Opportunity Made Possible is a four-part series exploring how intelligence-led distribution helps asset managers unlock measurable ROI across all parts of the organisation involved in fund distribution — from front-line sales and marketing to operations and strategic leadership.
Building on Fundpath’s earlier work — Bridging the Gap and Insight is Beautiful — this series explores how forward-looking intelligence helps distribution teams identify opportunities, align resources, and demonstrate impact.
In the first two parts of this series, we looked at how distribution leaders and sales teams are adapting to the Intelligence Age. Part I explored how Leadership can regain visibility across a fast-moving market, while Part II focused on how Front-Line Sales can convert that intelligence into sharper targeting and stronger client engagement. Together, they set the stage for the next link in the chain — Marketing — whose role is to turn insight into impact through relevance, timing, and measurable contribution to growth.
For asset managers, marketing has never been more important in shaping how they engage with wealth managers. But the landscape has changed. In the Information Age, success often came from reach: getting messages in front of as many firms as possible. In the Intelligence Age, effectiveness comes from precision: knowing which wealth managers want to hear about which strategies, and when.
The challenge for marketers is not a shortage of content or channels — it’s making sure every campaign is relevant to buyer appetite and measurable in terms of contribution to distribution outcomes.
Recent press coverage by Citywire and Ignites Europe acknowledge a long-standing challenge in the industry: wealth managers are exposed to a constant stream of product launches, thought pieces, and fund updates. In such an environment, generic messages are easily ignored. What cuts through is specificity: communication that speaks to current appetite, matches preferred fund structures, and acknowledges firm-level priorities.
Intelligence allows marketing teams to tailor their outreach with confidence. Instead of sending broad content into the market, they can align messaging with live Talk-To-Me-About (TTMA) signals, appetite shifts, and firm-level intelligence. This ensures campaigns resonate with the right segments and support sales conversations already in motion.
Marketing is most powerful when it is integrated with sales activity — not parallel to it. With access to the same intelligence layer, marketing teams can:
This alignment reduces duplication, shortens feedback loops, and gives distribution leaders a clear line of sight on how marketing supports pipeline growth and retention.
For CMOs and Heads of Marketing, the ROI question is constant: what is marketing delivering to distribution outcomes? Intelligence provides the answer. By aligning campaigns to appetite signals and tracking engagement against known opportunities, it becomes possible to measure not just open rates or clicks, but how marketing contributes to meetings, flows, and retention.
This clarity strengthens marketing’s position in the distribution organisation — moving its perception from a supporting function to a growth driver. The case for precision marketing is clear: according to McKinsey, companies using data-driven marketing engines report above-market growth and EBITDA increases of 15-25%. Another study shows data-driven, insight-led marketing delivers efficiency gains of up to 30%, and incremental top-line growth of up to 10% – without increasing the marketing budget. For asset managers, the same principles apply — data-driven, insight-led campaigns outperform generic outreach and prove their impact on growth.
Leveraging the Fundpath dataset, we were able to identify and invite a highly targeted group of attendees to our recent event. Fundpath has acted as an extension of the sales team allowing us to contact only the most relevant individuals – contributing directly to the event’s success and the quality of conversations that took place. In addition, we have been able to target individual clients for one to one meetings with specific searches, which has led to genuine pipeline.”
— Tom Cartwright, Director, Business Development, Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management
In the Intelligence Age, marketing isn’t about louder campaigns — it’s about sharper ones. By grounding campaigns in forward-looking appetite signals, aligning with sales activity, and measuring contribution to outcomes, marketing can move from noise to impact.
Fundpath equips marketing teams with the intelligence they need to act with precision: ensuring every message resonates, every campaign supports distribution priorities, and every effort contributes to measurable ROI.