Financial Advisor Marketing
The Financial Advisor Marketing Agency
That Writes for Compliance, Too.
People looking for an advisor search a city, a life stage and a fee model, then check your record before they call. We build the local search, content and ads that win that search, written so your compliance review approves it the first time.
110,000
Monthly searches for “financial advisor near me”
60,500
Monthly searches for “retirement planning near me”
4,400
Monthly searches for “how much does a financial advisor cost”
Source: Semrush US database, monthly searches and keyword difficulty, October 2026
Where Advisor Marketing Breaks
Most Advisor Websites Say the Same Thing as Every Other Advisor.
“Holistic, personalized planning for your financial future.” Advisor site after advisor site opens with some version of that line, and it gives a search engine, an AI tool and a prospect no reason to pick you.
Compliance review is where content goes to die.
An agency writes something punchy, compliance strikes half of it, and the post sits in a queue for weeks. Copy written to your firm’s rules from the start gets approved faster and actually gets published.
No niche, no ranking.
A practice that serves physicians, tech employees with equity pay or people nearing retirement has a story search engines can rank. A practice that serves “individuals and families” competes with every office in town on the same generic terms.
Reviews are avoided out of habit.
For years advisers were told testimonials were off limits. The SEC’s Marketing Rule now permits them with disclosures, yet many practices still show no client voice at all, while the profile pages that prospects check fill up elsewhere.
The fee question goes unanswered.
Prospects search what an advisor costs and whether one is a fiduciary before they ever reach out. Sites that bury the fee schedule and the firm’s standard of care send those people to a comparison site to find out.
A vendor template site nobody can rank.
Many advisors run on a template site approved years ago, with thin pages and the same layout as hundreds of other practices. It passes review, but it gives search engines nothing distinct to rank.
Nobody knows which leads became clients.
An inquiry is not an account. If reporting stops at form fills, you cannot tell whether search, referrals or ads brought in the households that actually moved assets.
What We Do
Financial Advisor Marketing, Built to Clear Review
Six disciplines, each delivered in a form your compliance team can review, approve and archive.
How Advisor Search Works
What Makes Financial Advisor Marketing Different
Few industries put a regulator between the marketer and the website. These are the rules and search realities we plan every advisor engagement around.
Two Rulebooks
SEC Rules for RIAs, FINRA Rules for Reps
Registered investment advisers follow the SEC Marketing Rule, which advisers have had to comply with since November 2022. Registered representatives of a broker-dealer follow FINRA Rule 2210 on communications with the public. Hybrid and dually registered advisors usually answer to both, so we confirm which rules apply before a single page is written.
Reviews
Testimonials Are Allowed, With Conditions
The SEC Marketing Rule lets advisers use testimonials and endorsements if they disclose whether the person is a client, whether they were paid and any material conflicts. In a December 2025 risk alert, SEC staff flagged missing or generic disclosures as a recurring problem, so we build review collection and display around those disclosures from the start.
FINRA Review
Retail Communications Need a Principal’s Sign-Off
Under FINRA Rule 2210, anything sent or made available to more than 25 retail investors in 30 days is a retail communication, and a principal must approve it before first use. New member firms must also file those communications with FINRA ahead of use for their first year. FINRA proposed easing the pre-use approval requirement in July 2026, but until a change takes effect, content calendars have to budget for review time.
BrokerCheck
Your Site Must Link to Your Record
Since 2016, FINRA has required member firms to put a readily apparent reference and link to BrokerCheck on the first page retail investors see and on every profile page of a registered person. Prospects can check an advisor’s record in a click, so the bio next to that link has to earn the call.
Form CRS
The Relationship Summary Belongs Up Front
Since June 30, 2020, SEC registered advisers and broker-dealers serving retail investors have had to post their Form CRS relationship summary on their public website. SEC staff have criticized firms that bury it several clicks from the homepage, which is a design decision as much as a compliance one.
AI Search
AI Answers and Chatbots Follow the Same Rules
FINRA’s Regulatory Notice 24-09 reminded firms that existing rules apply to generative AI. Standard chatbot answers and AI drafted marketing that reach more than 25 retail investors are likely retail communications. Any AI tool on your site, and any AI assisted content we write, goes through the same review as everything else.
Client Search Demand
The Searches Future Clients Run
National monthly searches and keyword difficulty for the queries an advisory practice can build pages around. Local versions in your city are smaller and usually far easier to win.
Finding an Advisor
- financial advisor near me110,000/mo · KD 64
- financial planner near me12,100/mo · KD 65
- cfp near me3,600/mo · KD 53
Retirement
- retirement planning near me60,500/mo · KD 57
- financial advisor for retirement8,100/mo · KD 47
- retirement planner near me2,900/mo · KD 50
Fees & Standard of Care
- how much does a financial advisor cost4,400/mo · KD 35
- fiduciary financial advisor near me3,600/mo · KD 68
- financial advisor fees2,900/mo · KD 30
- fee only financial advisor near me720/mo · KD 67
Source: Semrush US database, monthly searches and keyword difficulty, October 2026
How We Work
How an Advisor Engagement Runs
- 01
Learn your rules before your goals
We start with your registration, your broker-dealer or custodian, and your compliance team’s review process and turnaround. Then we map the clients you want and the searches they run in your market.
- 02
Fix profiles, disclosures and the bio pages
Accurate Business Profiles, advisor pages with credentials and the required BrokerCheck link, and Form CRS placed where it is easy to find. Quick, low risk work that improves both trust and visibility.
- 03
Publish niche and planning content on a review schedule
A steady calendar of pages and guides for your niche, delivered in batches sized to your review capacity. Paid search covers high intent local searches while the content builds rankings.
- 04
Report on introductory calls and new households
Calls and forms tracked by source and campaign through to the households that became clients. You see which channels bring the right relationships, not just the most clicks.
Working with Bryan Passanisi
“Bryan makes things happen and has an incredible attention to detail on all of the small SEO tweaks that add up to big results.”
Jean Kim Hahn, Senior Director Global Marketing, MiniMed
“Bryan takes the time to educate other business partners on SEO. Because of that, more integrated branded ideas were able to be executed.”
David Nielsen, Lead SEO, Genentech
“Bryan has an unbelievable drive to excel at everything he does. He thinks through all the approaches, identifies those most likely to yield the most impressive results, executes quickly, analyzes the results, communicates the insights and builds upon them.”
Mike Berry, Ex Adobe, eBay, PayPal
The Expert
Bryan Passanisi
Founder, Brown Bear Digital
Bryan Passanisi is establishing himself as one of the sharpest emerging voices at the intersection of SEO and AI search. With 15 years of hands-on experience building and scaling search programs, he brings a depth of knowledge most agencies simply can't match — and a relentless focus on what's actually moving results right now.
As search evolves around AI Overviews, generative engines, and large language models, Bryan is at the front of it — testing, building, and translating what's changing into strategy that compounds. He understands the full search landscape, from technical SEO and entity optimization to GEO and LLM visibility, and he founded Brown Bear to give businesses direct access to that expertise without the agency overhead.
- 15 years across SEO, AI search, and paid strategy
- Deep expertise in GEO, entity SEO, and AI Overviews
- Direct access — no account managers, no hand-offs
Awards
- 2025Semrush AI/GEO Award Winner
- 2022Digiday Awards, Best Search Campaign Winner
Common Questions
Financial Advisors, Answered
A financial advisor marketing agency helps a practice get found and chosen by the clients it serves best. At Brown Bear that means local SEO for offices and advisors, content built around your niche, paid search, and AI search work so ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers describe your services and fees accurately, all delivered in a form your compliance team can review.
Often, yes, but it depends on how you register and how your firm handles the rules. Under the SEC Marketing Rule, a client review used in your marketing is generally a testimonial, which brings disclosure and oversight duties. Broker-dealer reps also follow FINRA rules and their firm’s policies. We design review programs with your compliance team, not around them.
Content written for compliance from the first draft gets approved far more often. We avoid performance claims, guarantees and superlatives, cite sources, and deliver drafts in a format your reviewers can mark up and archive. Your compliance team keeps final say on every word.
Usually. Google treats financial advice as Your Money or Your Life content and asks for more evidence of expertise and trust before it ranks a page, and review cycles slow publishing. Local searches in your own city move faster than national topics. We set expectations around that timeline up front.
This page is for advisors and planners who mostly serve individuals and families through local search and planning content. Our wealth manager page covers RIA firms serving high net worth clients, family offices and the performance advertising rules that come with that work.
Not as named clients. Our client work has centered on medical practices, mostly plastic surgery, which is also a Your Money or Your Life category with strict advertising rules and heavy review. We will not claim an advisor track record we do not have. We will show you an audit of your practice’s search visibility in your market before you sign anything.
Further Reading
YMYL and AI Search Research
- How Long Does Medical, Legal, or Financial SEO Take?→Realistic timelines for SEO in the categories Google scrutinizes most, finance included.
- What Is YMYL SEO?→What the Your Money or Your Life label covers and why Google holds these pages to a higher bar.
- How to Improve Brand Visibility, Sentiment, and Citations in AI Search→How AI tools decide which firms to name and how they describe them.
- How to Choose an SEO and AI Search Agency→The questions to ask any agency before you sign, us included.
See Where Your Practice Shows Up
Tell us who you serve and where. We will show you how your practice appears in local search and AI answers today, and what it would take to win more of the right clients.