Financial Services Marketing

The financial services sector accounts for roughly 20% of the global economy — yet choosing a financial partner, whether a bank, fund, fintech, or insurer, ultimately depends on something rarer than capital: trust. As financial products become increasingly global, brands must communicate that trust seamlessly across touchpoints and borders. Our full-spectrum financial services advertising practice delivers expert media strategy and buying for ambitious, growth-focused financial brands.

Criterion Global has helped banks, private wealth firms, insurers, asset managers, and consumer finance companies build brand equity and influence decision-making — among both consumers and institutions — in markets worldwide.

Criterion Global's financial services marketing practice is built across the verticals where institutional buyers actually allocate marketing budgets — and where strategy, media, and measurement diverge meaningfully from generalist financial marketing. Three featured practice areas:

For alternative asset managers, private equity firms, and institutional financial brands competing for the attention of allocators, LPs, and the decision-makers who move capital. Private equity is at $4.4 trillion in AUM and scaling — but the financial media that asset managers rely on to reach institutional audiences is being eaten by AI scraping, bot traffic, and zero-click search.

Our asset management and private equity marketing practice is built for that reality. We design media strategies for the actual investor class — investment committees, CIOs, LP decision-makers, family-office principals — using firmographic precision targeting against contextually intelligent placements (Bloomberg Markets, WSJ Pro Private Equity, Capital Allocators, CNBC's Industrials and Private Equity verticals). We measure brand lift on PE perception, value creation belief, and long-term investment credibility — not impressions.

It's how we helped Brookfield Private Equity — one of the world's largest alternative asset managers, with $1T+ in AUM — strengthen consideration among institutional investors and lift PE value creation perception by +15.5 points against a measured control. Recognized at the 2026 Gramercy Institute Strategy Awards (Private Equity category) and the 2026 FCS Portfolio Awards (Silver, Media Strategy).

Read the full Brookfield Private Equity case study →

For PE firms and holdcos coordinating brand strategy across their portfolio of owned businesses — a related but distinct practice — see our PE Portfolio Marketing expertise.

For private wealth managers, RIAs, multi-family offices, and the wealth platforms competing for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth client acquisition. Wealth management marketing demands an unusual combination: the discretion expected by HNW prospects, the regulatory rigor required by FINRA and the SEC, the editorial fluency of premium financial media, and the precision targeting needed to reach a small, concentrated, and notoriously hard-to-reach decision-making class.

Criterion Global's private wealth practice spans many of the world's most established wealth managers and RIAs — domestic and international — across:

Our private wealth work draws on the same allocator-fluent media strategy practice that powers our asset management work — applied at the household level.

For property & casualty insurers, life and annuity carriers, specialty insurance brands, and the broker channels they serve. Insurance marketing sits at an unusual intersection: the discretionary buyer behavior of a financial-services product, the brand-equity discipline of a consumer category, and the regulatory framework of a state-licensed industry.

We design insurance marketing programs that span:

It's the practice behind our long-running work with PURE Insurance — the policyholder-owned specialty insurer serving high-net-worth households — reaching one of the most concentrated and discerning buyer audiences in the category.

Read the PURE Insurance case study →

Insurance marketing strategy benefits from the same brand-lift measurement discipline that drives our work in asset management. For deeper reading on how brand-equity measurement is being rewritten for an AI-disrupted media environment, see our buyer's guide: Brand Lift Studies in a Post-AI World →.

In finance — where complex quant strategies meet risk management — branding can seem secondary. Yet this is exactly where digital marketing for financial services proves essential.

Banks, funds, and advisory firms embrace digital channels for their clear measurability and low-funnel ROI. Fintech platforms take this further, driven by data and performance. Still, marketers often undervalue the manifold benefits the power of non-digital media. In finance, branding remains pivotal to credibility and long-term success. It’s not about a logo or color palette — it’s about a consistent, trusted identity that resonates with investors, clients, and the broader market.

Consider how Fisher Investments’ all-text ads use fear-based messaging to underscore cost-consciousness, while our client PURE Insurance sponsors the PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach, pairing First Tee youth golfers with PGA Champions. Both reflect brand strategy: each signals why and how they earn client trust.

So can digital marketing reinforce brand in financial services? Absolutely — but not alone. Relying solely on performance marketing misses the point. In a sector built on intangible assets and complex transactions, brand is stability. It creates confidence amid volatility. In short, financial services advertising doesn’t just support trust — it’s the architecture of it.

Our wide-ranging work in media planning and buying for financial services spans consumer banking, investment banking, commercial lending, consumer finance products, international property marketing, private wealth management, and projects as disparate as:

Financial services media buying and marketing presents specific challenges and opportunities, from understanding consumer motivations, to ensuring media planning complies with financial marketing regulations local to each market and product.

Criterion Global prides itself in guiding clients through new terrain: new markets, new products, new strategies. We see rife opportunity in media buying for financial and development brands to position emerging asset classes as new stores of wealth.