Cetera sweetens advisor growth offering with industry-first guarantee

Cetera is hoping to entice more advisors and firms to affiliate with its advisor growth platform by introducing a new guarantee.

Billed as a first for the wealth industry, the broker-dealer firm is offering its Cetera Growth Guarantee to newly affiliated financial advisors and institutions in its GrowthLine Program, which is part of its Growth360 suite of tools.

Under Cetera Financial Group’s new offer, advisors and firms in the GrowthLine program who don’t see their assets under administration grow at least 38 percent faster will be able to get back their affiliation fees.

“Since the launch of our Growth360 program in 2021, Cetera has proven its ability to meaningfully grow advisor practices with tools and offerings that focus holistically on driving organic growth,” Cetera CEO Adam Antoniades said in a statement. "Three years later, we are committed and confident in Cetera's ability to help advisors grow their business faster than they would anywhere else in the industry.”

Cetera Financial Group is owned by Cetera Holdings, which is headed by Mike Durbin, former president of Fidelity Institutional. All in all, the Cetera network includes more than 12,000 financial professionals and their teams, who oversee more than $475 billion in AUM and $190 billion in AUA.

The GrowthLine program – which the firm values at $150,000 and which is available to all Cetera advisors – is designed to maximize customer lifetime value for advisors through a combination of “data, segmentation, AI, and technology,” coupled with “full-service marketing strategy, planning, and execution.”

The program, which is used by more than 1,000 advisors, includes search engine optimization, new website design and delivery, and marketing strategy, planning, and messaging to get an advisor’s value proposition across clearly and consistently.

As Cetera’s website says, the program promises improved results across multiple fronts, including 300 percent more unique visitors to an advisor’s website, 200 percent greater reach on social media, and an 80 percent increase in organic search traffic.

The firm claims the program has helped advisors achieved 58 percent more annual revenue growth than comparable peers, with at least $46 million in new AUA on average from recruited advisors.

“While other firms offer growth resources for advisors, too often they don't accurately measure success, make unsubstantiated claims and entail a financial cost outside of an advisor's affiliation fees, which is not the case at Cetera,” Antoniades said.