It communicates expertise, simplifies complex offerings, and builds client confidence.
Financial services is the one category where the marketing rules shape the site architecture itself. Building first and sending it to compliance last is how projects get rebuilt.
SEC-registered investment advisers operate under the Marketing Rule, Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-1, which took full effect in November 2022 and replaced both the 1961 Advertising Rule and the Cash Solicitation Rule. It sets conditions for testimonials and endorsements, codifies how third-party ratings may be used, and imposes strict requirements on performance advertising.
Broker-dealers operate under FINRA Rule 2210, which requires a registered principal to approve retail communications before use. Static website pages count as retail communications. Firms registered as both comply with both, and in practice the higher standard governs each piece of content.
None of this means a financial services site has to be dull. It means the constraints need to be known before design begins.
The most common failure is a site that could belong to any firm. Naming your client type, minimums, and planning philosophy plainly does more for qualification than any amount of trust language.
Credentials, tenure, prior firms, and areas of focus. In a business where clients hand over their life savings, the people page is often the most-visited page on the site and deserves to be treated that way.
Fee structures, service tiers, and process explained in plain language. Prospects self-select out when they cannot tell whether a firm fits, and ambiguity costs more good-fit inquiries than it protects.
Required disclosures, Form ADV access, and material risk language have to be present, discoverable, and appropriately proximate to the claims they qualify. Designing for that from the start produces something far better than bolting a wall of gray text onto the footer at the end.
Advisers Act Rule 204-2 requires retention of advertising records. Website content changes need to be captured, not just published. Firms frequently discover this gap after the fact, and the fix is a process question as much as a technical one.
We build a compliance review loop into the project rather than treating approval as a launch gate. Your CCO or compliance vendor sees messaging frameworks and page copy while they can still influence direction, not after design is locked.
We also design the disclosure system as part of the visual language. Disclosures that are legible and intentionally placed read as confidence. Disclosures crammed into six-point gray type read as something to hide, and they may not satisfy the proximity expectations anyway.
We are not a compliance firm and we do not provide legal or regulatory advice. What we bring is the experience of building in this category and the discipline to work alongside your compliance function rather than around it. Final review sits with your CCO or outside counsel, always.
For related reading see how we approach financial services branding and secure client portals, or explore our financial services practice.
