Autumn most popular time for asset managers to launch new campaigns

Data by Fundamental Monitor shows that September and October see the most new campaign landing pages every year

Key points:

• Asset managers promote more new landing pages in autumn than during other times of the year
• Looking at the data for Q1 of each year, it seems 2022 has started on a more positive footing than the last couple of years. There is a recent upswing that has reversed the trend of the previous three years
• These highs and lows are not just an averaging out of regional variations – the same trends can be seen if you look at regional totals and even individual markets

Asset managers promote more new landing pages in autumn than during other times of the year, data by Fundamental Monitor has found.

The number of landing pages going live is a good indicator of themes, topics and products being promoted online in the marketplace at any given time. As Fundamental Monitor has been collecting data on asset managers’ advertising activity for several years, it’s possible to see long-term trends.

We have analysed the number of new landing pages that Fundamental Monitor has picked up month by month in every market that we cover, going back to the beginning of 2019. We define a new campaign as one with a landing page URL that Monitor has not encountered before.

If we look at the total number of new landing pages picked up globally, there are some clear patterns. Every year there are more new landing pages being recorded in the autumn, especially in September and October, than during other times of the year. However, over the last three years the peak of the autumn spike has been getting smaller. While we saw 274 new landing pages in October 2019, this fell to 257 landing pages in October 2020 and to 200 landing pages in October 2021.

However, looking at the data for Q1 of each year, it seems 2022 has started on a more positive footing than the last couple of years. There is a recent upswing that has reversed the trend of the previous three years. While the number of new landing pages seen in Q1 dropped from 532 in 2019 to 450 in 2020 and 394 in 2021, there has been an increase this year, when 485 new landing pages were recorded during Q1. In fact, the total for January 2022 was bigger than any January since 2018.

These highs and lows are not just an averaging out of regional variations – the same trends can be seen if you look at regional totals and even individual markets. Pretty much across the board you can see a big spike in October 2019 – the biggest month for new campaigns before the pandemic – followed by another peak in autumn 2020 that was not as strong, and a weaker still peak in autumn 2021. New year trends also show a big decline from 2019 through to 2021 in individual markets, but a marked positive upswing of new campaign activity at the start of 2022.  

The first quarter of 2022 may turn out to be a blip, but it is too early to tell. If the figures for new campaigns in Q2 are similar or lower to those of Q2 2021 then it will be a quick indication that the recent upswing might not yet be a long-term trend.