Organic search still reigns supreme for fund marketing outreach, as ads in AI-generated text appear to generate significantly less revenue.
TL;DR: hold back paid AI budgets.
ChatGPT’s international advertising rollout still has a way to go to be taken seriously by advertisers, according to new research.
Visitors that do arrive via paid ChatGPT placements generated far less revenue per session compared to those from Google Search, and converted at well under a third of the rate. The same ads also appear to have eaten slightly into ChatGPT’s organic referral traffic.
As a result, the researchers conclude that OpenAI would need to cut their ad prices heftily before the channel could even compete with search, or fund its free tier.
So, what does this mean for fund marketers?
This particular study measured e-commerce, which of course works differently to fund marketing in that purchases follow clicks in minutes compared to the financial industry’s months or years of sales cycles.
Wealth and intermediary audiences are extremely unlikely to allocate based on a single ad. And if ChatGPT ads rarely convert shoppers, they will struggle to deliver a measurable impact for a fund manager any time soon.
This also does not consider the fact that many managers will bypass ChatGPT advertising for funds entirely purely due to the regulatory risk the channel poses. Ad formats within AI-generated text may not contextualise information to LPs properly, and complicates record-keeping and authorisation by compliance teams.
Still, AI platforms are impossible to ignore and should not be shoved to the side. As confidence in these tools grows, the more valuable work now is to ensure your firm appears accurately in organic answers.
It is not worth paying to sit next to organic answers that drive more traffic! Instead, consider the following next steps:
- Hold back AI budgets and treat ChatGPT ads as a minor controlled test until there is stark evidence for its advertising success in B2B or financial services.
- Put more effort into well-structured content and third-party coverage that AI tools draw on to increase organic search visibility.
- Agree how conversational ad placements can be approved and archived by the compliance team in advance of further AI search developments.
- Measure your tests against sales pipeline metrics, including meetings booked and investors’ CRM progression.
Source
Ecommerce Research, “Can Advertising Fund Free AI? Evidence from ChatGPT’s International Advertising Rollout”
