As the retail investment landscape continues to evolve, asset management sales teams are grappling with unprecedented complexity. Getting mutual funds, ETFs, separately managed accounts (SMAs) and private market products onto wealth management platforms is no longer just about performance and relationships. Gaining—and maintaining—access now requires navigating a matrix of platform-specific rules, wrapper preferences, economics and advisor behavior.
Financial advisors are no longer exclusively using mutual funds and/or ETFs; they’re allocating assets across more vehicle types as awareness and supply increase. Many are blending across vehicles and strategies—choosing SMAs for high-net-worth clients, model portfolios for efficiency and private market investments for diversification. This makes it increasingly difficult for distribution teams to determine which investment strategies, in which wrappers, are likely to gain traction.
In this increasingly fragmented and competitive environment, data has become an indispensable resource. Not only does it give distribution teams better visibility into advisor demand and vehicle usage, but it also serves as a strategic guide to ensure firms are growing in ways that align with their core competencies, brand promise and long-term revenue model.
Platform Access Isn’t Enough
Getting a product onto a wealth management platform used to be a major milestone—and in some ways, it still is. But today, access doesn’t guarantee visibility, much less advisor adoption. Gatekeepers increasingly filter product listings, algorithms and platform-specific constraints. Meanwhile, home offices are applying stricter screens for fees, liquidity, operational fit and client suitability. This has led many asset managers to explore wrapper expansion—particularly into ETFs, SMAs and custom model portfolios—to increase optionality and distribution potential.
However, in the rush to expand platform presence and wrapper flexibility, many firms risk stepping outside their strategic lane. It is common to see firms with deep expertise in mutual funds spin up an ETF business with little experience in capital markets or limited resources to support the vehicle operationally. It’s also common to see a boutique manager enter the SMA space, only to discover that low-fee, high-touch implementation can be margin-dilutive without sufficient scale.
These examples, among many others, illustrate why aligning wrapper strategy to brand identity and revenue model is so critical.
Data as a Strategic Compass
Amid this complexity, data can serve as a compass—not just for day-to-day sales execution, but also for broader distribution strategy. Sales and product teams can now integrate a range of internal and third-party data sources—advisor CRM activity, product sales by wrapper, platform-level flows and regional penetration—to gain a more nuanced view of where their strategies are being used and how. For example:
- Sales data might show that while an ETF version of a core strategy is gaining traction among advisors at independent broker-dealers, it is struggling on wirehouse platforms.
- Platform reporting could reveal that advisors on a large RIA custodian are heavily adopting SMAs in the equity income space—yet an asset manager’s SMA offering in that category is underperforming or absent.
- Advisor-level CRM notes might indicate that certain advisors want to use a liquid alternatives strategy, but can’t access it in the format they need—such as a model delivery vehicle.
When analyzed effectively, these insights can help asset managers make more deliberate decisions about which platforms to prioritize, which wrappers to support, and where to allocate sales coverage and marketing resources. Just as importantly, data can help leadership teams pressure-test product expansion decisions. Rather than chasing every trending wrapper, firms can use wrapper-level flow trends and profitability models to evaluate whether entering a new vehicle aligns with their advisor audience, operational model and brand.
Closing the Advisor Knowledge Gap
Even with the right wrapper and platform access, many asset managers encounter resistance in the field, because many advisors simply don’t have the experience/knowledge regarding newer vehicles and aren’t comfortable using them in building their portfolios. SMAs, model portfolios and liquid alternatives all require different operational workflows, billing structures and portfolio construction approaches. Advisors who are used to mutual funds may hesitate to adopt SMAs due to unfamiliarity with implementation or misconceptions about account minimums.
Here again, data plays a pivotal role. Engagement analytics, CRM interaction trends and content consumption pattern tracking can help identify which advisors are curious but need guidance. For example, an advisor who has attended webinars on SMAs or downloaded related materials but hasn’t placed trades may be an ideal candidate for targeted education. Sales and marketing teams can then work together to deliver customized content, host educational sessions and provide tailored support and tools. The goal isn’t just to sell a product—but to build advisor confidence in how and when to use a new vehicle in client portfolios.
In summary, as asset managers confront the dual pressures of distribution complexity and product proliferation, it’s tempting to go broad—offering every product in every wrapper across every platform. But long-term success requires more than broad access; it requires alignment. Data gives firms the ability to grow strategically—by illuminating where true opportunity lies, ensuring that wrapper decisions are rooted in real advisor behavior and strengthening the firm’s market position. It helps leadership balance short-term access wins with long-term brand health and economic viability.
In this environment, the winners won’t be the firms everywhere. They’ll be the firms exactly where they should be. To learn more about how we help firms understand the intermediary landscape, read about our Distribution Solutions business.
.jpg)