Cetera Financial Group has expanded its LeadEngine investor-acquisition program to all advisors in its network, the company said Tuesday.
Only a little more than 100 of the network's more than 8,000 advisors have been using the program before now, according to Cetera. The firm oversaw $340 billion in assets under administration and $119 billion in assets under management as of June 30.
LeadEngine participants are also now eligible for reimbursement of their investment into the program, Cetera said.
The LeadEngine lead-generation platform was developed for Cetera by SmartAsset and connects financial professionals directly with highly qualified prospects who are actively seeking a financial professional, Cetera said.
This year, LeadEngine converted more than $20 million in assets for advisors in the program, with another $75 million in the pipeline, Cetera said. Cetera-affiliated financial professionals using SmartAsset now are also "outpacing the 5% lead-to-client conversion benchmark," the companies said in a joint news release.
Cetera and SmartAsset have collaborated since early 2019, testing multiple programs designed to match Cetera's financial professionals with new clients across the U.S., they said.
The initial pilot was launched in January 2020 and "included about 30 advisors who participate in one of Cetera's community councils," according to Michael Zuna, Cetera chief marketing and communications officer. "Our goal was to determine whether SmartAsset's platform provided quality leads with a strong return on investment, and gain feedback from a small group of advisors on the impact this program could have on their business," he explained on Thursday.
Then, "after a few months on platform, we felt that SmartAsset provided a superior solution for lead generation compared to many other programs we had previously piloted," Zuna said. "As part of Cetera's initiative to support the growth of affiliated financial professionals, we scaled a cost-share pilot to a larger audience in November 2020. We onboarded 30 advisors per month for a 6-month program on SmartAsset from November 2020 through Summer 2021."
An invitation to participate in the pilot was "extended to financial professionals through Cetera Growth Officers, initiating individual conversations with reps in their community focused on opportunities to grow their business," he added. "With the rolling six months, at the highest peak of the scaled pilot, we had about 120 advisors in the program."
"With an audience reach of more than 75 million consumers each month," SmartAsset's scale "creates opportunities for advisors to grow their businesses via a fully scalable, on-demand client prospecting service," according to Michael Carvin, CEO and co-founder of SmartAsset.
