Why asset managers need to think like publishers

New research found global asset managers are under-delivering with content on topics investors are most commonly searching for while over-indexing on other investment topics not actively sought out by investors.

The research report from The Dubs as the publisher of The Financial Marketer was made in partnership with global financial native ad platform Dianomi.

More than 10 million Google searches were analysed by The Dubs across nine asset classes and married with data insights from across Dianomi’s global native ad network.

“What we found surprised us at first. Investors are actively seeking far more content on new asset classes like ETFs and Cryptocurrencies than asset managers are producing. In contrast, the industry is pumping out much more information than investors are looking for on topics like fixed income or retirement planning,” says managing director of The Dubs, Josh Frith.

The report found ETFs soaked up 25.25% of the analysed Google searches but only accounted for 6.06% of content published by asset managers globally. Likewise, Cryptocurrency accounted for 18.25% of search traffic and only 2.96% of content volume.

On the flipside, retirement planning drew only 1.7% of Google search but accounted for 14.25% of content produced by asset managers. This was mirrored by fixed income with Google search volume a paltry 0.7% and likewise representing 14.25% of industry content.

The commercial opportunity in content

“I think it’s clear from the research asset managers should behave more like a publisher and cover topics like ETFs and cryptocurrency if they want to find new investors,” says Frith. “I understand not all asset managers have ETF products and very few in the crypto space but they can still show thought leadership with content in these areas.” 

 

 

“Covering these highly visible topics gives asset managers a voice in a competitive market when seeking retail investors and kickstarts a relationship that can be built upon,” he explains. 

Frith says asset managers can then show these new audiences content on areas of core investment expertise and offer the products they provide as investment options.

Chief operating officer of Dianomi, Raphael Queisser, says the native advertiser has seen marketplace interest in investing grow substantially during the past 18 months. 

“Our report shows the areas investors are actively searching for and there’s a clear information gap to be capitalised on regardless of product mix,” he says.

“While some asset managers aren’t necessarily going to recommend cryptocurrencies, our viewpoint across the world’s premium financial publishers demonstrates a clear commercial opportunity to allocate more content across a wider range of asset classes to match demand,” says Queisser.

With investors having to look further afield in places like Reddit or Quora to find information on new asset classes like Crypto, asset managers are perfectly placed to step up with quality content on these topics that investors know they can trust. 

Download the special research report here.