The 18th annual Asset Management Monitor Advisor Awards Report offers a broad benchmarking of advisor websites across five key categories: Fund Profiles, Homepages, Commentary and Thought Leadership, Retirement Tools, and Literature Centers. We provide best in class examples for each of the topics covered and explain why we consider these offerings to be industry leaders.

1. ANNUAL ASSET MANAGER
MONITOR AWARDS
Asset Management Monitor – Advisor
MONITOR AWARDS REPORT PREVIEW
December 2019

2. CONTENTS
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Introduction
Medal Winners
Overview and Contact
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3. INTRODUCTION
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4. The 18th annual Asset Management Monitor – Advisor Awards Report offers a broad benchmarking of
advisor websites across five key categories: Fund Profiles, Homepages, Commentary and Thought
Leadership, Retirement Tools, and Literature Centers. We provide best-in-class examples for each of the
topics covered and explain why we consider these offerings to be industry leaders. We distribute awards in
gold, silver and bronze based on the quality of exceptional features and tools.
The gold medal is reserved for the most robust and valuable resources—those that most closely achieve the
ideal combination of important features and intuitive functionality. The silver medal recognizes materials that
offer great value but lack some of the outstanding qualities of the gold winner. Lastly, the bronze medal goes
to features that are imperfect but still offer advisors a strong or valuable experience.
Asset Management Monitor – Advisor Awards
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5. Category overviews
• Fund Profiles
• Homepages
• Commentary and Thought Leadership
• Retirement Tools
• Literature Centers
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Promote your firm’s 2019 Monitor Awards!
CI is happy to assist all award-winning firms in promoting their honors.
For more information, contact us at INTEREST@CorporateInsight.com.

6. GOLD MEDAL WINNERS
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7. Fund product pages allow advisors to stay abreast of fund strategies, performance and risk data, expense
details, and benefits, thereby helping them sell products and manage client portfolios more effectively.
According to our 2018 Financial Advisor Survey, all age groups value detailed fund information, with 84% of
Millennials, 73% of Gen Xers and 80% of Boomers+ deeming it “very important” or “extremely important.”
Additionally, 54% of all advisors viewed or downloaded fund profiles in the past 12 months, making this the
most popular website activity by a significant margin. As a result, firms need to keep this aspect of their
sites detailed and up to date if they want to keep advisors engaged.
Fund Profiles
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Columbia Threadneedle’s comprehensive and engaging fund profile pages receive the
gold medal this year. The firm stands out by offering numerous interactive visuals and a
particularly extensive overview. Multiple interactive performance charts and graphs
benchmark the fund against a preselected index, and the firm includes a unique graph
displaying risk versus return data, allowing advisors to visualize volatility. The firm also
provides a selection of value-add features, including the ability to subscribe to fund
updates, links to relevant commentaries, and email and social media sharing.

8. Public site homepages provide the first line of access to information for advisors. In our 2018 Financial
Advisor Survey, respondents indicated clear and logical navigation is a key aspect of advisor websites, with
71% deeming it “very important” or “extremely important.” Accordingly, leading homepages bring together
logical organization and clear design with best-in-class functionality for key features, such as personalized
fund watch lists, regularly updated commentary, and timely and relevant news articles. Firms should also
take advantage of fund promotions to present advisors with high-performing options, with leaders making
funds available from the very start of the advisor site journey. All these features should offer key
information—including fund details and publication dates—without detracting from the page’s readability.
Homepages
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Columbia Threadneedle earns a gold medal for its excellent advisor homepage, which
presents a winning combination of utility and clean design. The page offers top-tier fund
information, including both a Find a Mutual Fund feature and a customizable fund watch
list. A Latest Insights section features topical commentaries in a clear layout with
thematic thumbnail images. A clean but brief News & Noteworthy section offers relevant
headline links, enhancing the page's information density without excessive clutter.

9. Quality content is important in promoting a firm’s brand and asserting its expertise and leadership.
Commentaries are a great outlet for firm professionals to express their thoughts on current events and the
direction of the economy, as well as to analyze market trends to predict future risk and opportunity. In our
2018 Financial Advisor Survey, we found that Millennials especially value commentary and thought
leadership materials, with 79% considering them to be “very important” or “extremely important.” Effective
firms will take advantage of this trend—and the growing number of Millennials in the field—by releasing
insights frequently and consistently in a variety of digestible formats, such as videos and podcasts. Detailed
quarterly market insights are also a significant component of firms’ thought leadership resources.
Commentary and Thought Leadership
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J.P. Morgan retains the gold medal for the fourth year in a row. The firm promotes a vast
collection of commentaries and thought leadership that is updated nearly daily and spans
multiple formats. The firm provides several useful filters on its Library page and notably
offers customizable presentations and audio guides. The firm provides quarterly content,
frequent commentaries and weekly publications that address an array of topics in
conjunction with audio and video podcasts.

10. Retirement preparation is daunting for most Americans, with increasing longevity, healthcare costs and
employment instability contributing to individuals’ fears. Advisors therefore place a lot of value on effective
retirement resources they can use to educate their clients and help them plan for the future. According to
our 2018 Financial Advisor Survey, 69% of advisors rated retirement readiness calculators as “very
important” or “extremely important,” making it imperative for firms to offer easily findable and usable tools
that take into account a holistic client profile.
Retirement Tools
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BlackRock offers a sophisticated secure site iRetire tool, earning it the gold medal this
year. The results pages present findings using tables alongside interactive charts and
graphs depicting useful data such as recommended asset allocation and current
estimated annual retirement income, while highlighting clients’ income gaps. The firm
provides detailed explanations of how the tool works to calculate findings and
conclusions, and advisors can also generate and download personalized, client-ready
reports. Additionally, the tool stands out for supplying educational callouts as well as
actionable recommendations for the future.

11. Literature centers should provide clear pipelines to a wide variety of content from the overview page. They
should also include dedicated search functionality and categorize items intuitively. Best-in-class centers
include granular search capabilities and personalized overview pages that allow advisors to access relevant
content quickly. In our 2018 Financial Advisor Survey, 61% of respondents considered the ability to search
and filter literature “very important” or “extremely important.” These ratings fell even above other highly
rated functionalities, such as the ability to bookmark literature and the option to share literature via email or
social media from the center.
Literature Centers
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Hartford Funds offers a streamlined Forms & Literature Center that earns a gold medal for
its standout combination of extensive content offerings, filtering capabilities and sharing
options. A dedicated search bar, category organization and excellent range of filters
enables fast item lookup. The firm also offers access to a diverse selection of sharing-
and management-related action items prominently displayed on each item row.

12. OVERVIEW AND CONTACT
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13. Full report
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ANNUAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
MONITOR – ADVISOR AWARDS
Asset Management Monitor – Advisor
MONITOR AWARDS REPORT
DECEMBER 2019
ACCESS THE FULL REPORT

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Our best-in-class research platform and
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About CI
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15. Jennifer Butler
Director
646 454 2666
jbutler@corporateinsight.com
Alicia Mazurek
Senior Research Associate
646 454 2661
amazurek@corporateinsight.com
Contact us
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