point of view that differentiates them

The experience for prospects:

  • They encounter the company’s content multiple times before any outreach
  • When a sales email arrives, they already understand what the company believes
  • They reach out to book a demo because they know how the company can solve their problems

Short-term reality:

  • They book far fewer demos initially
  • Leadership trusts their process rather than changing gears to drive short-term wins

Long-term reality:

  • Within months, most demos come from inbound requests
  • Sales cycles compress dramatically because prospects are bought in by the time they talk to sales
  • Cost per qualified lead drops as brand awareness grows

They’re generating more pipeline while spending less on acquisition. Their content qualifies prospects before sales gets involved.

The Difference Compounds Long Term

Fast forward five or 10 years, and the difference becomes impossible to ignore.

Five or ten years out:

  • Company A is paying more than ever for the same leads
  • Their CAC keeps climbing
  • Growth depends entirely on budget, not brand

Meanwhile:

  • Company B is generating demand at a fraction of the cost
  • Their content, credibility, and reputation do the heavy lifting
  • Their marketing works even when spend slows

One company is still asking for attention. The other has earned it.

Are You Building for the Next Quarter or the Next Decade?

The firms winning long-term aren’t doing it with louder messaging or cheaper leads.

They’re doing it by earning attention before they ask for it. They publish ideas that challenge how their market thinks and take clear, unequivocal positions. They demonstrate credibility before demanding time so that when they finally make an ask, it doesn’t feel like an intrusion.

Ask yourself: Are you willing to invest in building trust, or do you want to keep buying short-term engagement?

The brands that will dominate 10 years from now are laying the foundation right now. If you want to be one of them, let’s talk.

Measuring What Matters: Marketing Attribution for Financial Services

Posted on by Lauren Sanders

Most financial firms come to us unsure of which marketing initiatives are actually bringing in clients.

The attribution challenge is understandable, especially as the modern buyer journey evolves further away from the classic linear “funnel.” A prospect might discover your firm through a LinkedIn post, download a whitepaper six months later, attend a webinar the following quarter, and finally schedule a consultation after receiving five emails and a phone call. By the time they become a client—often 12 to 18 months after first contact—connecting that relationship back to its origin feels nearly impossible.

But you can’t optimize what you don’t measure. Building an intentional attribution system allows you to prioritize the initiatives that are moving the needle and stop wasting budget on the ones that aren’t.

The Attribution Foundation: CRM and Marketing Automation Integration

When your marketing platform and CRM operate in silos, you’re left guessing about what’s working.

At minimum, your integration should capture the original lead source for every contact, track all marketing touchpoints (emails opened, content downloaded, events attended), record sales activities and meeting notes in the same system, and maintain a clear timeline from first touch through conversion.

The specific platforms matter less than the connection between them. Whether you’re using Salesforce, HubSpot, Wealthbox, Redtail, or another CRM, marketing activity data should flow into the same record where sales tracks their conversations. 

Common integration gaps we see include webinar registrations that don’t sync to contact records, website form submissions that create duplicate records, and email engagement data that lives separately from sales notes. 

For firms building or rebuilding their attribution infrastructure, expect to take a phased approach: foundation work (system selection, data cleanup, basic source tracking) in the first few months, followed by integration and lead scoring implementation, then optimization based on actual results. Most firms need nine to twelve months to reach meaningful attribution maturity.

Not sure where you stand? Audit your current setup by following a recent client backward—can you see their complete journey in one place? 

Lead Scoring for Long Sales Cycles

Traditional lead scoring models were built for transactional sales, not relationships that develop over months or years the way they do in financial services.

In our industry, effective lead scoring weighs:

  • Demographic fit (assets, profession, life stage, geography)
  • Engagement depth (not just frequency)
  • Intent signals (pricing page visits, consultation requests)
  • Recency and consistency of engagement 

You should also consider implementing lead score decay, where points decrease over time without new engagement. This way, your sales team isn’t putting the same amount of energy and resources into chasing leads who have gone cold.

The Marketing-to-Sales Handoff

The threshold for handoff from marketing to sales depends on your firm’s unique capacity and close rates.

Define explicitly what triggers a handoff (score threshold, specific actions, or both), what information transfers with the lead, what response time is expected from sales, and what happens if sales doesn’t act or disqualifies the lead.

Marketing should provide sales with the complete engagement history, the specific content or campaigns the prospect engaged with, any information collected through forms or progressive profiling, and context about what likely prompted current interest.

And sales should offer feedback to marketing on lead quality. Marketing needs to understand not just whether they closed, but whether they were qualified, what objections arose, and what additional information would have helped so they can continuously optimize efforts.

Establish a regular meeting—weekly or biweekly—where marketing and sales review recent handoffs, discuss pipeline quality, and align on upcoming campaigns.

Understanding Attribution Models

Single-touch attribution, or crediting only the first or last interaction with a prospect, can dramatically misrepresent what’s working in your marketing.

Consider multi-touch models, including linear attribution, which gives equal credit to every touchpoint; time-decay attribution, which weights recent touches more heavily; and position-based attribution, which emphasizes first and last touches while still crediting interactions in the middle of the prospect journey.,

For firms with sales cycles exceeding 12 months, time-decay often provides the most useful insights. In this model, early awareness-building matters, but recent engagement more directly influences conversion.

Whatever model you choose, document it clearly. When leadership asks why you’re investing in webinars or content marketing, you need to be able to articulate how those activities contribute to eventual client acquisition.

Bringing Everything Together

Your technology and attribution processes are only as effective as your team’s willingness to use them. For attribution to be successful, you need sales buy-in on lead scoring and handoff processes, consistent data entry habits from everyone who touches prospect records, regular review and refinement based on what the data shows, and willingness to adapt.

Firms often find it helpful to identify one important question to answer:

  • Which marketing channel produces our best clients? 
  • What kind of content do clients typically engage with before requesting a meeting? 
  • How long does an average sales cycle take?

Build the tracking to answer that question first, then expand.

Financial services relationships are complex and the time it takes to build them can transcend fiscal years. Challenges in our industry make tracking and measurement more difficult but doing the foundational work drives smarter marketing decisions, better relationships between marketing and sales, and a more streamlined journey for prospects.

Need help determining if you have attribution gaps? Schedule a complimentary strategy call with our team by clicking here!

AI Is Rewriting the Buyer’s Journey, and Most Marketing Funnels Aren’t Ready

Posted on by Kelly Waltrich

Executive Summary

AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are fundamentally changing how buyers research, compare, and choose financial services providers. The traditional marketing funnel is compressing, and brands that fail to adapt risk becoming invisible before prospects even know they exist. Three priorities should guide your next moves:

  • Optimize for AI inclusion, not just search rankings. Structure your content so AI tools can identify, summarize, and credit your expertise. Publish substantive insights rather than keyword-driven filler.
  • Make your brand easy to cite. AI condenses information ruthlessly. If your differentiators aren’t clear and distinct, they disappear. Create accurate, current content that machines and humans can reference confidently.
  • Measure what matters now. Traditional metrics like page views and click-through rates don’t capture AI visibility. Track whether your brand appears in AI-generated recommendations and curated lists.

This article was originally published in Citybiz on January 15, 2026: AI Is Rewriting the Buyer’s Journey, and Most Marketing Funnels Aren’t Ready | citybiz

The way people buy has changed completely.

Your future clients aren’t using Google for short searches or browsing endless review sites. Instead, they’re talking to ChatGPT and Gemini, asking complex questions that used to take days of research to answer.

This fundamental behavioral shift is reshaping the funnel that marketers and business leaders in financial services have spent years optimizing.

What’s really happening? What does it mean for your strategy? And what can you do right now to stay visible, relevant, and chosen?

Let’s take a closer look at the modern buyer journey:

Stage 1: From Search to Conversation

Buyers used to start with simple Google searches: “Best CRM for RIAs.” “How to market to next-gen investors.”

Now they open ChatGPT and ask layered questions. “Which CRMs integrate best with Orion and support advisor-client collaboration?” “What marketing strategies help advisors grow with millennial investors?”

And even if they are asking Google these questions, AI summaries offer instant insights without ever sending users to your site.

Top-of-funnel traffic is shrinking, and traditional SEO is losing its grip on discovery.

Use it to your advantage: Optimize for AI inclusion, not just search rankings. Structure your content so AI can easily identify and credit your expertise. Publish deep insights rather than keyword filler. AI rewards clarity and authority over fluff, so approach your thought leadership content as training data for both humans and machines.

Stage 2: From Exploration to Curation

Buyers used to explore different options after discovering their problem. They visited review sites like Capterra and G2, scrolled through your pages, and compared features with your competitors.

Now they ask AI to compare options for them. “List the top five marketing agencies for financial services.” “What are the best advisor tech stacks for client engagement?”

AI delivers a shortlist. If you’re not on it, you never enter the buyer’s awareness.

Use it to your advantage: Make sure your brand exists in AI’s data ecosystem. Create accurate, current information that’s easy to summarize, and sharpen your differentiators. AI condenses information ruthlessly, meaning if your story isn’t distinct, it vanishes. Build brand authority so your name appears organically in AI-curated lists.

Stage 3: From Research to Prequalification

Prospects used to engage early. They downloaded guides, requested demos, and used your website as a learning tool.

Now they arrive fully informed. They’ve already asked AI to create customized requirement lists, budget ranges, and feature comparisons tailored to their firm size and tech stack.

You’re seeing fewer demo requests, not because interest is down, but because AI does the early education work. By the time prospects reach you, they’ve already decided what they need, and they know who can provide it.

Use it to your advantage: Shift your efforts down funnel from lead capture to lead conversion. Prepare for highly informed buyers by creating detailed comparisons, use cases, and technical insights that influence how AI defines your category. Train your sales team to go deeper, faster. Today, first calls are about validation, not discovery.

Stage 4: From Evaluation to Justification

Teams used to build business cases through spreadsheets, internal reviews, and long discussions.

Now they ask AI to build the case. “Compare the ROI of hiring a fractional CMO versus an internal marketing team for a $2B RIA.”

The buying cycle is fast and narrow. Once AI forms a preference, it shapes the buyer’s narrative before your proposal even arrives; winners close quickly, and others disappear.

Use it to your advantage: Differentiate early. Make your unique value simple enough for AI to articulate and humans to understand. Provide case studies, benchmarks, and ROI models that support internal justification. Build quantifiable proof points that strengthen your inclusion in AI-generated recommendations.

The New Funnel: Smaller at the Top, Smarter at the Bottom

The funnel isn’t dead, but AI has significantly compressed it.

Buyers still move from awareness to decision, but the journey is faster, filtered, and heavily automated. You’re no longer competing for clicks; you’re competing to be included in the conversations that shape perception and preference.

Your marketing must evolve from lead generation to credibility engineering. You need to become the obvious, trustworthy answer in a machine-mediated world.

Your Five-Step Roadmap

  1. Audit your digital footprint. How clearly do your differentiators appear when AI summarizes your brand?
  2. Reframe your content strategy. Build for interpretation over consumption. Create data-backed insights that machines and humans can cite confidently.
  3. Equip your sales team with smarter tools. Help them meet informed buyers with richer insights and personalized guidance.
  4. Measure visibility differently. Track inclusion in AI results, not just page rankings or clicks.
  5. Lead the conversation. Be the voice shaping what the next generation of advisors and fintech leaders learn from AI.

Think AI Algorithms Over Ad Spend

Your next wave of growth won’t come from outspending competitors; it’ll come from out-teaching the algorithms that guide your audience’s decisions.

AI changes what people believe about you before they ever visit your site. Shape that story early and you won’t just survive the shift; you’ll be the brand AI recommends.

About Kelly Waltrich

For 20 years, Intention.ly Co-Founder and CEO Kelly Waltrich has been championing the role of marketing in the financial services industry. As former Chief Marketing Officer at eMoney Advisor and Orion Advisor Solutions, she built powerhouse marketing teams from the ground up, developing the engines that would fuel the highest periods of growth for both firms.

Waltrich designed the strategy behind several successful rebrands, acquisitions, and product launches, including spearheading the development of two advisor marketing products, while creating unmatched overall brand visibility and helping to turn company executives into industry thought leaders. Through forward-thinking demand generation, PR, and product marketing, she created a consistent inbound pipeline for both firms, driving CAC down and SOV up. Her exceptional leadership and innovative approach earned her recognition as CMO of the Year by WealthManagement.com.

Today, Intention.ly represents the culmination of every lesson Waltrich has learned in her tenure as a marketing disruptor. Under her leadership, the growth engine design agency has experienced remarkable growth of its own, serving 100+ fintech and financial services firms while establishing itself at the forefront of AI-powered marketing innovation. Waltrich conceptualized and brought to market Intention.ly’s groundbreaking Advisor Brand Builder initiative, a generative AI solution that revolutionizes how financial firms approach brand development and marketing strategy.

Named one of 2025’s Top Women in Wealthtech and serving as an advisor to several high-growth tech firms, Waltrich continues to shape the industry’s marketing evolution. She’s also a frequently requested contributor to major trade publications and host of the “Don’t Do That” podcast, which has struck a resonant chord across the fintech, financial services, and tech leadership communities by delivering unique “what not to do” lessons from real-world leaders.

Intention.ly is born from Waltrich’s passion and persistent belief that when it’s done right, marketing is the accelerant firms need to transform their growth trajectory. Through cutting-edge AI innovation and proven strategic expertise, she continues to disrupt an industry ready for transformation.

The Antidote to Templated Advisor Marketing: Introducing the Enhanced Advisor Brand Builder

Posted on by Kelly Waltrich

Today’s advisors are being asked to do more than ever.

They’re expected to be planners, investment experts, business operators, compliance specialists, and growth engines all at the same time, with marketing as another box to check on an already overloaded list.

Advisors don’t ignore marketing because they don’t care. But it’s difficult to master, time consuming to manage, and easy to get wrong when they’re already juggling a full plate of responsibilities.

Shortcuts become more appealing. Templated websites, do-it-for-me content, and cookie-cutter messaging that may capture the “what” but never gets to the “why” feel good enough.

But none of those things accomplishes what marketing does: answering the question of why someone should choose you over everyone else.

Worse, we’re now in a moment where AI can generate endless amounts of that “good enough” marketing. 

Websites look polished.

Content sounds professional.

And almost everything feels exactly the same.

If a firm hasn’t clearly defined who they are, what they stand for, and how they’re different, AI will happily flatten their message into something interchangeable. Advisors are increasingly relying on brand identities that do more to help them blend in than stand out.

A Different Approach to Advisor Marketing

Building a brand that cuts through the noise requires thinking, clarity, and consistency, not another template or hero image with a sailboat.

Advisor Brand Builder marries an upfront investment in time and authenticity with backend execution speed to first capture what makes a firm truly unique, then carry their voice and value prop through every necessary marketing asset and piece of branded collateral.

The process pushes first to articulate what makes them different, who they serve, and why their approach matters. 

That work is non-negotiable. It creates the clarity firms need to communicate effectively in the market. It shapes their visual identity, their messaging, the brand assets they use every day, and the content they publish.

Clarity of voice, vision, and value powers a cohesive and authentic brand experience.

The Pieces of the Branding Puzzle: What ABB Delivers 

Advisor Brand Builder bridges the gap between personalization and speed. The platform generates a brand, website, and content ecosystem uniquely aligned to each advisor’s positioning, services, and audience. ABB’s output is then refined by our team of agency experts, ensuring advisors receive high-quality work at a fraction of the traditional time and cost.

  • A unique visual identity, not a template. The platform delivers a customized logo, color palette, typography, brand patterns, and imagery that reflect your firm’s philosophy and audience. You’ll receive multiple logo concepts to choose from, all generated by AI and refined by human designers.
  • Strategic messaging that captures your value. You’ll get a complete messaging platform including your tagline, boilerplate, value proposition, differentiators, service descriptions, and individual bios. This becomes the foundation for everything else.
  • A website built in seconds, not months. With the press of a button, ABB uses your brand messaging and assets to generate a fully responsive, brand-aligned website. What traditionally takes months of discovery, design, copywriting, and revisions is compressed into an instant, launch-ready digital presence. Our creative specialists then refine it further.
  • Launch-ready brand assets. You’ll receive professional business cards, custom email signatures, social media profile graphics, presentation templates, and business stationery. All generated based on your strategic inputs and ready for real-world application.
  • A 12-month content engine mapped to your brand. Rather than producing generic content, ABB builds a strategic content calendar mapped directly to your brand pillars and services. You’ll also receive channel-optimized monthly content packs delivered straight to your inbox and ready to deploy.
  • Content optimized for AI search. Your brand is structured to be cited in AI-generated search answers. This includes SEO-optimized Q&A pages designed to capture traffic from people seeking authoritative answers in your niche.

Built and Backed by Financial Services Marketing Leaders

What sets ABB apart is the combination of AI capabilities and human oversight.

The platform is engineered by the industry’s top marketing leaders, who understand the language, competitive landscape, and nuances of financial services. It’s trained on FINRA and SEC rules, which cuts down on revisions and potential regulatory hurdles, and every output is reviewed by our agency team to ensure it’s polished, compliant-aware, and strategically sound.

Rather than replace human strategy with automation, ABB eliminates friction through AI and technology before the Intention.ly team adds a layer of expert refinement. 

Advisor Brand Builder gives advisors what the industry has failed to provide: a way to build a truly differentiated brand and then actually use it, without turning marketing into an ongoing burden.

Ready to learn more? Take a closer look here.

AI Advertising in Financial Services: Everything Your Firm Needs to Know Now

Posted on by Dan Natale

Updated January 23, 2026

Key Takeaways: How AI Search Is Changing Financial Client Acquisition

  • The Shift: AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are becoming primary discovery tools for high-net-worth prospects.
  • The State of Play: ChatGPT ads begin testing in the US in early 2026, with Perplexity in closed beta.
  • Strategy: Prioritize organic visibility and “cite-ability” through structured, educational content while building compliance frameworks for conversational disclosures and liability.

What’s the current state of AI advertising in 2026?

We’re now past the planning phase. AI-powered search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are launching advertising models that fundamentally differ from traditional search engines, and they’re attracting exactly the high-net-worth, educated audience our industry serves.

The opportunity is real, but so are the risks. This document outlines what’s actually happening in AI search advertising today, what it means for financial advisory firms, and how I recommend we approach this emerging channel.

AI search advertising will matter for client acquisition, but financial services firms face unique compliance and regulatory challenges that require us to move thoughtfully, not quickly.

Let me cut through the headlines and give you the facts.

ChatGPT Advertising: Confirmed Details from OpenAI

On January 16, 2026, OpenAI announced it will begin testing ads in ChatGPT within weeks.

Who will see ads: Free tier users and ChatGPT Go ($8/month) subscribers in the US during initial testing

Who won’t: ChatGPT Plus ($20/month), Pro ($200/month), Business, and Enterprise subscribers remain ad-free

Ad format: Ads appear at the bottom of ChatGPT’s answers when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on the current conversation

Ad labeling: All ads clearly marked as “sponsored” and separated from organic responses

User controls: Users can dismiss ads, see why they’re shown specific ads, and turn off ad personalization

Age restrictions: No ads shown to anyone under 18

Topic restrictions: No ads near conversations about health, mental health, or politics

OpenAI’s Five Advertising Principles OpenAI published specific principles governing how ads will work:

  1. Mission alignment: Advertising supports their mission to make AI accessible to more people
  2. Answer independence: Ads do not influence ChatGPT’s responses. Answers are optimized for helpfulness, not revenue
  3. Conversation privacy: Conversations stay private from advertisers. OpenAI will not sell user data to advertisers
  4. Choice and control: Users can turn off personalization and clear ad data anytime
  5. Long-term value: ChatGPT is not optimized for time spent or engagement metrics

These principles shape what’s permissible in the ad platform. OpenAI is explicitly trying to avoid the attention-maximizing model that drives traditional social media advertising.

How can firms access Perplexity’s sponsored search features?

Starting in November 2024, Perplexity began testing ads in the US, formatted as sponsored follow-up questions and paid media positioned alongside answers, with all advertising clearly labeled as sponsored. The company says that AI-generated answers themselves aren’t influenced by advertisers.

As of early 2025, Perplexity works with fewer than a dozen advertisers in a closed beta and charges on a CPM basis, focusing primarily on awareness rather than direct response. This isn’t broadly available yet. It’s a controlled test with select partners.

How does conversational AI search differ from traditional keyword search?

The demographics are compelling. Perplexity’s materials indicate that 65% of their users are in high-income white-collar professions like medicine, law, and software engineering. This is exactly who we’re trying to reach.

But more important than demographics is behavior. Consider the difference:

Traditional search: “financial advisor Chicago” to  ads  to clicks to landing page
 AI search: “I’m 52 with $3 million in investable assets and planning to retire at 60. My company stock represents 40% of my net worth. What should my investment strategy look like?”

The AI search reveals age, assets, timeline, concentration risk, and readiness to plan all in one query. This level of context and intent is far more valuable than keyword searches.

What are the strategic advantages of early AI ad adoption?

1. Early-Mover Advantage
 We may be looking at a “Google Ads in 2002” moment. With Perplexity’s closed beta having fewer than a dozen advertisers and ChatGPT just launching testing, competition is minimal. Early entrants will likely benefit from lower costs and better placement.

2. Context-Based Targeting
Instead of bidding on broad keywords, AI advertising could match based on the full context of someone’s conversation, reaching prospects at the exact moment they’re describing challenges you specialize in solving.

3. Trust Through Citation
 When an AI platform cites your firm or includes you in recommendations (whether organic or sponsored), you gain implicit endorsement. It’s not just another ad; it’s the AI assistant suggesting you’re credible.

4. Content as Infrastructure
 Your whitepapers, calculators, and planning guides become directly monetizable when AI platforms can reference and link to your resources as part of sponsored answers.

What are the compliance and regulatory risks of AI-generated ads?

1. Regulatory and Compliance Uncertainty

FINRA and SEC advertising rules weren’t designed for AI-generated content. Critical questions remain unanswered:

  • If an AI synthesizes information from your website and others, who bears responsibility for accuracy?
  • How do you maintain required disclosures and risk warnings in conversational formats you don’t fully control?
  • Does “sponsoring” AI-generated financial advice create new liability?
  • What record keeping requirements apply?

We don’t yet have clear guidance, and we shouldn’t be the test case.

2. Loss of Message Control

With traditional ads, you control every word and disclaimer. With AI-generated sponsored content, the platform may paraphrase your services in ways that are technically accurate but incomplete or potentially non-compliant.

If you specialize in clients with $5 million minimums and the AI suggests you to someone with $500,000, that creates problems for both prospect expectations and suitability standards.

3. Data Privacy and Targeting Concerns

Reports indicate AI platforms are exploring ad targeting based on conversation history, meaning they could target people based on sensitive financial information disclosed in previous chats.

Questions worth considering: Is it appropriate to target someone who mentioned having $2 million in a retirement planning conversation? Could this be perceived as predatory? How does this align with fiduciary standards?

4. Documentation Challenges

If a prospect discovers your firm through an AI ad, how do you document that for compliance? What records do you maintain? These aren’t theoretical questions. They have practical compliance implications we need to work through.

5. Reputational Risk

Your firm’s sponsored content might appear in the same conversation thread as bad advice or unsuitable recommendations from other sources. That adjacency creates reputational risk we need to consider.

What will AI search ad look like?

Based on OpenAI’s announcement and Perplexity’s beta:

  • Sponsored Follow-Up Questions
    After someone asks about retirement planning, a labeled sponsored question appears: “Should I consider a Roth conversion strategy before retirement?” Your firm sponsors the question and is featured in the AI-generated response.
  • Bottom-of-Response Ads (ChatGPT): Ads appear at the bottom of ChatGPT’s answer to a query, clearly labeled as sponsored, when relevant to the conversation topic.
  • Firm Profile Carousels: Queries like “financial advisors for business owners” trigger scrollable cards with firm profiles, specializations, and AUM minimums. Some placements are paid, others are organic.
  • Educational Resource Placements: Your calculator or planning guide appears as a “sponsored resource” within an AI answer.
  • Direct Consultation Booking: Eventually, platforms may allow direct appointment scheduling, with firms paying for qualified consultations booked through the AI.

How should financial firms prepare for the shift to AI search?

1. Invest in Organic Visibility Now

Regardless of whether you advertise, you should work to become the source these platforms cite naturally:

  • Create genuinely valuable educational content answering real prospect questions
  • Structure your website with clear expertise markers and proper schema markup
  • Build strong review profiles and third-party validation
  • Make sure content is well-organized for AI crawlers

This positions you well whether you advertise or not, and it’s lower-risk given regulatory uncertainty.

2. Map Conversational Queries

Start identifying actual questions your ideal clients ask. Not keywords, but questions:

  • “How much do I need to retire at 55 and maintain a $200,000 annual lifestyle?”
  • “Should I sell my company stock immediately when I retire or phase it out?”
  • “What’s the tax impact of converting my traditional IRA to a Roth at age 58?”

This helps you create citation-worthy content and identify where paid placements would be valuable.

3. Build Compliance Frameworks Proactively

Work with your compliance team and legal counsel now to develop policies around AI advertising:

  • Pre-approval workflows for AI ad content
  • Documentation requirements for AI-sourced leads
  • Disclaimers adapted for conversational formats
  • Monitoring systems for how your firm appears in AI content
  • Clear guidelines for when you would or wouldn’t participate

Getting ahead of this positions us to move quickly when opportunities arise.

4. Monitor, Don’t Rush

In financial services, being first isn’t always the right move. Let other industries work through initial compliance frameworks and platform mechanics. You can learn from their experience without unnecessary regulatory risk.

That said, monitor developments closely and be ready to move when the path is clearer.

5. Evaluate ROI Rigorously

When platforms launch, be disciplined about measurement:

  • Set clear benchmarks for cost-per-lead and cost-per-client
  • Compare performance to existing channels
  • Track lead quality, not just quantity
  • Be willing to pause if economics don’t work or compliance concerns emerge

Timeline and Next Steps

  • Early 2026: ChatGPT begins testing ads in the US for free and Go tier users. Perplexity continues closed beta with select advertisers.
  • 2027: Platforms mature, compliance frameworks emerge, industry guidance develops. This is likely when we’d want to enter strategically.
  • 2028+: AI search advertising becomes table stakes, similar to Google Ads today.

What to do now:

  1. Invest in content and organic visibility (this pays off regardless of advertising decisions)
  2. Map the conversational queries your ideal clients are actually asking
  3. Develop compliance frameworks with your team
  4. Monitor platform developments and early adopter experiences
  5. Be ready to move when the regulatory path is clearer

Opportunity, Risk, and What’s Next

AI search advertising represents a genuine shift in client acquisition. The opportunity is real: access to high-value prospects with rich context at the moment they’re researching solutions you provide.

But so are the risks, particularly around regulatory compliance, message control, and fiduciary responsibilities unique to our industry.

You don’t need to be first, but you shouldn’t be last either. The firms that succeed will move deliberately, building the right infrastructure and safeguards while others either rush in unprepared or ignore the channel entirely.

5 Things Killing Your CAC: Conversion Mistakes Financial Firms Make on Landing Pages

Posted on by Dan Natale

You did the hard work. You ran the digital ads, targeted the right elite prospects, and drove them to your site. But the results are flat. Your Client Acquisition Cost (CAC)—the total cost required to acquire one new client—remains high and your marketing budget feels like a sieve.

The problem could be with your landing page.

A landing page is the final, crucial step in the acquisition funnel. It’s where the prospect converts from a curious clicker into a qualified lead. A single, broken element here can sink your conversion rate and inflate your CAC. Every missed conversion means you paid for the click without earning the lead, effectively doubling or tripling the cost of your successful acquisitions.

Here are five common mistakes we see on financial firm landing pages and ways to fix them:

1. Using a Generic Value Proposition

The Mistake

Using your website’s main tagline or a vague mission statement as your landing page headline (e.g., “Helping you achieve your financial goals”). This is weak, disposable language that fails to connect the prospect’s pain to your specific solution.

The Fix

Your landing page must be a direct continuation of the ad they just clicked. If the ad promised a solution to tax complexity, the headline must use the same language. The goal is instant reassurance and relevance.

➜ Weak Headline: A Fiduciary Approach to Wealth Management
➜ Strong Headline: Sell Your Business Without Tax Shock: Download Our Exclusive Liquidity Event Strategy Guide

2. Prioritizing History Over Value

The Mistake

Leading the page with lengthy sections about your firm’s history, AUM size, team photos, or philosophy before explaining the value of the offer (e.g., the PDF, the diagnostic tool, the checklist).

The Fix

Your landing page must look like an immediate transaction or the reader will be confused. They get a high-value asset in exchange for their email.

➜ You can include one or two quick trust symbols (e.g., “Featured in Bloomberg,” or niche speciality) near the form, but keep the focus on the deliverable.

3. Asking for Too Much Personal Information

The Mistake

You should avoid asking for home address, or a phone number on a first-touch resource download. Every unnecessary field increases friction and can dramatically lower conversion, often by double-digit percentages.

The Fix

Ask for the bare minimum at first: name and email. If you need more data (like income or assets), save those questions for the next conversion point (e.g., subsequent nurture email). This strategy reduces friction and allows you to capture the lead first.

4. Putting Too Much on the Landing Page

The Mistake

Treating a landing page like a mini-website by including extraneous links, navigation bars, footers, or social media buttons. Every element that allows a prospect to click away from the conversion goal is a leak.

The Fix

A landing page should be a dedicated airlock with only one possible action: completing the form. Eliminate the global navigation bar, hide the footer links, and remove any buttons that take them elsewhere. Your singular Call-to-Action must stand alone.

➜ Replace the navigation bar with a simple, high-contrast headline and logo. The only clickable button should be the form submission button.

5. Using the Wrong Call to Action (CTA)

The Mistake

Using generic form button text like Submit, Click Here, or Download Now. These buttons fail to reinforce the value the prospect is about to receive.

The Fix

Use action-oriented, value-specific language. The CTA button is the final connection. The text must confirm the immediate, positive action that will occur.

➜ Strong CTA (for a guide): Get My Tax Strategy Guide Instantly
➜ Strong CTA (for a consultation): Schedule My Personalized Portfolio Review

Avoid These Mistakes, Lower Your CAC

Your investment proves you have conviction in the growth process. Don’t let poor landing page execution undermine your progress.

By systematically addressing these five common mistakes, you can dramatically increase your conversion rate, effectively lowering your CAC without spending a single extra dollar on ads. The result is a marketing funnel that is finally profitable and scalable.

Have a landing page you need help with? Landing Page Conversion Mistakes

Why Sales Can’t Own Marketing

Posted on by Kelly Waltrich

Picture this: there’s a sales leader who thrived in a different era of selling—when relationships, a full Rolodex, and a great golf game could carry the quarter. He built a strong career on that model.  

But today’s environment looks different. The tools and processes that power modern revenue teams feel foreign to him. 

Meanwhile, his marketing team is fully dialed in, generating qualified leads, creating content that educates and converts, and feeding a data-driven funnel. They’re operating in a motion built for how buyers make decisions now.

But he’s still relying on the playbook that worked years ago. He’s not comfortable in HubSpot, isn’t sure how to collaborate with a modern marketing engine, and doesn’t have a clear sense of where leads are coming from or how to follow up with them strategically.

In leadership meetings, that disconnect can morph into a narrative that sales are down because “marketing isn’t delivering enough good leads.” 

It’s not that he’s unwilling or isn’t working hard. But the sales motion he mastered no longer translates to the way growth happens today. And when the person presenting the data is doing so through an old lens, the whole story can get distorted.

The Accountability Problem

When sales owns a firm’s marketing function, accountability breaks down entirely. The organization loses clarity about what’s happening in the funnel, and marketing becomes the scapegoat for sales teams that aren’t delivering. 

I’ve built my entire career on the unshakeable belief that marketing needs a real seat at the table. A healthy business depends on productive tension between sales and marketing; it’s the tension that creates balance.

Both sides need Service Level Agreements that answer these questions: 

  • What counts as a qualified lead? 
  • How many leads will marketing deliver? 
  • How many opportunities will sales convert? 
  • What does the handoff process look like?

Data needs to be shared transparently at the leadership level so everyone is operating from the same reality.  

Navigating an Agency Partnership

Sales shouldn’t own the marketing function period, whether it’s an in-house team, an outsourced agency partnership, or some combination of the two. With sales at the helm of an agency relationship, the same accountability issues arise. 

I’ve seen our team pressured to chase short-term lead volume instead of building sustainable growth. Blamed for a lack of demos booked when half the sales team was on vacation. Scapegoated when results are lackluster because fresh campaigns haven’t been reviewed and approved.

Ideally, an in-house marketing lead owns the agency relationship. They understand the strategy, the timelines, and the metrics that matter. In the absence of an internal team, the firm’s CEO should be involved in and very aware of the relationship, holding both sales and the agency equally accountable for results. 

CEOs: This One’s on You

I’ve talked a lot about sales and marketing, but leadership needs to be deeply involved in understanding what both functions are doing. 

When your salesperson claims marketing isn’t delivering, stop. Dig into the data. Ask hard questions:

  • Where’s the actual breakdown? 
  • Is engagement low? 
  • Is interest weak? 
  • Are the leads poor quality? 
  • Are the opportunities not converting?
  • Or is everything working fine and the problem is effort, the actual push to close?

Don’t let one side control the narrative. Look at the full funnel.

Build a More Inclusive Table

Full disclosure: I’m biased. I spent my career as a CMO. Now I sit in a seat where I do more sales than marketing, but I’ve watched this pattern play out too many times. It’s outdated, it’s destructive, and it needs to end.

CEOs, arm yourself with better information. Ask better questions. Make sure marketing and sales have equal seats at the table. That’s how you build a growth engine that actually works.

How to Build an Intentional Outbound Engine for Predictable Growth

Posted on by Amanda Larson

The fundamental mistake most firms make is treating their pipeline as a series of unrelated tactics. Pipeline control is achieved when you design an intentional system that converts curiosity into confidence.

What’s an intentional outbound engine? A multichannel, intelligence-led sequence that converts prospect curiosity into client confidence through a sequenced, value-first cadence.

At localhost:10008/, we recommend using a simple three-part design to fuel your engine:

1. The Foundation: Establish Credibility 

The Problem: Waiting for random discovery is a high-risk strategy. As clients use AI for instant answers, generic digital intent becomes commoditized.

The Solution: You need to establish credibility and proof of expertise by developing compelling content that instantly validates your authority when a prospect searches for you.

2. The Engine: Control Timing 

The Problem: Outbound that is not hyper-personalized is spam. Without deep intelligence, you’re gambling on timing. The only difference between successful outreach and mass failure is a compliant, well-defined process.

The Solution: You must control the timing. Outbound is the offensive mechanism that drives the prospect directly to you. This starts by eliminating volume and replacing it with intelligence.

3. The Result: Build & Track Trust

The Problem: Traditional cold outreach fails because it pitches services too early and lacks a trust-building sequence. It prioritizes tracking immediate sales, not measuring engagement.

The Solution: The objective is to build trust before services are ever pitched. This requires a rigorous, metrics-driven sequencing system that forces accountability and tracks sequence health over the long sales cycle.

Targeting the Right Person & Knowing Their Intent

Execution is where this design comes to life. It starts with intelligence and ends with accountability.

Remember, effective intentional outbound is about hyper-personalized relevance built on proprietary data (e.g. market impact analysis). Select a manageable number of elite prospects—let’s call them “the 100”—and reverse-engineer their needs:

  • Pain Points: Identify the specific financial pain they are experiencing (e.g., trust headaches, complex stock positions). Don’t pitch products. 
  • Offer Solutions: Every message must prove you’ve done your homework and offer immediate, actionable insight related to their unique situation.

Executing a Multi-Touch Sequence

Outbound for sophisticated clients is a multi-touch, value-first sequence designed to build trust before services are ever pitched.  

  • High-Value Cadence: The first three to four touches must be pure value—a unique market observation, connection to a specific regulatory change, or a value-add content piece.
  • Multi-Channel Sequencing: A strong intentional outbound engine requires coordinated efforts across channels: Email, LinkedIn, Phone, and Direct Mail. High-touch follow-up is reserved after the client has engaged with your intellectual property.

Now, let’s put that into action. Here’s a high-level, three-touch example sequence for a firm targeting high-net-worth founders (remember, you have to segment these folks): 

  • Email That Delivers Insight: A unique chart on the impact of a recent tax bill on carried interest taxation—a direct and painful financial headache for that founder.
  • Social With Gated Tool: The firm’s proprietary Business Succession Readiness Test, a gated diagnostic tool.
  • Phone Call/Text for Personalized Engagement: Reserved only for those who download the gated tool, offering a personalized analysis of their specific risk profile. This transforms a cold call into a follow-up on a known point of interest.

The sequence builds an engagement journey, forcing the prospect to raise their hand when they are truly ready, eliminating wasted time on unqualified leads.

Ready to move beyond the inbound illusion? We can design and execute your intentional outbound engine. Contact us to learn more. 

Buying Leads Is Not Lead Generation

Posted on by Kelly Waltrich

In financial services, “lead generation” is a term that gets thrown around so often it’s lost its meaning. Everyone wants more leads, faster and for less money. But we often see firms falling for the illusion that buying a list of names is the same thing as building a pipeline of opportunities.

Buying leads is not lead generation. It’s an expensive distraction dressed up as a cheap shortcut.

The Problem with Purchased Leads

Buying leads is appealing because it feels efficient. Pay a vendor, get a list, and start dialing or emailing. But no one on that list asked to be contacted by you. They haven’t read your content, attended your event, or engaged with your brand in any meaningful way. They’re not your audience; in fact, they may have no idea who you are.

At best, they’re lukewarm contacts with no context for what makes you different or how you can help them. At worst, they’re recycled, unqualified, and shared with dozens of other firms just like yours.

You can’t build trust, the foundation of financial services relationships, when your first interaction is asking a complete stranger to open up to you about their finances. You’re interrupting, not providing the kind of value-driven marketing that inspires confidence and encourages engagement.

What Real Lead Generation Looks Like

True lead generation is a long-term game, which is the only kind that actually works in a sustainable way. It’s the disciplined, strategic process of creating awareness, building trust, and turning interest into action.

Generating real demand for your services from qualified leads takes time, effort, and resources:

1. Start with Strategy, Not Tactics

Real lead generation begins with establishing clarity about who you serve, the problems you solve, and why that matters. Until you know exactly who your ideal audience is, your marketing will always miss the mark. Every content decision, ad placement, and social post should tie back to your positioning, strategy, and audience understanding.

2. Build a Brand People Want to Engage With

Brand isn’t a logo or a color palette. It’s a promise. It’s the experience people expect when they interact with your firm.

Your brand should make prospects feel something. Confidence. Curiosity. Alignment. If your brand story is clear and authentic, people will want to know more before you ever reach out. That’s what turns attention into intention.

3. Create Content That Pulls, Not Pushes

Effective lead generation is built on value, not volume. That means creating content that educates, inspires, and motivates people to learn more.

Host a webinar that solves a real problem, publish thoughtful articles that challenge industry norms, and share insights that make your audience smarter. When you consistently provide value, leads start coming to you.

4. Nurture Relationships Instead of Forcing Transactions

The journey from awareness to conversion doesn’t happen overnight. Real lead generation is about consistent nurturing, not nagging.

Build email sequences that educate rather than sell, use retargeting to stay visible without being invasive, and continue to deliver useful, relevant content long after someone has joined your list.

People do business with brands they trust, and building trust takes time.

5. Leverage Data to Guide, Not Replace, Human Connection

Technology and data are critical tools, but they’re not a substitute for empathy or understanding.

Use analytics to learn what resonates. Implement automation to scale personalization. Never forget, though, that behind every “lead” is a human being making decisions about their money, their future, and their family.

The Payoff of Doing It Right

In terms of upfront cost, time, and effort, real lead generation is more expensive than buying a list of names. But the payoff is worth it.

Prospects come into conversations informed, curious, and open. They already trust your expertise because they’ve experienced it through your marketing. Instead of annoying people who never asked to talk to you in the first place (and doing potential reputational damage), you’re continuing an organic conversation they started.

Buying attention may be faster and easier in the beginning, but earning it will get you the results you’re looking for.

Building an Engine vs. Renting Attention

If your marketing strategy depends on a lead vendor, you’re not really generating leads, you’re renting them. When you stop paying, your pipeline dries up.

But when you build a brand that attracts, educates, and converts, your audience grows because they want to hear from you. Your pipeline becomes a flywheel that pays compound returns in the form of trust, interest, conversions, and referrals.

That’s real lead generation. It’s intentional. It’s sustainable. And it’s the only kind that lasts.