The SEC Marketing Rule for advisor websites: a plain-English guide

Who it applies to, and why your website counts

The rule applies to investment advisers registered with the SEC. It defines an advertisement broadly: communications that offer your advisory services to prospective clients, plus any endorsement or testimonial you pay for. Your homepage, service pages, bios, articles and landing pages all qualify. One-on-one responses to a specific client’s question generally don’t.

State-registered advisers follow their state securities regulator’s advertising rules, and broker-dealers and their representatives follow FINRA Rule 2210. If you’re dually registered, both may apply.

The seven general prohibitions

Every advertisement must avoid seven things. Applied to a website, they read like this:

1. Untrue statements of material fact, or omissions that make a statement misleading.
2. Material claims you can’t substantiate when the SEC asks. “Top-rated” or “award-winning” needs evidence on file.
3. Untrue or misleading implications, such as a page design that suggests a guarantee.
4. Benefits without the risks. If you describe what clients gain, give fair and balanced treatment of material risks.
5. Specific investment advice that isn’t fair and balanced, such as only your winning recommendations.
6. Performance results that aren’t fair and balanced, including cherry-picked time periods.
7. Anything otherwise materially misleading.

The practical takeaway: keep a file that substantiates every factual claim on your site, and write benefits and risks side by side.

Testimonials, endorsements and reviews

A testimonial comes from a current client; an endorsement comes from someone who isn’t. The rule allows both, with conditions:

• Clear and prominent disclosures next to the statement: whether the person is a client, whether they were compensated (cash or otherwise), and any material conflicts of interest. Further detail on compensation terms and conflicts must also be provided.
• Oversight: you need a reasonable basis to believe the testimonial or endorsement complies with the rule.
• Written agreements with paid promoters, except when total compensation is de minimis ($1,000 or less over the past 12 months), and certain disqualified persons can’t be paid promoters.

Online reviews

Reviews that clients post on Google or a directory aren’t automatically your advertisement. They can become one if you adopt them or are involved in them, for example by featuring selected reviews on your site, editing or ghost-writing them, or asking only happy clients to post. Decide your review approach with your compliance officer before you ask anyone.

Third-party ratings and awards

Rankings and “best advisor” awards are allowed if you:

• Have a reasonable basis to believe the rating comes from a fair process (it isn’t designed to produce a predetermined result).
• Disclose clearly and prominently the date of the rating, the period it covers, who provided it, and whether you paid anything to obtain or use it.

On a website, that means the disclosure belongs next to the badge, not on a separate page that a visitor would never connect to it. Covenant Wealth Advisors, in our 2026 website gallery, places a disclosures link directly under its awards row.

Performance on your website

Most planning-focused firms don’t show performance on their sites, and that’s often the simplest choice. If you do:

• Gross performance must be shown with net performance, with at least equal prominence.
• For portfolios other than private funds, show 1-, 5- and 10-year periods, or the life of the portfolio if shorter.
• Hypothetical performance (backtests, models, targets) requires policies and procedures to ensure it’s relevant to the intended audience, plus information on the assumptions and risks. This is where much of the early enforcement landed.
• Extracted performance (a subset of a portfolio): SEC staff guidance updated on March 19, 2025 allows it to be shown gross, if it’s labeled as gross and accompanied by the total portfolio’s gross and net performance.

Recordkeeping: archive every version

Under the books-and-records rule (Rule 204-2), advisers must keep copies of their advertisements, generally for five years, along with the records that substantiate performance and other claims. For a website, that means:

• A dated copy of every published version of every page, not just the current one.
• Who approved each change, and when.
• The backup for every factual claim, rating and performance figure.

Two of the nine advisers in the SEC’s September 2023 sweep were also cited for failing to keep required copies of their advertisements.

What enforcement has looked like

• August 2023: the first enforcement action under the rule ordered a New York RIA to pay more than $1 million, in part for advertising misleading hypothetical performance.
• September 2023: the SEC charged nine advisers for showing hypothetical performance on their public websites without the required policies and procedures. They agreed to about $850,000 in combined penalties, from $50,000 to $175,000 each.
• Ongoing: the SEC’s Division of Examinations has listed marketing practices, including testimonials, endorsements and ratings, as a continuing focus in its risk alerts.

Source: SEC press release 2023-173, “SEC Sweep into Marketing Rule Violations Results in Charges Against Nine Investment Advisers,” September 11, 2023.

A website compliance checklist

1. Every factual claim on the site has backup on file.
2. Benefits are described alongside material risks.
3. Testimonials and endorsements carry the required disclosures, right next to them.
4. Paid promoters above $1,000 a year have written agreements.
5. Ratings and awards show date, period, source and any payment, next to the badge.
6. Performance, if shown, includes net with gross and the required periods.
7. No hypothetical performance without written policies and the required context.
8. Fees, minimums and credentials match your Form ADV and public record.
9. Your Form ADV Part 2 and privacy policy are linked from every page.
10. Every published version is archived, with who approved it and when.

TrustVis builds this into the work: every page goes to your compliance officer before it publishes, and every version is archived with the approval attached. See how it works.

Questions advisors ask