Digital Strategy Insights

Each fall, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting holds its annual Distribution and National Accounts Roundtables. At these events, leaders across the industry come together to share ideas, challenges and issues that are top of mind for their firms. Although these events aren’t focused on marketing topics specifically, marketing and distribution are becoming increasingly intertwined. As such, it’s extremely helpful for asset management marketing executives to understand how distribution leaders are thinking about the business. This article summarizes four themes from the recent roundtable discussions we believe are particularly relevant for digital marketers in the asset management industry.

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Fund performance is a key element in an advisor’s investment decisions. While other elements such as portfolio fit trump performance, no one is going to choose a fund that has regularly underperformed its peers. To advisors, how transparent a firm is about product performance is a good proxy for how trustworthy an asset manager is.

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It’s time to shatter the myth that has risen around long-form content. In a race to make content shorter and easily digestible — based on the faulty assumption that advisors won’t take the time to consume lengthy content — what makes for interesting reading is being eliminated. At a recent conference, Andrew Davis reminded content marketers to “quit blaming the goldfish.”

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Our research finds that integrating a great digital experience with sales contacts can lift advisor gross sales. Leading firms make it easy to contact the sales team online.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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With industry forces changing how advisors make investment decisions, it’s becoming increasingly important for sales and marketing teams to identify which advisors have discretion. Advisors with discretion individually select the asset allocation and majority of investment options for their clients themselves. Advisors who do not have discretion outsource the majority of investment decisions to models or an internal investment manager. Our annual research on What Advisors Do Online (WADO) revealed that distinct differences in online behavior and preferences are emerging between advisors who have discretion and those who do not.

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Since the dawn of time, humans have told stories. Storytelling predates written language. It served, and continues to serve, as a fundamental means of forming connections.

Research by Google, which partnered with Motista and CEB (now Gartner), found that 50% of B2B buyers are more likely to buy if they can form an emotional connection with a brand. Storytelling might just be the key to that emotional connection. Stories allow us to motivate, inspire and persuade. If those are your communication goals, creating a story is in order.

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Have you received an email asking if you want to place an order for the product you just studied on a website? Or received a appointment reminder text as you pass by a vendor’s conference booth? You’ve probably used Google’s Smart Reply feature to respond to an email. Has Google’s Smart Compose helped you to draft an email?

These are just small examples of how artificial intelligence (AI) is making day-to-day interactions easier and more relevant.

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With insights on your competitive position with regard to fees and expenses as well as performance ratings, marketers can target advisors with specific product marketing campaigns to develop business with new advisors, increase share of business with current clients, and retain assets with different strategies.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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More than 80% of advisors say the digital experiences they have with a firm influences their perception of the firm’s capabilities, as our annual survey of financial advisors, conducted in association with Horsesmouth, shows. Does age matter?

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After more than two decades of digital initiatives, marketing and compliance at some firms are still at loggerheads when it comes to implementing an engaging digital strategy. Our 2017 survey of CMOs found that 15.8% of firms still cite working with compliance as a top challenge and obstacle in implementing digital initiatives.

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Expectations of younger advisors, and what asset managers provide digitally, are different than their older counterparts. This month’s infographic uncovers specific ways firms can engage advisors under 40, specifically in making it easy to do business with their firm and in being transparent.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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The current investment climate is challenging for active asset managers, to say the least. Money continues to flow into passive investments, while active mutual funds and ETFs continue to lose ground. Although this data may seem discouraging, leading active managers (and strategies) are still delivering results and garnering flows, and there are still strong arguments to be made in defense of active management. However, with the prevailing winds blowing strongly in favor of passive, active managers must work harder than ever to convince advisors and investors of the value of active strategies. Digital marketers have a critical role to play, by ensuring their firm’s online presence clearly shows how the investment team adds value and builds a compelling case for active management. In this article, we address five key elements that digital marketers should address to position their firm’s active strategies online.

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RIAs are less likely than other types of advisors to prefer face-to-face meetings to engage with both new managers and those with whom they already do business. This month’s infographic highlights some of these differences in engagement preferences and provides tips on how to adapt marketing approaches for RIAs accordingly.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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The cost of fund ownership can be a murky area for investors. While a well-performing fund appears to be an ideal investment, the underlying fees and expenses may negate many of the gains. Advisors are often hard-pressed to fully explain how much fees and expenses impact returns, due to lack of clarity and detail on fees and expenses.

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"About Us" sections are among the most popular pages on corporate websites, but the content often seems to be an afterthought. Good ones help humanize and differentiate the firm while building credibility and trust. But too many asset managers think that a statement about being customer-focused and showcasing the number of offices they have around the world will do that.

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In our recent article on "Using Business Intelligence on Influence, Value, and Opportunity to Optimize Sales and Marketing Strategies", we discussed the need for Business Intelligence teams to collaborate with Sales and Marketing organizations to produce insights about influence-ability, opportunity, and value to modernize sales efforts when deciding who to cover and how to cover them.

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Our research shows that digital experiences play an essential role in an advisor’s decision journey to do business with a firm. This infographic shows what is important to advisors from building awareness to earning consideration and doing business with an asset manager.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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Our research shows only about half of advisors can be influenced by sales teams. According to our Advisor Insights, in association with Horsesmouth, the remaining half use models to make investment and allocation decisions. It is essential that sales and marketing efforts make the distinction between advisors with discretion (those who can be influenced) and without discretion (cannot be influenced) to craft messages and develop marketing material that resonates with them.

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We conduct a number of surveys of advisors, distribution and marketing executives, and senior managers in asset management over the course of every year. Developing survey questions that yield useful information is essential, because the findings are integral to the research reports and articles we produce for our clients.

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Despite predictions a few years ago that “email is dead,” it’s actually quite alive and well, with more than an estimated 281 billion messages sent and received globally daily. Email is the most frequent type of contact asset managers have with advisors — and the one they are most receptive to. So it’s critical to maximize opportunities to communicate by email.

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Our research indicates an increasing number of advisors are working in teams alongside other advisors as well as members with different functions. This infographic sheds light on the composition of teams and how to identify different members that interact with your firm.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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Marketing technology is an $82.3 billion global business that asset managers have certainly supported as they put robust marketing tech decks in place. While chief marketing officers (CMOs) are not outspending chief information technology officers, they are making long-term investments that will allow marketing to expand its abilities to deliver greater value to the organization and more efficiently and effectively move clients and prospects along the decision journey.

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Due diligence/research pros told us they need far more details than most asset managers provide on their website. As with institutional clients, the most important attributes they look for when evaluating funds to add to recommended lists or models are the “Four Ps” of Performance (specifically, the risk/return profile), Process, People, and Philosophy.

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As home office relationships become more powerful, the National Account teams of many asset managers are naturally becoming more important as well. But at most firms, a lack of coordination between National Accounts, National Sales, and Marketing makes them ineffective at supporting these strategic relationships.

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Our research finds that marketing technology skills and experience are a significant gap for asset managers as they continue to invest in building and optimizing marketing tech stacks. This infographic spells out some of our findings and offers tips for firms looking to improve their capabilities.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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Cybercrime costs the financial services industry approximately $18.28M per year, more than any other industry, according to Accenture. To battle this risk, firms are increasing IT budgets. But when it comes to one of the biggest threats from cybercrime – damage to the firm’s brand – organizational silos may introduce more risk than the C-suite would be comfortable with.

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One day, it’s business as usual. The next, a poorly worded tweet, breaking news story, or activist group puts your company on the social media firing line. What’s new is the growing number of companies in the past year that have been completely blindsided by organized activist campaigns and angry customers for their indirect relationship to the news event, such as where a firm advertises and which organizations it has a relationship with. Even the battle over the type of investments an asset manager should hold has moved from more rational debates in shareholder meeting boardrooms to boycott threats, in the wake of related news events.

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Influencer marketing has gained quite a bit of traction in the B2C world, where 48% of B2C influencer programs are ongoing. But influencer marketing is maturing much more slowly among B2B organizations, with only 11% invested in ongoing programs.

As asset managers look to more innovative ways to increase engagement, differentiate their brands and products, and build credibility, influencer marketing represents a way to drive value throughout the advisor’s decision journey.

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To retain good margins, sales must find ways to increase production or decrease the cost of sales. According to our Productivity Insights research, asset managers allocated on average $84,000 for T&E expenses per external wholesaler. While there are many ways asset managers could better position themselves to target advisors to increase organic growth, they can also leverage technology to decrease the costs of selling.

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Our research has found that Marketing, National Sales, and National Accounts teams move in different directions at most firms. But a few leading firms identify and prioritize distributors where Marketing and National Accounts can jointly influence business development. Read more to see how firms are analyzing and targeting relationships with distributors and advisors.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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As Millennials become more prevalent in both the workforce and the consumer population, we learn more and more how different they are from other generations. The very nature of work, employment, and consumerism is changing. What does this mean for asset manager sales and marketing teams as Millennial financial advisors (those under age 35) become the norm?

According to our research, the average age of a financial advisor is 56 with just three percent of advisors under age 35, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that by 2024, one in four workers will be 55 years or older, a 20% increase from 2014. So we’ll see an increase in both younger and older workers, meaning firms that want to appeal to their entire customer base will need strategies that appeal...

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With popular events like Morningstar’s Investment Conference US 2018, Bob Veres’ Insider’s Forum, and Schwab IMPACT 2018 on the horizon, it’s a good time to revisit your firm’s strategy to maximize the investment of time and resources that conferences require.

Whether it’s getting leads from the trade show booth, positioning the firm as an expert in a particular area, or fostering the relationship with existing clients, conferences offer the opportunity to sprint toward multiple objectives in a short span of time. Of course, every other asset manager is trying to do the same. But three strategies can help achieve your goals and help your firm stand out in a positive way:

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Advisors don’t look for new products in a vacuum. They look for a fund to fill a specific hole in a client’s portfolio or model. Performance is important, but so is finding a fund with a manager they trust to reliably deliver the results they expect.

Clearly communicating the portfolio manager’s investment philosophy and process helps inspire that trust and confidence, because it helps the advisor understand how the fund will behave relative to other funds. In fact, our research finds that nearly 54% of advisors are more likely to choose funds from a firm that makes it easy to learn about its investment philosophy and process online, when products and performance are comparable.

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Our most recent analysis concludes that, on average, a larger portion of traffic comes to asset manager websites through smartphones. A significant shift in the source of mobile traffic has also occurred. Read more to understand the details of this shift and what firms should prioritize in the mobile experience.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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Bounce rates are a bit of a chameleon in the world of metrics. Bounce rates can indicate engagement. Or the metric can be a sign that visitors are not finding what they expect, with their quick disappearance underscoring their disappointment.

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If Google has powered your website’s search functionality, you probably know that it is no longer available as of April 1, 2018. Google’s announcement that it was sun-setting Google Site Search this year is a good reminder to revisit why site search is important and what to look for as you evaluate your current capabilities and perhaps, look for a replacement.

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Asset managers have responded to the growing interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues the last few years with a slew of products. In 2016, approximately 20% of total assets under professional management in the US – or $8.72 trillion – were invested in ESG portfolios, a staggering 33% increase since 2014. European investors have long thought of ESG factors as important qualitative measures for assessing a company’s long-term health and growth prospects, and it seems the US is finally following suit.

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We recently uncovered trends in asset manager website engagement metrics – they are on the way up since 2016. This infographic takes a look at general and smartphone website bounce rates and page views, offering tips for firms to improve them.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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Lead scoring provides the means for marketing and sales to objectively rank a lead while also determining where the advisor is in the decision journey.

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It’s important to keep up with technology because it is increasingly more significant to business, and imagining the benefits that technology could have for our businesses can be exciting. But before a firm puts energy and resources into block chains and deep-thinking simulations, shouldn’t we ensure we have optimized the technology of today?

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Strong digital engagement helps differentiate a firm from competitors by communicating the right value proposition to the right advisor at the right time — in a scaled way — much like sales has been doing on a more limited, one-on-one basis.

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Our recent evaluation of the digital experiences that asset managers provide advisors not only uncovered who the leaders are, but some low-hanging fruit in terms of gaps that most firms need to tackle.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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B2B companies like asset managers are awash in a sea of sameness. And in our industry, the products are too. If company names and logos were removed from websites, would advisors be able to identify which firm it is, simply by reading the copy?

Portfolio managers and thought leaders are a major differentiator among asset managers. Yet almost five years after discussing how portfolio manager bios can be used to enhance credibility and trust, asset managers are still not fully leveraging them. In fact, just finding the bios on most asset managers’ websites is a challenge, as they’re often only offered on a product page. And then, the bios are merely a rote listing of titles and degrees.

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When it comes to choosing products, performance is important. But advisors don’t look for new products in a vacuum — they look to fill a specific hole in a portfolio or model. So the impact of the fund’s risk characteristics, allocations, and holdings on the rest of the portfolio is also important. Understanding what they can expect, and having confidence the portfolio manager will consistently deliver on that, matters too.

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In interviews with BI executives at asset managers who lead the industry in business intelligence (BI) we learned that there are three keys to having an effective BI program. BI leaders must have a seat at the decision-making table — positioned at a level within the organization where they can have influence over strategy. The BI team should be organized based on functional competencies to fully leverage the expertise of BI staff. Elements of the program that can be done externally should be outsourced to reduce costs, increase quality, and free up data and BI resources to focus on their areas of expertise.

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Were you among the many who received an Amazon Echo for the holidays? Amazon reported record-breaking sales of this popular voice-assisted device. Research shows that more than 35.6 million people will use voice assistance at least once a month in 2018 and nearly 3 of 4 will be using Alexa. In the asset management industry, our 2017 survey of advisors, in association with Horsesmouth, finds that 34.5% of advisors already use Alexa for personal use. Albeit slowly, voice assistance is making its way into the professional life of advisors as well, as 1-in-7 advisors already uses a voice-activated personal assistant like Alexa to get news updates, manage their calendars, and listen to...

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Nearly one-half of advisors are using voice assistants (such as Alexa, Siri, Google, and Cortana) for personal or business. This month, we reveal the top three ways advisors are using such assistants for business and offer practical ways that asset managers can take advantage of this and help advisors.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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Despite the fears that automation will eliminate jobs, marketers and salespeople shouldn’t be overly concerned. Automation will not displace most sales and marketing roles, but it will change them, and enable the people filling them to focus on strategic and complex initiatives.

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Advancements in marketing technology are accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Combined with access to troves of behavioral and transactional data, these are enabling brands to provide highly individualized interactions and recommendations.

For example, offers change on ads that are displayed to us based on the action we just took online. Following a website visit a few moments ago, the copy in the email that was sent this morning changes dynamically as we actually open it this afternoon. But the gap between the digital experiences financial advisors have with asset managers versus everywhere else is growing ever wider. Aging infrastructure and a lack of urgency in cleaning up and integrating data sources are holding firms back to the point where catching up becomes ever more challenging.

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Advancements in marketing technology are accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Combined with access to troves of behavioral and transactional data, these are enabling brands to provide highly individualized interactions and recommendations.

For example, offers change on ads that are displayed to us based on the action we just took online. Following a website visit a few moments ago, the copy in the email that was sent this morning changes dynamically as we actually open it this afternoon. But the gap between the digital experiences financial advisors have with asset managers versus everywhere else is growing ever wider. Aging infrastructure and a lack of urgency in cleaning up and integrating data sources are holding firms back to the point where catching up becomes ever more challenging.

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Our research for What Advisors Do Online shows that a good digital experience can tip the scales for advisors in choosing one asset manager over others, when products are comparable. This month’s infographic illustrates three things the majority of advisors value when evaluating asset managers.

With Digital Insights, SS&C Research, Analytics, and Consulting analyzes website and email data from asset managers to help firms benchmark their digital initiatives against industry peers. Monthly infographics provide actionable insights and recommendations to help e-business teams and digital marketers stay ahead of the curve. Participating clients also have access to a data portal, powered by Tableau®, that enables interactive filtering, analysis, and benchmarking of website and email initiatives. Firms can evaluate the competitiveness of their digital efforts against an array of performance metrics.

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