The US asset management industry is navigating a period of profound structural change – AI, shifting distribution models, fee pressure and a more demanding institutional buyer base are all reshaping the competitive landscape simultaneously.
The geographic scale of the US market alone creates a marketing challenge unlike any other, spanning time zones, thousands of miles and a fragmented institutional landscape where no single sales team can achieve meaningful coverage alone.
As of year-end 2024, total US institutional assets reached $37.1 trillion, according to Cerulli Associates, while McKinsey research found that the top 50 global asset managers control more than 78% of institutional AUM globally, creating winner-take-most dynamics where mid-sized and non-US managers face steep competitive pressure.
At the same time, Gartner projects a 25% drop in traditional search engine query volume as business decision-makers pivot to AI-powered answer engines, fundamentally reshaping how asset managers are discovered and evaluated before a sales conversation ever takes place.
In this environment, sustained investment in brand and marketing infrastructure has never been more commercially significant.
Scott McKay, Head of Marketing Americas at Schroders, spent 13 years working in UK financial services before moving to the US. That experience has given him a direct comparative view of how marketing operates differently across the two markets.
In the UK, you can drive from one end of the country to the other in a day. In the US, it takes almost as long to fly from New York to Los Angeles as it does from New York to London.
McKay is direct about marketing’s commercial role. “Marketing is a way to reach people that sales teams cannot get in front of because of the size and geographic scale of the country,” he says.
“Marketing plays a significant role in prospecting, driving business growth, and identifying interested leads so that salespeople can step in and take over.”
Schroders has not relied on multimillion-dollar brand campaigns. Instead, McKay has focused on precision, showing up where the audience is through targeted brand campaigns, efficient social media spend, attendance at the right events and PR activity. But before this, brand building comes first.
Below the brand layer sits targeted product and capability campaigns. The process is deliberate: identify the cohort you want to reach, determine the conversation you want to have, and define the outcome you are trying to achieve. The tactics follow naturally from there.
McKay argues that marketing is a science. You start with a theory, deploy a series of tactics, and let the data tell you whether it is working. That discipline is what makes marketing increasingly intelligent and efficient over time, with the digital infrastructure to track email engagement, video views and website behaviour now standard.
The harder challenge is the human side, capturing event conversations, CRM data quality, and bringing everything together in a single view of an individual.
McKay is clear on data quality: “Data is only as good as the quality of the data you collect. There is always an element of intuition involved. Data can sometimes lead you astray, which is why having an intelligent, experienced team that can challenge the conclusions is so important.”
The relationship between marketing and sales is where many businesses fail, and where the real commercial opportunity lies. Aberdeen Group research found that aligned sales and marketing teams achieve 32% year-on-year revenue growth, while misaligned organisations experience an average 7% decline.
When sales teams understand that marketing’s goal is to create more opportunities for them, they become partners in the process rather than passive recipients of leads. “When you build that level of partnership, people come with you,” McKay says.
For McKay, alignment comes from constant dialogue. He brings sales teams through every campaign, sharing where it stands, what Schroders is seeing, what is needed from them and why it all makes sense.
“By maintaining constant dialogue with sales teams and ensuring they understand why we are asking them to do certain things,” he says, “we can help them have more meaningful conversations that lead to better results.”
The shift from paid search to generative search has introduced an entirely different dynamic into campaign planning. Messaging, social media distribution, PR and website content now directly influence how Schroders appears in AI-generated search results, which is built into campaign development from the outset.
For McKay, PR has always been important but generative search has made its value undeniable. Many AI search results draw directly from articles written by journalists and industry publications, meaning the firms that shape those articles shape how they are perceived in search.
“PR is becoming increasingly important,” he says. “Many AI-generated search results draw from articles written by journalists and industry publications. With the rise of AI-powered search, it is becoming even more important.”
Salesforce research found that 87% of marketing professionals now use generative AI in at least one recurring workflow, up from 51% in early 2024. However, the risk is real. AI-generated content can feel inauthentic, and human judgment to evaluate outputs critically has never been more important.
“It is easy to get carried away with AI,” he says. “The need for authenticity and thoughtful judgment is more important than ever.”
McKay gives his team a deliberate safe space to experiment with AI tools including Copilot and Claude, finding that once people begin using them, it expands their thinking and builds confidence that compounds over time.
For McKay, this points to a broader truth about the profession. “In many ways, the importance of the marketer is now greater than it has ever been. At the end of the day, you still need a human being to ask, ‘Is this really what we are trying to say?'”
Schroders has achieved top ten brand status in the US institutional market, the only non-US asset manager to do so. McKay describes this as one of his proudest professional achievements. It was built not through large budgets but through consistent, thoughtful planning, targeted messaging and measurable execution.
“In the institutional market, which is one of our core target segments, we are now a top ten brand,” he says. “We have secured the tenth spot and are the only non-US firm to do so. That made both me and the team particularly proud.”
For McKay, the lesson is simple. The fundamentals of marketing have not changed, even as the tools around them have.
“Returning to the fundamentals is more important now than ever,” he says.
“Understanding who you are speaking to, what you want them to do, and ensuring your messaging and strategy are clear has always been, and will always be, the foundation of a successful marketing campaign.”