Competitor alerts
6 August 2026
Insights advertising share triples in North America in Q2 2026
Asset management advertising categorized as "insights" saw its share of total advertising rise more than threefold in North America in Q2 2026, according to data from Fundamental Monitor
Insights campaigns, built around thought leadership, accounted for 24% of asset management advertising captured in North America during Q2 2026, up from just 7% during the previous quarter, according to Fundamental Monitor.
This is the highest share that the insights advertising purpose category has recorded across five quarters of data collected. The Fundamental Monitor tool enables us to categorize each ad by its main purpose: brand, insights, or fund promotion.
Fund promotion, by contrast, fell to 39% of the advertising data we gathered in the second quarter, down from 71% in Q1 2026 and the lowest share recorded in the series (the prior low was 53% in Q4 2025). Brand campaigns also eased, slipping to 14% from 22% in the previous quarter.
With fund promotion pulling back from its usual dominant share, competition for share of voice in thought leadership is likely to intensify, making differentiated, well-distributed insights content a high priority for marketing teams.
Total advertising impressions tick up after four straight quarterly declines
Overall asset management advertising in North America rose 47% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2026, rebounding after a series-low in Q1 2026 that had capped four consecutive quarterly declines. Even with that rebound, impressions remain down compared with Q2 2025.
Strategy mix: ETF and equities pull back, even as advertiser counts hold steady
Strategy-level ad share also declined broadly in Q2 2026, according to Fundamental Monitor. ETF advertising fell to 36% in Q2 2026 from 67% in Q1 2026, and equities advertising fell to 9% from 20%. Fixed income eased to 2% from 7%, while multi-asset and ESG remained minor, each accounting for less than 1%.
Notably, the number of advertisers actively promoting each strategy barely moved: ETFs still drew 43 active advertisers (up from 42), equities held steady at 15, fixed income slipped only slightly to 13 from 14, and ESG and multi-asset stayed in the low single digits. That combination – a smaller share for each strategy alongside a stable roster of advertisers – suggests a shift in how existing advertisers are approaching strategy-specific promotion rather than a change in the number of firms competing in each category.
On-site content: ETF material dominates website engagement
In addition to tracking external advertising through Fundamental Monitor, our marketing intelligence platform, Alphix Solutions, enables us to measure the performance of all content published directly on asset managers’ own websites.
During the second quarter, ETF-related content made up the largest share of website consumption categorized by strategy style, climbing to a peak of about 16% in late April and never dropping below 12%, according to Alphix. This was by far the highest of any strategy tracked, well ahead of equities, the next-largest category, which ranged from roughly 4% to 7% during the same period.
Fixed income held broadly flat for most of the quarter, hovering between roughly 2% and 3%, before edging up to a quarterly high of around 3% in the final week of June. ESG eased from around 2% in late March and April to a lower, steadier level of roughly 1% for the rest of the quarter. Multi-asset attracted the least engagement across the entire period, staying consistently below 1% and drifting gradually lower as the quarter progressed.
Returning to advertising campaigns, below are some examples that were in market in North America during Q2 2026:
Vanguard – Thought leadership insights:
State Street Investment Management – Fund Promotion:
Nuveen – Brand:
About Fundamental Monitor:
Fundamental Monitor is our proprietary digital advertising intelligence tool that tracks the ad campaigns of over 1,000 asset managers and educational institutions across 23 markets globally, giving marketers the competitor insights they need to sharpen their strategy.