Asset managers increase fixed income and ETF advertising in APAC

Fund promotion also saw a boost during Q3, data by Fundamental Monitor found

Key points:

• Fixed income and ETF advertising accounted for more than half of all asset management advertising in the APAC region during Q3 2024
• However, data by Alphix Solutions shows that despite asset managers’ increased promotional activities, investors were consuming less content on fixed income and ETFs during the quarter
• At 61%, fund promotion was by far the most popular ad purpose during Q3, up from 30% in Q2.

Asset managers dedicated a significantly higher percentage of their overall advertising in the APAC region to the promotion of fixed income and ETFs during Q3 2024 compared to Q2, data by Fundamental Monitor shows.

During Q3, fixed income advertising accounted for 30% of all asset management advertising, up from only 6% in Q2. The promotion of ETFs also saw a big increase, accounting for 26% of all advertising in Q3, up from 5% a quarter earlier.

Equities advertising saw an increase too, albeit slightly smaller, as its share of total advertising doubled from 6% in Q2 to 13% in Q3. The promotion of multi asset doubled as well, from 1% to 2% over the same period, while ESG was the only key strategy that saw a decrease in its share of overall advertising (down from 11% to 5%).

However, when comparing asset managers’ advertising campaign data with data from Alphix Solutions (Fundamental Group’s marketing technology arm), a discrepancy is revealed between the strategies asset managers have been pushing and the topics investors have been reading about on asset managers’ websites.

Alphix data shows that ETF content on asset managers’ websites was consumed less during Q3 than the average 365-day rolling average. Depending on the week, consumption was down by between 6% and 47%. Fixed income content performed somewhat better, although it was a mixed bag, with content consumption between 26% higher and 25% lower than the 365-day rolling average, depending on the week.

Equities content consumption was down compared to the average during the first six weeks of the quarter, but was up slightly for the following three weeks, to then fall again for the final three weeks of Q3. The content consumption of multi-asset was mostly down as well, except for one week at the start of August, while ESG content consumption was down throughout the whole quarter, ranging from -2% and -34%.

At 61%, fund promotion was by far the most popular ad purpose during Q3, up from 30% in Q2. This was to the detriment of brand campaigns (down from 42% to 17%) and thought leadership promotion (down from 28% to 21%).

Despite the higher percentage of advertising dedicated to the promotion of fixed income and ETFs, the number of asset managers promoting these asset classes dropped during Q3. Fixed income saw a decrease from 29 active advertisers to 24, while the number of ETF advertisers dropped from 21 to 13. Equities saw a small increase from 22 advertisers in Q2 to 24 a quarter later.

Below are some examples of the type of campaigns that were in market in the APAC region during Q3 2024:

Fixed income – Franklin Templeton

ETFs – BlackRock

Fund promotion – Metrics Capital Partners

Brand campaign – Fidelity International

Insights promotion – PIMCO