Asset managers move back towards fund promotion in North America

The promotion of ETFs is also slowly recovering to levels seen earlier in 2022, data by Fundamental Monitor finds

Key points:

• 45% of all advertising was dedicated to fund promotion, up from 30% in Q4
• ETFs accounted for 16% of the total advertising activity, up from 10% a quarter earlier, but still far below the highs seen earlier in 2022
• Following the poor performance of ESG strategies in 2022, asset managers have almost stopped advertising this strategy in North America for the time being

Fund promotion has returned as the most popular ad purpose among asset managers advertising in North America, data by Fundamental Monitor showed.

Following a move towards brand campaigns in Q4 2022, which saw fund promotion accounting for only 30% of all advertising, in Q1 45% of advertising was promoting funds. Brand campaigns saw their share drop from 53% to 38%, while insights saw a small decline of five percentage points to 11%. During Q1, 5% of advertising focused on the promotion of events or investment tools.

While the percentage of advertising dedicated to ETFs still remains far below the high numbers seen before Q4 2022, when ETFs often accounted for a third or sometimes even more than half of all advertising, there was a slight improvement. In Q1, ETFs accounted for 16% of the total advertising activity, up from 10% a quarter earlier.

Following the poor performance of ESG strategies in 2022, asset managers have almost stopped advertising this strategy in North America for the time being. The promotion of equities also dropped slightly, from 5% in Q4 to 3% in Q1, while fixed income advertising grew from 3% to 4% over the same period.

Apart from multi-asset, which had one active advertiser in Q1 compared to nil in Q4, the number of asset managers promoting the key strategies dropped in Q1. ESG saw the biggest decrease (from 18 to 4 advertisers) followed by ETFs (from 25 to 18 advertisers).

Below are some examples of the type of campaigns that were in market in North America during Q1 2023:

Brand campaign – Northern Trust

Insights – Adams Street Partners

Fund promotion – T. Rowe Price

Investment tools – Franklin Templeton

ETFs – RBC Global Asset Management