How AI Is Changing the Advisor Marketing Game

Why spend time and money on marketing when AI can do it for you?

Website visits and engagement are increasingly driven by artificial intelligence as prospects are routed to wealth management firms through large language models like ChatGPT, according to a new Snappy Kraken study. The rate of conversion, or a firm’s success in turning potential customers into new clients, also increased, but one source was more important than the rest: websites. Website-driven conversion doubled in the fourth quarter last year compared with the same quarter in 2024. Robert Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken, said the increase is due to both AI discovery and client trust in the nascent technology, which leads them to convert faster after a recommendation. It could be an area of opportunity for advisors searching for organic growth.

“[Clients have] already been doing research with answer engines, learning, asking questions. Context is being gathered, and then AI makes a recommendation,” Sofia said. “By the time they come to the advisor’s website, they’ve already determined that they need a financial advisor, so it’s higher-intent traffic that’s more educated and therefore converting faster.”

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Even though websites are all-important for advisor marketing — according to the report, website visitors increased 10% year-over-year, and website form submissions grew 110% — the pathway from potential client to converted customer is less linear than before, Sofia said. While in the past, a marketing campaign might lead directly to a website and then a client meeting, leads can now be generated anywhere: social media, direct emails, AI, podcasting. While email campaigns are good by themselves, adding certain elements (making them timely, for example, or sending follow-ups to keep people engaged) increases the client conversion rate. Firms can also use AI to generate customizable email templates, Sofia added. This way, advisors can avoid using AI to interact with new clients directly, which can turn them away, particularly if they’re wary of the technology. “If you unleash AI to just interact directly with your clients and prospects, that’s far too great of a risk,” he said.

Some other findings from the Snappy Kraken report include:

• While many advisors adopt emails to make new clients aware of their services, only 23% reported regularly following up with those clients in subsequent emails to keep them engaged.
• Advisors sent 7% more campaign emails in 2025 than in 2024, and total link clicks rose 10%.

Get Connected, For Free! Implementing multiple sources of lead generation across social media, websites, email marketing campaigns and more increases overall reach and likelihood of success, Sofia said.

“When firms had multiple types of strategies running: in other words, landing pages, a newsletter, a podcast, a website, all these different things … they were generating more landing page views, more link activity and higher engagement just by connecting them,” he said. “The more you’re connecting things, getting that data, and then being able to act on it programmatically instead of manually, it’s a multiplier.”