RIAs stand to drive significant AUM growth across organic and inorganic in 2026. From Goldman Sachs to CityWire, virtually every expert agrees that wealth management is moving in this direction—the question is how individual firms can increase their piece of the pie.
This article explores how digital marketing will help RIAs generate more growth in the new year. Using a comprehensive six-step process, we’ll help you build the foundations and scale campaigns to win more clients and attract more advisors—all while driving higher marketing ROI.
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Based on discussions with countless RIAs at industry conferences—along with our daily experience and expert knowledge—we’ve identified four key trends to expect in 2026:
The rise of generative AI has transformed how people search the internet—and that includes how prospective clients and advisors research RIAs. While traditional search engine optimization (SEO) still holds value, many RIAs will be more concerned about whether they appear in Chatbot and AI Overview (AIOs) in 2026.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) will therefore be a major theme throughout the new year. Any emerging field attracts snake oil, and we expect RIAs may struggle to identify which apparent “experts” can actually help them rank. But those who find the right partner and strategy will generate significant gains.
We’ve heard a lot of talk about AI within marketing, but proven use cases are limited. This will change in 2026, as marketers start to scale programs they have either piloted or planned in the last 24 months.
Our team believes personalized content will be a key driver here. RIAs with the right marketing technology and messaging frameworks will be able to scale hyper-personalized communications to both clients and prospects—all at very low cost.
This is not about using email recipients’ first names; it’s about deploying specific messages tailored to their specific audience segment and stage in the marketing funnel. The only challenge will be managing the compliance challenges such automation presents.
Several high-profile fines throughout 2025 highlighted the risks associated with the SEC’s Marketing Rule. The new year will continue this trend, with RIAs struggling to find ways to adopt new tools like AI without creating extra compliance risk.
However, regulatory changes may also benefit firms in 2026. Proposed amendments from the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) could see RIAs registered in states like California and Ohio allowed to use client testimonials in their marketing—finally putting them on a level playing field with firms in other states.
Traditional referrals and networking are still a strong growth channel, but most firms know they are not scalable enough. RIAs that rely exclusively on COIs and client referrals will not only miss out on growth opportunities—they will have less control over their growth.
This will be a gradual transition; most RIAs will still expect referrals to supply a good chunk of growth in 2026. But they will start to replace these unpredictable, passive channels with a more proactive, scalable approach to growth—and that will be built around digital marketing.
The following six-step process will help RIAs build a scalable growth engine in 2026:
RIAs face growing competition for both organic and inorganic growth—but most are missing a foundational pillar.
Marketing requires clear, repeatable messages that capture your value to a specific audience, including why they should pick you over other firms. Yet as a recent CityWire commentator said, “the differentiators most RIAs rely on to set them apart aren’t differentiators at all.”
Your roadmap must therefore start with a more effective messaging framework. Not only will this help you capture more attention and build more interest from prospects, it also helps you to scale digital comms—because you’re not starting from scratch with every email, ad, or whitepaper.
At ProperExpression, we use a four-step process to build highly effective RIA messaging frameworks:
The process is relatively quick and pays dividends over the subsequent months—making every element of your marketing more impactful.
Kitces’ research shows that fast-growing RIAs invest in more digital marketing channels—but that requires complex expertise.
There has never been a stronger appetite for high-value information about wealth management topics. But the average RIA probably doesn’t leverage half of the digital channels their ideal clients and advisors use. This renders them functionally invisible across all other channels.
Firms that build effective content funnels focused on their target audience’s interests—from tax strategies for HNWIs to transition strategies for advisors looking to sell their practice—will drive huge organic traffic and leads.
Budget limitations need not limit these efforts. Use the following steps to make multi-channel campaigns more cost-efficient:
RIAs struggle to ensure individual advisors leverage marketing materials—but the right process can solve that problem
Firms often report a frustrating experience: they invest in marketing materials, but advisors don’t use them enough to drive real AUM growth. Our experience suggests three core factors drive this dynamic:
All of these problems can be solved through the right advisor enablement program. At ProperExpression, we have seen significant improvements to advisor marketing adoption through:
Compliance checks can delay marketing and create bottlenecks—but not if you build it into your campaign processes
Many RIAs find compliance a significant strain on both time and resources. A single piece of content being flagged for potential SEC violations can lead to weeks-long delays that create marketing backlogs and force you to miss your goals.
The solution is to bake compliance into your marketing process—rather than seeing it as a hurdle to jump. At ProperExpression, we leverage compliance templates, along with pre-approved terminology and definitions, to help content and campaigns launch faster.
This is vital in 2026 for two reasons:
Digital offers a unique opportunity to measure and optimize your marketing—but this requires the right definitions and tech
RIA marketing leaders often express concern about their marketing: they lack visibility and clarity about exactly what is going on and how it is actually influencing AUM growth. It’s difficult to unlock more budget or justify the investment when there’s no reliable data about marketing ROI.
Accurate attribution will help combat these problems and ensure marketing is prioritized in 2026. The challenge is building systems that all parties accept and making the data easy to present during key meetings.
Our experience suggests two key factors are required to enable trustworthy attribution:
RevOps enables RIAs to continuously improve the cost-effectiveness of their marketing and sales—and build a reliable growth engine.
The gold standard for RIA marketing is not just generating AUM growth; it’s consistently acquiring more clients and advisors while making those acquisitions more cost-effective. That’s what RevOps delivers through systematic optimization of the processes that drive growth—and it is something almost every RIA should shoot for in 2026.
As the only agency that delivers RevOps specifically geared toward RIAs, we have found a handful of key measures that deliver immediate benefit:
Many RIAs are used to traditional methods like referrals and networking that are not easily “mapped”; simply outlining the ideal digital client acquisition process helps clarify what is missing from their existing strategy.
Traditional processes also leave many RIAs without clear definitions for what is "marketing qualified” or processes to effectively hand leads over to sales. As a result, good leads are often either lost or neglected—but RevOps can build data-driven processes to avoid those problems.
Marketing and sales are like investments; if you look at the data correctly, you’ll see some ads or content tactics deliver far better results than others. RevOps helps you identify those high-performing elements and reallocate budget to ensure you only spend on what actually drives returns.