Compliance content is marketing that a financial advisor can publish, defend and document: every claim is fair, balanced and substantiated, every required disclosure is present, and a record of the approval exists. For SEC-registered advisers, the rulebook is the Marketing Rule. For broker-dealer representatives, it is FINRA's communications rules. This guide shows what each regime asks of your webinars, emails, website pages and social posts, and how to build a workflow that keeps content moving without creating exam findings.
TL;DR
- Which rules apply depends on how you are registered: RIAs fall under the Advisers Act (SEC or state), while broker-dealers answer mainly to FINRA.
- The SEC Marketing Rule bars untrue or misleading statements and requires fair and balanced treatment of benefits and risks.
- Testimonials, endorsements, third-party ratings and performance each carry specific disclosures. Net performance must accompany gross performance.
- Rules follow the content, not the channel: email, webinars and social posts are all covered, and regulators expect review, supervision and record retention.
- A short, repeatable workflow (draft, review, approve, publish, archive) protects you more than any single piece of content.
Table of Contents
- What "compliance content" actually means
- The SEC Marketing Rule in plain terms
- What you can say: claims, performance, testimonials and ratings
- If you are with a broker-dealer: FINRA rules
- State-registered advisers: check the state rules
- How the rules apply by channel
- What enforcement actually looks like
- A review workflow that keeps content moving
- Our perspective on compliance content
- Build it into your marketing, not on top of it
- Common mistakes to avoid
- FAQ
- Sources
What "compliance content" actually means
The phrase gets used two ways. Some people mean content about compliance, such as explainers on regulation. Most advisors searching for it mean something more practical: marketing content that stays inside the rules. Blog posts, newsletters, seminar slides, video scripts, website copy and social posts all count, because regulators treat them as communications or advertisements.
The first step is knowing which regulator sits over your content. RIAs are regulated under the Advisers Act and may register with the SEC or with state securities commissions, while FINRA is the main regulatory body for broker-dealers. Hybrid practices may sit under both, and then the stricter standard usually governs what you can safely publish.
The practical consequence: the same testimonial that is acceptable under one regime may need different disclosures under another, and some states have been stricter than the SEC. Know your registration before you plan a content calendar.
The SEC Marketing Rule in plain terms
The Marketing Rule (Rule 206(4)-1 under the Advisers Act) replaced the older advertising and cash-solicitation rules. Its compliance date was November 4, 2022, and it prohibits advertisements that include untrue statements of material fact, omit material facts, or are otherwise materially misleading.
Three ideas carry most of the weight:
- No false or misleading statements. This covers what you say and what you leave out.
- Fair and balanced presentation. Under the rule, advisers must give fair and balanced treatment to both potential benefits and material risks or limitations. A post celebrating a strategy's upside without its limits fails this test.
- Substantiation. Material statements of fact need a reasonable basis, and the SEC's small-entity guide says that you should be able to support material factual claims if asked.
For a practical walkthrough of the steps, see our guide to 4 compliance steps for US RIAs to meet the SEC Marketing Rule.
What you can say: claims, performance, testimonials and ratings
This is where most content questions land. Here is how each category works under the SEC rule.
Performance
Advertisements that show gross performance must also show net performance over the same period, using the same methodology, with equal prominence. If your webinar slide shows a model portfolio's return before fees, the after-fee figure belongs next to it, in the same size and style.
Hypothetical performance deserves extra care. In 2024, SEC exam staff observed advisers advertising hypothetical performance without the required policies and procedures. If you use projections or model results in a seminar, the policy that governs them should exist in writing before the slide does.
Testimonials and endorsements
The rule permits testimonials and endorsements, with conditions. Advisers must disclose whether the promoter is a current client, any compensation, and material conflicts of interest. When a promoter is paid, a written agreement is generally required, with exceptions for affiliated personnel and de minimis compensation.
We have written more on this in advisor testimonials and compliance: what the SEC rule allows, and if you want to see how real wording looks, the client testimonial examples for financial advisors are a good starting point. For the bigger picture of why they matter, read the role of client testimonials for financial advisors.
Third-party ratings
Ratings are allowed when the adviser reasonably believes the survey is fair and balanced, and the content discloses the rating date and period, the rater, and any compensation paid. A badge on your homepage with no date or rater is the classic gap.
A quick reference table
| Content type | Core requirement | Where it usually goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Gross performance | Net performance alongside, same period and prominence | Net figure missing or in small print |
| Hypothetical performance | Written policies reasonably designed for its use | No policy in place before publishing |
| Testimonial or endorsement | Disclose client status, compensation and conflicts | Missing compensation disclosure; no written agreement |
| Third-party rating | Date, period, rater and compensation disclosed | Badge with no context |
| Factual claims ("we help clients retire sooner") | Reasonable basis for substantiation | No file showing support |
If you are with a broker-dealer: FINRA rules
FINRA's testimonial rule works differently. Under Rule 2210(d)(6), retail communications with testimonials must say that the testimonial may not be representative of other customers, is no guarantee of future success, and, if the person was paid more than $100, that it is a paid testimonial.
FINRA also states that its rules apply to communications regardless of medium, including social media and email. A tweet and a printed brochure are held to the same standard of being fair, balanced and complete.
State-registered advisers: check the state rules
Smaller RIAs register with their state securities regulator, and state rules can differ from the SEC's. NASAA's model rules have historically prohibited testimonials and made no allowance for third-party ratings, and NASAA has proposed changes to align them with the SEC rule. Industry groups have argued that aligning state rules with the SEC Marketing Rule would improve consistency.
Because this is changing, do not assume the SEC standard applies to you. Check your own state regulator's current advertising rule before publishing client stories, and ask your chief compliance officer or outside counsel to confirm.
How the rules apply by channel
Regulators care about substance, so the same principles travel across formats. What changes is where the risk hides.
Website
Your site is an advertisement. Watch for stale performance figures, undated ratings, testimonials without disclosures, and superlatives such as "best" or "top" that you cannot substantiate. Keep a dated file of what each claim rests on.
Email and drip campaigns
Automated sequences are efficient and risky for one reason: they keep running after the rules, or your facts, change. Review the entire sequence at approval, and schedule periodic re-review so a sent-in-2026 message does not quietly go stale. Email is also a recordkeeping item, which we cover below.
Webinars and seminars
Slides, scripts, handouts, the registration page and the follow-up emails are all content. The live portion is the hard part: an advisor improvising an answer about returns can create a misleading statement no one reviewed. Script the performance and risk language, and keep a copy of the final deck and the recording.
Social media
FINRA says firms must supervise business-related social content and keep records for at least three years, citing Exchange Act Rule 17a-4 and FINRA Rule 4511. SEC examiners have likewise noted advisers failing to maintain copies of social media posts. If a post is business-related, assume it is a record.
Message type matters as well. Our breakdown of types of RIA fiduciary marketing messages, ranked by risk helps you decide which posts need the closest review.
What enforcement actually looks like
Enforcement cases show which gaps regulators care about most, and they are rarely exotic.
- M1 Finance (FINRA, 2024). FINRA found the firm failed to review, retain and supervise influencers' posts that included misleading claims. The firm consented to a censure and an $850,000 fine. The order cites rules 2210, 3110 and 4511, covering communications, supervision and record retention. The lesson: a third party posting on your behalf is your content.
- Atlas Financial Advisors (SEC, December 2024). The SEC fined the adviser $175,000 for Marketing Rule and recordkeeping violations, including misleading performance claims and failing to adopt necessary policies.
Notice the common thread. Missing policies and missing records show up next to the misleading claim. The SEC's exam division specifically looked at whether advisers adopted and implemented written policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent violations. Having a process is itself part of compliance.
A review workflow that keeps content moving
Most advisors do not struggle with understanding the rule. They struggle with the bottleneck: content waits for approval, then slips. A lightweight system fixes that.
- Classify the piece. Is it educational, promotional, or does it include performance, testimonials, ratings or paid promoters? The higher-risk the category, the more review it needs.
- Write from an approved library. Pre-cleared language for risk statements, fee descriptions and disclosures cuts review time sharply.
- Check claims against support. For each factual claim, note what substantiates it. If you cannot name the support, soften or cut the claim.
- Add the required disclosures. Net performance, testimonial and endorsement disclosures, rating details and any FINRA language belong in the draft, not as an afterthought.
- Get documented approval. A named reviewer signs off before publication, and the sign-off is saved with the final version. FINRA member firms must approve retail communications before use.
- Publish and archive. Save the published version, date and channel. Retain per the rule that applies to you; for FINRA firms the social media guidance sets a floor of three years.
- Re-review on a schedule. Evergreen pages, drip sequences and pinned posts should be revisited at set intervals and whenever your facts change.
Our independent advisor compliance marketing checklist turns this into a list you can hand to your team.
Our perspective on compliance content
We are practicing financial advisors who have grown real advisory practices, so we have sat on both sides of this problem. We have wanted content that brings in prospects, and we have had to defend every line of it.
Our view is simple: compliance is not what slows marketing down. Lack of a system is. When advisors write each piece from scratch, review it ad hoc and store it wherever it lands, every post becomes a small risk and a small project. When the library, the disclosures, the approvals and the archive are built into the way content is made, the same advisor publishes more, with less worry.
That is why we build marketing for independent advisors, not for businesses in general. Long buying cycles, regulated language and trust-driven decisions change what good content looks like. A webinar has to educate without promising. A drip sequence has to nurture without overreaching. A website has to be persuasive and still carry the disclosures.
Our system is designed around those constraints, so that becoming the first choice for your clients does not depend on gambling with your registration.
Josh
Build it into your marketing, not on top of it
If you would rather not assemble this workflow yourself, we built our turnkey system for independent advisors and RIAs. It combines customized webinars, fully produced seminars, a compliance-friendly content library, automated email follow-ups, scheduled social content and advisor websites, all designed around the regulatory needs and long buying cycles of financial services.
See how the pieces fit on our services page, or talk through where to start with a growth strategy for your practice. Final compliance review remains with your firm and your compliance professionals.
Common mistakes to avoid
A few patterns recur in advisor content, and each is fixable before publication.
- Leading with the best number. A single flattering return with no net figure, no time period and no context is a fair-and-balanced problem.
- Treating a testimonial as a thank-you note. The moment it appears in marketing, disclosure rules apply, as does any state restriction.
- Letting vendors or influencers publish unreviewed. Whoever posts for you, you remain responsible for approval and records.
- Skipping the record. A compliant post that cannot be produced on request is still a problem.
- Set-and-forget automation. Old drip emails and evergreen pages carry old facts.
- Copying another firm's disclosure. Disclosures should match your registration, your fee structure and your actual use of the content.
For further reading, our compliance marketing checklist on the main blog covers the same ground in checklist form.
FAQ
Does the SEC Marketing Rule apply to my webinars and seminars?
Yes. The rule covers advertisements broadly, and a promotional webinar or seminar, with its slides, scripts and follow-up materials, generally falls within it. Treat the deck, the registration page and the emails around the event as content that needs review and archiving. Your compliance officer can confirm how it applies to a specific event.
Can I use client testimonials in my marketing?
SEC-registered advisers can, subject to disclosures about client status, compensation and conflicts, and a written agreement when a promoter is paid. Broker-dealer representatives follow FINRA's testimonial disclosures. State-registered advisers should check their state's current rule first, since some have restricted testimonials.
Do I need to keep copies of my social media posts?
Yes, in practice. FINRA says business-related social media communications must be retained for at least three years, and SEC examiners have cited advisers for failing to keep copies of posts. Use an archiving process that captures the post, date and platform, and ask your compliance team which retention period applies to you.
Who is responsible when an influencer or vendor posts for me?
You are. The M1 Finance case turned on the firm failing to review, retain and supervise influencer posts made on its behalf. Put a review and approval step in every vendor agreement before anything goes live.
What is the safest way to start producing compliant content?
Start with educational content built from pre-approved language, a documented review step and an archive. Add higher-risk formats such as performance, testimonials and ratings once your policies cover them.
Sources
- SEC: Investment Adviser Marketing small entity compliance guide
- eCFR: 17 CFR 275.206(4)-1, Investment adviser marketing
- InvestmentNews: BD vs. RIA compliance requirements
- FINRA Regulatory Notice 17-18
- FINRA: Social Media key topics
- FINRA: M1 Finance AWC, Matter No. 20210725811
- FINRA news release: M1 Finance fined $850,000
- SEC Division of Examinations: Marketing Rule risk alert
- SEC: Atlas Financial Advisors administrative proceeding
- RIA Compliance Blog: NASAA proposes changes to advertising rules
- XYPN comment letter to NASAA on model rule amendments