Avantax

Our media strategy achieved a payload of business results.

situation

Avantax is a pioneer in tax-smart investing, financial planning, and wealth management. Tax and Financial professionals partner with Avantax to create new revenue opportunities through tax-focused, holistic financial services.

  • Avantax was an unknown and newly formed entity
  • Target segments are highly niche and very difficult to reach
  • Competitively outspent 3:1 by existing Wealth Management Advisory firms
  • Challenging messaging proposition in the face of industry ‘sameness and regulatory burdens

We partnered with Avantax to establish data, analytics and technology transformation in the development of protocol for metrics analysis and pipeline fulfillment.

Solution

We got to work developing B2B audience profiles, journey maps, a performance media connections plan, and a new brand creative campaign tailored to 3 key Avantax B2B segments: CPAs, Financial Professionals, and Tax Pros.

Gatesman pioneered and launched a rebranding campaign that meticulously focused on reaching the ideal audiences while orchestrating a positioning that made the brand feel big, bold, and breakthrough.

Our negotiations brought big value

We vetted 20+ publisher sites for audience fit, value, and breadth of available placements. Ultimately, we negotiated rates and value adds for the top six publishers and presented options to our client team.

Our media plan made every dollar count

We targeted very specific sets of finance and tax pro prospects, so our media plan was optimized to encourage brand consideration and drive relationships.

We worked with publishers to ensure proper list targeting for on-site ad delivery, emails, newsletters, and webinar registration. The same lists were implemented to maximize budget effectiveness for paid search, social, online video, and programmatic display to deliver Avantax messaging solely to the prospect lists wherever they consumed content online.

We monitored audience frequency, engagement, and brand awareness

Because of the niche audience size, our approach to measurement had to change.  We monitored the reach against the matched list sizes as well as the ad frequency and engagement. If engagement dropped below thresholds, we shifted to our recommended alternate formats, creatives, or platforms. Additionally, because our goal was to increase brand engagement, we managed real time indicators including organic searches rising.

Results

35% Increase in Website Traffic

We drove known prospects to the Avantax website, contributing to a 35% increase in website sessions (a 70% increase in the first week)

Higher Quality Traffic

The list-based approach returned quality visits providing a 75% higher session engagement time compared to a traditional awareness campaign.

20% Increase in Brand Recognition
and Organic Search

We experienced significant growth of brand recognition within search, including a 20% increase in organic search traffic