Do RIAs that advertise grow faster?
One in eight RIAs with $1 billion to $5 billion runs Google or Meta ads. Those whose ads target a specific kind of client grew organically 6.1% a year. Firms with no ads, or generic ads, grew 1%.
Co-founders, Niva · Nov. 8, 2026 · 8 min read
RIAs that advertise grow faster, but generic ads don’t help.
Organic growth a year, 2023 to 2025: new client money minus withdrawals, after taking out market returns and acquisitions. Typical (median) firm in each group.
Over five years, 70% of advertisers grew organically, compared with 55% of firms without ads.
Doing ads versus doing ads well
Before Niva, Vaibhav led product for Google Ads’ small-business advertisers, a business that grew more than three times over during his time there. His team spoke with hundreds of small businesses, and most said the same thing: “Ads don’t work in my industry.”
When the team ran tests, that was rarely true. Running ads and running ads well are different things, and the return on one is many times the other. The first advice was always to fix the organic presence before spending anything: a clear website, reviews and testimonials, and a strong showing in search and AI answers. Then run ads written for a specific customer.
RIAs say ads don’t work for them, too. So we tested it.
Why these numbers look small
From 2023 to 2025 the typical firm’s assets grew about 16% a year. Almost all of that was the market: a 60/40 portfolio returned 14 to 18% a year. What is left once you take the market out is organic growth: the money clients brought in, minus what they took out. That is the number that tells you whether a firm is winning clients, and it is small for most firms.
A 60/40 portfolio returned about 15% a year. Organic growth is the part above that.
Asset growth a year, 2023 to 2025, the typical firm in each group. Every firm is credited with the same market return.
We credit every firm with the same 15.2% a year, what a 60/40 index fund earned, so the columns differ only in the slice above it. Firms running ads grew organically about three times as fast as firms without ads, and firms running targeted ads about six times as fast.
Who advertises
Of the 726 firms, 86 were running Google or Meta ads in October 2026. 31 of them run targeted ads.
86 of 726 firms run ads. 31 run targeted ads.
What the ads say matters more than running them
We read every ad the 86 firms were running and noted what each one does: targets a type of client, states a fee or minimum, shows review stars in a Maps listing, offers a free first step, uses video, or only describes the firm. A firm’s ads can do several of these. Almost half of the advertisers, 41 of 86, ran ads that did none of them except describe the firm.
Of the six things the ads did, targeting a type of client mattered most. Describing the firm mattered least.
Organic growth a year, typical advertiser whose ads do each thing. A firm’s ads can do several. Pick a row to see the kind of ad it describes.
- Targets a type of clientGoogle search ad · 26 firms+6.1%
- States a fee or minimumGoogle search ad · 6 firms+4.7%
- Local Maps ads with review starsGoogle Maps ad · 18 firms+4.0%
- Offers a free first stepMeta ad · 21 firms+3.5%
- Uses videoMeta video ad · 21 firms+3.2%
- No target or offerGoogle search ad · 35 firms+1.0%
What we would tell an RIA
- Fix the basics first. A clear website, reviews and a presence in search and AI answers. This study didn’t measure that, but it is the most consistent thing Vaibhav saw at Google: ads amplify what a prospect finds when they click.
- Target a type of client. One firm in the study runs separate ads for employees of specific energy companies, each on that company’s pension choices. Others target business owners preparing to sell, or people near retirement. “Wealth management in Texas” targets no one.
- Make an offer. A flat annual fee in the headline, a free assessment, or a guide. Ads that only describe the firm (“fee-only, independent”, a ranking) grew no faster than firms without ads.
- Use more than one platform. Firms advertising on both Google and Meta grew 3.7% a year; firms on Google alone, 2.0%. We did not study LinkedIn or other platforms, but a first look suggests the firms that added LinkedIn to the mix did best of all.
The 10 firms with the most ads
These are the 10 firms in the study with the most ads in Google’s and Meta’s libraries. Running more ads is not the same as running better ones, but most of these firms do both, growing organically by a median of 6.0% a year.
| Firm | Google ads | Meta ads | What the ads do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Falcon Wealth PlanningOntario, CA | about 200 | 5 | Free financial assessment, offered across about 200 Google ads, plus video |
| Cornerstone WealthHuntersville, NC | 75 | 9 | Tax and residency guides for families moving to Aiken and Greenville, SC |
| SummitryFoster City, CA | 59 | 17 | Guides for Apple employees on stock grants and share-purchase plans, plus video |
| GDS Wealth ManagementFlower Mound, TX | 52 | 11 | Explainer videos on fiduciary advisers versus brokers |
| Halbert HargroveLong Beach, CA | 38 | 22 | For investors with $1M or more; local ads and video |
| Verdence Capital AdvisorsHunt Valley, MD | 36 | 16 | Promotes the firm’s market podcasts, in many versions |
| Condor CapitalMartinsville, NJ | 37 | 14 | Free newsletter and checklist; local ads with review stars |
| Pine Grove Financial GroupWoodbury, MN | 36 | 11 | Local Maps ads with a 5.0-star rating; retirement articles on Meta |
| PCM EncoreAspen, CO | 16 | 24 | Coordinated planning for households with $1M or more, priced by asset tier |
| Wedmont Private CapitalWest Chester, PA | 35 | – | States a flat $12,500 annual fee in the ad |
Ad counts show activity, not spend or results. The 6.0% is the group’s median across the 8 firms with three years of clean data.
How to read this
We matched the ads firms are running today to their growth over the past three years. So the finding is that the firms advertising now, and especially those running targeted ads, are the firms that have been growing fastest. It does not prove the ads caused the growth; some of these firms may have started advertising because they were already growing. Either way, the firms growing fastest are the ones running targeted ads.
Why these numbers look lower than industry surveys
Benchmarking surveys such as Schwab’s ask firms to report their own growth, before fees, and only some firms answer. Cerulli research, as reported by InvestmentNews, puts billion-dollar RIAs at 3.9% a year after the market, but that includes acquisitions and is weighted toward the largest firms. We use every firm’s filings, take out deals and fees, and look at the typical firm.
Our method
We looked at independent wealth managers with $1 billion to $5 billion AUM where individuals make up at least 80% of assets, and the average client has $800,000 or more: 726 firms. For each firm and year from 2023 to 2025, we took the change in assets reported on Form ADV, then subtracted what a 60/40 index fund would have earned and any assets bought or sold through a deal. 615 firms had three clean years, and every growth figure uses only those. In October 2026, we looked up all 726 in Google’s Ads Transparency Center and Meta’s Ad Library and reviewed every result. 86 were running ads, and we read all 86. Removing every firm with an acquisition, a sale, or an unexplained jump in assets leaves the gap at about 1.5 points. Including firms with smaller clients doesn’t change the conclusion: the gap is wider there. Organic growth here is the change in assets after market returns, deals, and fees, so it is net of what clients withdrew (custodians call the same thing net new assets).
Saswat Panda and Vaibhav Goel are the co-founders of Niva. Saswat was co-founder and CTO at LiveLike and has an MBA from Harvard; Vaibhav previously led product for Google Ads’ small-business advertisers and growth at DoorDash. Data: Niva research, from Form ADV filings through 2025 and ad checks in October 2026.