More than half of North American advertising focused on ETFs

Asset managers also increased the share dedicated to equities promotion, data by Fundamental Monitor found

Key points:

• ETFs continue to be the most popular among advertisers in North America, with more than half of all asset management advertising promoting ETFs during Q2 2024, the highest figure seen since Q4 2021.
• With 29 asset managers advertising, ETFs saw a record number of advertisers.
• Asset managers reverted back to dedicating the majority of their North American advertising to fund promotion during Q2, with brand campaigns dropping back to accounting for less than a quarter of all advertising.

Asset managers allocated more than half of their North American advertising to the promotion of ETFs, with a record number of ETF advertisers active in market during Q2 2024, according to data by Fundamental Monitor.

ETFs continue to be the most popular among advertisers in North America, with more than half (56%) of all asset management advertising promoting ETFs, the highest figure seen since Q4 2021. Meanwhile, fixed income advertising saw a massive drop from 15% to only 2% and the promotion of equities increased slightly from 6% to 9%.

Data from Alphix Solutions, Fundamental Group’s marketing technology business, shows that investment audiences’ ETF content consumption on asset managers’ websites was slightly below the 365-day rolling average during the start of the quarter. However, it improved steadily as the quarter progressed to be above average from May onwards, at between 4% to 15% higher than average, depending on the week.

Fixed income content was less in demand during Q2, with consumption levels between 3% and 32% lower than the 365-day rolling average. Equities content consumption was more mixed, ranging from some weeks where the consumption was up to 10% lower than average to other weeks where it was up to 7% above average.

All five strategies saw an increase in the number of asset managers actively advertising, except for ESG which remained stable at four advertisers. With 29 asset managers advertising, ETFs saw a record number of advertisers. Equities were promoted by 16 managers, up from ten in Q1, and 18 advertisers were promoting fixed income, up from 12 a quarter earlier.

Asset managers reverted back to dedicating the majority of their North American advertising to fund promotion during Q2, with brand campaigns dropping back to accounting for less than a quarter of all advertising. While fund promotion and brand campaigns respectively made up 54% and 21% of advertising, insights promotion accounted for the remaining 24%, with only a sliver of advertising dedicated to investment tools and event promotion.

Below are some examples of the type of campaigns that were in market in North America during Q2 2024:

Fund promotion – Global X Funds

Insights promotion – Bitwise

ETFs – VanEck

Equities – WisdomTree