Grant Carmichael, MBA, CISSP │ June 17, 2026 │ 8 min read
I See This All the Time
I work with two very different types of financial advisory firms. And after years of doing this, the difference between them has almost nothing to do with market conditions, niche, AUM, or geography. It comes down to how they think about marketing.
The mature, growth-oriented firms have a real strategy. They have a defined audience, a dedicated budget, and usually an internal person — even just a part-time coordinator — who owns the day-to-day content and culture. They treat marketing like a long-term investment because they’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that it is one.
Then there’s the other type. Hungry for leads. Sometimes a little desperate. And prone to what I’ve started calling marketing day-trading.
- Treats marketing like a portfolio
- Has a documented strategy
- Internal content coordinator
- Defined ICP and offer
- 12-month+ commitment to a channel
- Makes decisions based on data
- Chases the latest shiny object
- Switches agencies every 6 months
- Pays for overlapping tools
- Buys "done-for-you" programs from Facebook ads
- Has no clear ICP yet runs paid ads
- Blames channels, not strategy
I’m not here to shame anyone. The newer firms often come to me with real urgency — there are real bills, real growth goals, and real pressure to show results fast. I get it. But the behavior that urgency produces? It’s the exact behavior that guarantees the results never come.
Here’s the Irony
Think about your core value proposition as a financial advisor. What do you actually sell your clients?
You sell patience. Discipline. A long-term strategy executed consistently. You talk about compound growth. You talk about staying the course when the market gets uncomfortable. You’d never tell a serious client to dump a well-constructed portfolio and chase last quarter’s hottest fund. You’d tell them: build a solid strategy, make marginal adjustments, and let compounding do its work over time.
So why is that same advisor switching marketing agencies every six months?
Why are they on their fourth “done-for-you lead generation” program since January? Why did they just sign a new marketing strategy contract with a vendor they found in a Facebook ad — when they signed an identical contract with someone else eight months ago and never gave it enough time to work?
The irony is brutal. And if you’re reading this and feeling a little called out, that’s the point — but I’m not here to lecture you. I’m here because I genuinely want you to stop wasting money.
The Marketing Day-Trader Checklist
If you recognize yourself in three or more of these, you’re day-trading your marketing. Be honest.
- You've switched marketing companies or lead gen programs more than once in the past 18 months.
- You're paying for two or more platforms that do the same thing — GoHighLevel and ActiveCampaign and a separate CRM, all running at once.
- You saw a "fill your pipeline in 30 days" ad on Facebook and clicked it — and then signed up for it.
- You've asked a new agency to "just get me leads" without having defined what a good lead actually looks like for your business.
- You've blamed the channel — Google Ads, Facebook, SEO — rather than taking a hard look at the strategy or the funnel.
- You don't have a defined ICP (ideal client profile), but you're spending money on ads anyway.
- You can't tell me your cost per lead, your close rate, or your client lifetime value right now without going to dig for it.
Here’s the Dirty Secret About Marketing Tools
Here’s something most lead gen companies will never tell you, because it would undercut their entire pitch: we’re all using the same tools.
Facebook Ads is Facebook Ads. It doesn’t matter which agency runs your account — the platform, the targeting options, the algorithm, the auction mechanics — it’s identical. Google Ads is Google Ads. WordPress is WordPress. GoHighLevel, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot — different logos, different sales decks, same pipes underneath.
The tools are not the competitive advantage.
The strategy is. The content is. The offer is. The funnel is. The follow-up sequence is. The depth of understanding of your ideal client — that’s the advantage. And none of that lives inside a software platform. It lives inside the relationship between you and a partner who actually understands your business.
When you switch from Agency A to Agency B, you are not getting a better mousetrap. You’re just replacing the cheese and starting over.
And here’s the part that stings: every time you start over, you lose something real. You lose the conversion data. You lose the audience signals Facebook has been building. You lose the keyword history and Quality Scores your Google Ads campaigns took months to accumulate. You lose the remarketing audiences you spent money building. You lose the SEO momentum you were just starting to see.
You don’t just lose time. You lose compounding.
"Every time you switch marketing companies, you're not upgrading your strategy. You're resetting the clock. And in a business with a long sales cycle, the clock is everything."
What the Successful Firms Do Differently
The advisory firms we’ve worked with that consistently grow — the ones who look back after two or three years and can actually point to marketing as a driver of their AUM — they share a few traits that are almost universal.
They have an internal person.
Even if it’s just a part-time coordinator — someone who captures authentic content. The culture moments. The team photos. The client appreciation events. The behind-the-scenes stuff that no outside agency can manufacture, because we weren’t there. That content is irreplaceable. It’s what separates your brand from every other generic advisor site on the internet.
They have a defined strategy and they execute it for at least 12 months before making major pivots.
Adjustments at the margins? Absolutely — that’s smart management. Full resets? No. They know the difference between optimizing a strategy and abandoning it because they got impatient.
They know their numbers.
Cost per lead. Close rate. Client lifetime value. Average AUM per new client. They make decisions based on data, not vibes or anecdotes. When a channel isn’t working, they can tell you why— and the answer is usually something they can fix.
They treat their marketing like a portfolio, not a lottery ticket.
Diversified. Long-term. Patient. Focused on compounding returns over 24 months, not on whether this month’s Facebook campaign delivered 14 or 18 leads. Sound familiar?
They pick partners who do what they say they’re going to do.
They want someone who answers the phone, delivers the work, and doesn’t require constant babysitting. The EVANCED Marketing Platform was built around exactly that principle — one integrated system, clear reporting, no runaround.
None of that is magic. It’s discipline. It’s the same discipline you ask your clients to have.
What to Do If You’re Reading This and Cringing
First: good. Discomfort means something landed. That’s more than most marketing content will ever do for you.
If this sounds like you, the answer is not to switch again. That’s the trap. The answer is to stop, consolidate, and commit.
Start with an honest audit. What are you actually paying for? Are you running duplicate tools that do the same job? Kill one. What does your current strategy actually say — and has anyone executed it for a full year without flinching? If not, that’s the experiment you haven’t run yet.
Define what a win actually looks like. Not “I want more leads” — that’s not a definition, that’s a wish. How many new clients per quarter would represent real growth? What’s your close rate? What does a client have to look like for you to say yes? Get specific. Then build backward from there.
And if your current agency isn’t delivering — have the hard conversation before you bail. In my experience, about half of the cases where an advisor is frustrated with their agency, the root problem is the brief. The agency didn’t understand the ICP. The offer was never clearly defined. The follow-up process was broken on the advisor’s end, not the agency’s. Sometimes the issue really is the agency. But at least rule out the other stuff first.
The Short Version
You know the speech. You’ve given it. Build a solid strategy. Execute it consistently. Don’t chase last quarter’s winner. Let compounding do its work.
Apply it to your own marketing.
EVANCED works with growth-oriented financial advisors and RIAs who are ready to commit to a real strategy — not a quick fix, not a funnel-in-a-box, and not another vendor to blame when things don’t work overnight. We’re a partner relationship built around consistent execution, real data, and long-term compounding. Our fractional CMO model means you get senior-level strategy without the full-time overhead. The EVANCED Marketing Platform keeps everything integrated and measurable in one place.
If that sounds like you — or sounds like the firm you want to be — let’s talk.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grant Carmichael
Founder & Chief Strategist, EVANCED · MBA, CISSP, GCSA · Google Certified Partner
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