Charles Schwab is a global financial services firm offering brokerage, advisory, and comprehensive wealth management services. To expand its high-net-worth client base, Schwab ran a 45-day performance advertising campaign on NEXUS, focusing on affluent investors seeking full-service wealth management beyond standard trading platforms.
The campaign targeted high-income professionals and crypto-wealth holders in major metropolitan markets, with an emphasis on account quality, assets under management, and return on ad spend.
Campaign Objective and Setup
The objective of the campaign was to acquire qualified wealth management clients with significant investable assets while maintaining efficiency at scale.
Over a 45-day period, Schwab allocated $2.8 million in ad spend, deploying wealth-focused behavioral targeting and audience segmentation to reach high-value prospects in Tier-1 metropolitan areas.
Behavioral Targeting and Wealth Segmentation
The campaign targeted users actively engaging with investment platforms, retail investing tools, and forex and perpetual trading content. These audiences demonstrated sustained interest in personal finance, portfolio management, and advanced investment strategies.
Behavioral signals and portfolio-level indicators were used to prioritize prospects with higher investable balances, ensuring the campaign focused on users capable of opening and funding high-value accounts.
Geographic Focus on Wealth-Dense Markets
Spend was concentrated in Tier-1 metropolitan areas with high concentrations of affluent investors, including New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. This geographic focus maximized exposure to wealth-dense audiences while maintaining cost efficiency across the campaign.
Localized delivery ensured relevance without diluting scale.
Sequential Retargeting and Education-Led Messaging
The campaign used sequential retargeting to move prospects through the wealth management consideration cycle. Initial touchpoints delivered educational content focused on financial planning and long-term wealth strategies, followed by consultation booking incentives.
This structure positioned Schwab as a comprehensive wealth partner rather than a transactional brokerage, increasing trust and conversion intent among high-value prospects.
Campaign Results
Over the 45-day campaign period, the following results were recorded:
- 28,000 new qualified wealth management accounts
- $520.4 million in new assets under management
- $18,571 average account value
- 18.7 million impressions across premium finance publications
- 7.2× return on ad spend
These results reflected both scale and quality, with strong asset accumulation alongside efficient acquisition.
Observations
The campaign demonstrated that precision behavioral targeting combined with education-led messaging can drive premium client acquisition at scale. By focusing on users with verified investment activity and concentrating spend in wealth-dense markets, the campaign achieved 340% higher average account values compared to standard acquisition benchmarks.
