Our asset management clients often ask what benchmarks they should be aiming for.
It’s a fair question, but a tricky one. Many financial services marketing benchmarks don’t focus solely on asset managers and may mix different audiences with varied buying behaviors.
The result: measuring your marketing against misaligned benchmarks can lead to misleading conclusions. That’s why this post uses benchmarks not as targets, but as a diagnostic lens for messaging, content, email, paid search, and digital presence.
Your B2B Audiences are Astute
Selling to financial professional audiences is not easy as they have a ready filter for noise. On top of that, compliance guidelines affect what you can say and how you say it.
B2B marketing benchmarks that don’t account for this will steer you wrong. That’s why, at the start of every engagement, we frame the conversation around understanding what truly motivates these buyers. We want to know what’s on their minds, what they find valuable, and what interactions and perceptions they already have of the firm and products before we begin an initiative.
Messaging and Content Benchmarks: Is Your Story Landing?
Messaging and content performance can be read through engagement signals like time on page, scroll depth, return visits, and bounce rates.
When key pages keep visitors engaged, your story is likely working.
High bounce rates, vague CTAs, or sales efforts that must continually explain what you do usually point to messaging issues.
Channel Benchmarks: What Resonates, What to Watch
It’s the same across channels: relevance drives results.
- In email, healthy open rates paired with low CTRs often mean there’s a disconnect in the message. In high trust B2B environments, your reply rate is the most meaningful signal. Creating emails that feel personal while still meeting compliance requirements can be challenging, which is why we always stress the importance of a clear copy plan.
- Low CTRs in paid search or LinkedIn ads typically indicate an audience message mismatch or a weak offer.
- On your website, high bounce rates on Services or About pages are usually a storytelling problem. In organic search, niche authority and demonstrable expertise may outperform broad, generic content.
The pattern across these benchmarks is consistent: when the message is clear, audience led, and differentiated, the channels tend to follow.
BFT’s Digital Marketing Agency Approach to Messaging Strategy
At BFT, we always start with a messaging strategy. The story needs to be right before optimizing any channel. Content follows from there.
We approach email marketing, paid advertising, and campaign strategy as a messaging directive first by digging into who we are trying to reach, what we are saying, and how the story aligns with the rest of the brand.
With SEO, it’s about being findable when it matters, whether that’s in local search, SERP, AI Overviews or LLMs. SEO is part of your content and marketing system, not a technical afterthought. Firms that win in search have a clear point of view and content that earns it.
What to Do When the Numbers Aren’t Where You Want Them
Keep in mind that benchmarks are a diagnostic. They tell you something is off, not what to fix.
Whether you’re experiencing low content engagement, low conversions, weak paid performance, or poor SEO visibility, the fix may involve sharpening your message.
Asset management marketing with B2B audiences is a relationship built on trust. The firms generating trust have a clear story, a strong digital presence, and content that earns attention before it asks for anything.
Not sure what your benchmarks are telling you? Reach out to BFT—we can help you figure it out.
