Best Paid Advertising Platforms For Financial Advisors

Are you thinking of using paid advertising to reach more leads and clients? If so, the challenge is choosing the right ad platform(s) for the best results.

As an experienced ads specialist who has extensively worked with financial advisors looking for more quality leads and clients, I know firsthand which advertising platforms deliver the best results. 

In this article, I will explain how each advertising platform works and how to leverage them to generate more leads, sales appointments, and clients. 

Quick Summary

Short on time? Here are the top paid advertising platforms you can use to reach your target audience as a financial advisor: 

• TikTok Ads
• Meta’s Facebook and Instagram Ads
• YouTube Ads
• LinkedIn Ads
• Google Ads
• Adroll

But knowing how to use these platforms is just half the battle. You still need the right strategy to generate high-quality leads with them. 

Before we go on, I recommend watching this free Masterclass Training. It explains the most effective strategies for generating financial advisor leads from paid ads. 

Alternatively, you can schedule a free call to see how we can handle the entire process for you. 

Top Financial Advisor Paid Advertising Platforms

Here are the top six paid advertising platforms financial advisors can use to get leads and clients:

1. TikTok Ads

Let’s start by correcting a wrong notion about TikTok. The platform is not just a playground for the younger demographic. 

In fact, about 31% of TikTok users in the United States are aged 40 and above. That’s about 42 million users who partly qualify as potential leads for financial advisors based on age. 

In addition, contrary to popular opinion, for 4 out of 5 of our financial advisor clients, TikTok generates the best cost per lead, appointment, and client acquisition compared to every paid advert platform mentioned in this article. 

So, you are getting the best value possible for your advertising investment. 

How do TikTok ads work?

Having established how effective TikTok ads can be, let’s see how it works.

• Target the Right Audience: Use TikTok’s efficient targeting options, such as demographic, interest-based, and behavior targeting, to ensure your ads reach the individuals most likely to use your financial advisory services.  
• Get Your Ads Right: Keep your ads engaging, authentic, and simple enough to blend into the organic content on the ‘For You’ pages. You can use TikTok’s Creative Codes to ensure your ads are relatable to your audience. 
• Use a Sales Funnel: You need a sales funnel to guide your potential clients from awareness to conversion. Start by creating awareness, then direct them to a landing page that captures their interest, and finally, nurture them with targeted content that moves them towards using your services. 
• Measure and Improve: To optimize your TikTok ad campaigns, you must look at metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and engagement to understand what’s working. Use A/B testing to refine your ads and targeting strategies for better results.
• Follow-up: Establish a clear follow-up strategy. This could include an automated email sequence nurturing leads or a dedicated landing page where users can download a guide or schedule a consultation.

You will find this free masterclass training helpful in creating TikTok ads that covert. 

2. Meta’s Facebook and Instagram Ads

You can access over 5 billion active users with Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. About 24%  (535.3 million) of Facebook users and 15% (241.9 million) of Instagram users worldwide are aged 45 and above. 

As a financial advisor, that’s a massive population from which to target leads and clients. 

But one of the advantages of Facebook and Instagram ads over TikTok is that Facebook has a larger audience of older people. This makes Facebook a great ad platform if you’re looking to scale up and potentially get hundreds of appointments each month (for example, if you have a team of advisors to help you).

Besides the extensive reach, these platforms also offer advanced targeting capabilities, which can be used for effective lead generation and client acquisition. 

After years of running Facebook and Instagram ads to get leads for my financial advisor and annuity clients, I know they work excellently if adequately implemented. 

So, how do you implement them properly? Here is a simple outline: 

• Understand the Platforms: While they are both from Meta, Facebook and Instagram cater to different user behaviors. Facebook works great for detailed storytelling and longer-form content, but Instagram is meant for quick, visually appealing messages. 
• Get Your Audience Right: Target the right audience using both platforms’ advanced targeting options. Zero in on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even life events that align with your ideal client profile to ensure your ads are seen by those most likely to need financial advisory services.
• Create Effective Ads: An effective Facebook and Instagram ad must be engaging and eye-catching. So, use high-quality images, concise and persuasive copy, and clear CTAs. On Instagram, create a more visual experience using stories and reels.
• Lead Generation Tools: Meta provides specialized ad formats designed for lead generation, such as lead ads. With lead ads, users can show interest in your offers without leaving the platform. This simplifies the process for potential clients and increases the chances of capturing high-intent leads.
• Implement Retargeting Strategies: Use retargeting to stay top of mind with users who have interacted with your content but haven’t converted yet. Engaging with an already familiar audience can increase conversion rates considerably. 

Finally, you should track your campaigns’ performance and use the insights to improve your overall strategy. 

I’ve also discovered that combining your Facebook and Instagram ads efforts with your organic content strategy, email marketing, and other digital marketing strategies improves results. 

So, I strongly recommend that. 

I provided more practical tips to create performing Facebook and Instagram ads in this video.

3. YouTube Ads

YouTube ads are another proven strategy for landing high-intent leads, sales appointments, and clients as financial advisors. 

So, you may want to ask, “Why YouTube?”

With YouTube, you get access to about 2.5 billion monthly active users. That’s a broad audience base for you to target as a financial advisor. 

Another reason is that video marketing works. According to The Leap, 73% of consumers prefer to watch a short-form video to learn about a product or service.  

Here is how YouTube ads work for financial advisors:

• Create Videos: To start advertising on YouTube, you need videos. But your videos must keep viewers interested and engaged. I recommend creating video content that quickly addresses your target audience’s needs and pain points. 
• Use Ad Formats Effectively: YouTube ads offer in-stream ads that appear before, during, or after other videos and video discovery ads that appear in search results. Choose the format that best aligns with your goals. You can also use placement targeting to specify the category of YouTube videos you want your ads to appear on. 
• Call-to-Action: Don’t leave viewers hanging. Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs) in your ads. For example, you can encourage viewers to visit your website, download a guide, sign up for a newsletter, or schedule a consultation. I often recommend that my advisor clients use a link to their video sales letter instead. 
• Landing Page: Ensure your landing pages align with the promises made in your ads. For example, you could offer valuable resources like e-books or personalized financial assessments in exchange for contact information.
• Follow-Up: Finally, follow up with emails, texts, and calls to turn more leads into appointments. Each step of follow-up helps increase the total number of appointments.

I must mention that while YouTube ads are effective, you will spend more to run ads on the platform than on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. That’s why I usually recommend using YouTube organically to generate leads. 

Check out my free masterclass training to learn more about using YouTube to generate leads organically.

4. LinkedIn Ads

I often recommend LinkedIn Ads for financial advisors seeking to get leads and clients who are business owners via paid advertising.

Here is why it works well: 

• LinkedIn offers access to extensive B2B data
• It allows you to target by job title or company size (other ad platforms do not have this) 

As a result, LinkedIn ads stand out as a good paid advertising platform for financial advisors looking to target people by job title, company size or seniority level. 

How does it work?

It all starts by targeting specific professional demographics. In this case, you are trying to reach active financial decision-makers. 

You can target them via job titles, seniority, industries, company sizes, and other demographics. 

Since you want to get leads, your LinkedIn ads must be crafted to reflect just that. 

Your headline, descriptive copy, and CTA must collectively capture the attention of your target audience. You want them to opt in for your irresistible offer. 

Now that you have their attention, the next step is to capture them with lead generation forms. Keep your forms brief and easy to fill out. From experience, most leads get discouraged filling out longer forms.  

If you have customer relationship management (CRM) programs, you should integrate them with your lead gen forms. This will allow you to transfer leads faster, saving you time.

Lastly, monitor your ad performance to see how effective it has been. You can use your findings from this to improve future campaigns and maximize your ad spend. 

You can learn more about using LinkedIn to generate leads in this video.

5. Google Ads

Google is more than just a search engine. 

It is an effective paid advertising platform that financial advisors can use to find quality leads and clients actively searching for their services. 

But Google ads work differently compared to platforms like YouTube or Facebook. 

So, how does it work? 

When a user performs a search on Google, they get two types of results;

• Paid search results–ads that appear on the Google search results page.
• Organic search results–every other search result that is not an advert. 

The paid search results or ads are usually at the top of the search results. For every search, the ads that appear on the results page are from advertisers who have bid on that keyword (search term and geography).

For instance, if you bid the keyword “Texas retirement planner” and a user searches for the term, your ads will most likely show up on the results page, depending on your ad rank. 

Now, your Google ads rank often depends on:

• Bid: Maximum amount you paid per click on your ad.
• Quality: Relevance and usefulness of your ad and landing page to the user’s search.
• Ad Extensions: Additional information like phone numbers, links, etc. added to your ad to boost visibility and clicks.

So, to appear on the search results page, you must optimize your bid, have high-quality ads/landing pages, and use relevant ad extensions in your Google ad campaigns. 

Your landing page must be optimized for your ad’s keyword(s) and include the right offer. This guide explains how to create optimized landing pages better. 

Lastly, while Google Ads are effective, it is important to set realistic expectations. It may take some time and considerable investment to get the desired results. Also, Google Ads can be expensive for financial advisors. As a result, other platforms on this list often generate clients for financial advisors at a lower cost.

If you would like to learn how to get leads without ads using Google SEO, watch my free masterclass. 

6. Adroll

The biggest upside of using Adroll as a paid advertising platform for generating financial advisor leads is its retargeting capabilities. 

The platform excels at retargeting by showing your ads to users who have already visited your website. This is an effective way to keep your services on your prospects’ minds and increase conversion chances. 

You can also use Adroll to run ads across multiple platforms. So, it does not matter where your potential clients are on the internet, your message will reach them. Some websites you can appear on include:

• Forbes
• Yahoo Finance
• MSN
• The Verge
• Investopedia

And thousands more non-social media websites 

At Skyline Social, we have used AdRoll to retarget high-networth leads for financial advisors who previously visited the landing pages we created. 

Pro Tip: When using AdRoll, it is important to optimize your landing pages so they convert traffic. The best approach is to keep them simple and informative, with an easy way for visitors to contact or sign up for services. 

Watch this free masterclass to learn more about the strategy we use to generate leads and appointments as a financial advisor.

Does paid advertising work for financial advisors?

Yes, paid advertising is an effective way for financial advisors to extend their client base. As I have explained in this article, platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and AdRoll each offer unique opportunities to connect with potential clients. 

Each platform works differently. However, depending on your marketing goals and expectations, they can be used individually or collectively. To maximize your results, it is best to adopt the right strategy for the chosen platforms. 

Also, while getting started with paid advertising can seem challenging, the potential rewards are worth it. You can easily improve your brand awareness, secure a steady inflow of leads and clients, and ultimately grow your business by converting them to clients. 

We have helped numerous financial advisors use paid ad platforms to get them high-intent leads and clients. Let’s do the same for you. Watch our free masterclass training to discover how it works. 

Frequently Asked Questions