Now that LPs’ due diligence may never result in click-throughs to a website, they are increasingly ignoring quality fund content.
TL;DR: discover LPs’ intent using in-person interviews.
Funds count on buyers digesting their video explainers over long periods before choosing to allocate, and marketers need to know what content is being viewed or downloaded to credit its asset-raising potential. That is the only way that they can double-down on their most engaging themes and formats in future GTM campaigns.
But AI Search is leading to a decline in last-click attribution on fund websites, with trust-building educational content simply being missed during an investor’s digital research.
A possible workaround is for managers to ask their customers directly about what persuaded them to think of their fund, what keeps them loyal, then using AI tools to surface the information that click-based dashboards cannot tell them.
So, what does this mean for fund marketers?
Asset management is an industry that will feel the pinch of zero-click discovery more than most.
A pension fund trustee will likely find a firm by hearing them mentioned on a webinar or podcast, or by reading a quarterly letter forwarded by their consultant – all before interacting with a website. And by the time a mandate is awarded, a CRM may only record a single visit to a fund page.
Discretionary fund managers act in a similar manner, consuming content within newsletters or through AI assistants rather than relying on a manager’s own site.
When marketing value is based on tracked conversation but none of the hard-working content (reports or conference materials) pick this up, they look expensive and unproductive. Once they are cut from budgets, fund marketers lose key engagement factors.
Now, they need to gather richer evidence to defend it. Win and loss interviews with institutional clients could be considered, in conjunction with sales and investor relations teams. Any responses and testimonials gained cannot simply be repurposed for marketing (due to endorsement conditions set out by regulators) but grant valuable internal intel.
Here is how to go about conducting this low-tech customer loyalty analysis.
Add a “how did you hear from us?” step into communications
Insert this open question into onboarding stages, or ask it in consultant meetings and RFP debriefs, then log answers in a CRM.
Run structured interviews
Every quarter, conduct win/loss interviews with investors using AI-assisted transcription services to reveal which content or channels genuinely influence allocations.
Measure intent and influence rather than clicks
Track content consumption across full sales cycles by known high-value accounts to get more valuable insight into LP behaviour than last-touch reports.
Protect your marketing budget
Such qualitative evidence should be used alongside typical dashboard metrics whenever presenting marketing ROI to the board, to prove that rich content still contributes to AuM and needs further investment.
Source
Pootlepress, “In a zero-click world, your best marketing doesn’t show up in your analytics” (via TLDR Marketing)
