Is a financial advisor blog an advertisement?
Almost always, yes. Answer four plain questions about the thing you just wrote and this page will tell you whether it counts, which question decided it, and what changes if it does.
What the third quarter actually told us
Two questions decide it. You only have to fail one.
There is no exemption for blogs and no exemption for education. The SEC's definition does not mention either. It asks two things about the thing you put out, and either one on its own is enough.
Can more than one person see it, and does it offer your services?
Put something in front of more than one person, and have it offer your advisory services to people who are not clients yet, or offer something new to people who already are, and it is an advertisement. What you call the page makes no difference.
17 CFR 275.206(4)-1(e)(1)(i) · note 1Did you give anyone anything to say something good about you?
A client's praise, a partner's recommendation, a referral: if you compensated the person for it, that is an advertisement on its own. Audience size is beside the point here. One reader is enough, and so is one listener.
Paying does not have to mean cash. The SEC's own list runs to reduced advisory fees, fee waivers, directed brokerage, sales awards and prizes, and gifts and entertainment.
17 CFR 275.206(4)-1(e)(1)(ii) · notes 1, 3Four questions about your piece
Answer for the thing actually in front of you. Or load one of the five cases advisory firms publish most and watch where it lands.
Can more than one person see it?
A blog post, a newsletter, a downloadable guide: yes. A single message to a single person: no.
Does it offer your advisory services?
To someone who is not a client yet, or something new to someone who already is. Your byline, your firm's name and a “book a call” button on the same page usually add up to yes.
Did you give anyone anything to say something good about you in it?
Cash or otherwise. A referral fee, a discount on your fees, an award, entertainment. This question alone can settle it.
Is it unscripted live speech, or text that had to be in a filing?
Unscripted, live and spoken. Or information inside a required filing that is there to satisfy the filing. These only bear on question one, and question two has no live-speech exception at all.
Yes, it is an advertisement
This is a reading aid, not a ruling, and it cannot see your piece. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
Three things the first question lets through
Written into the definition itself. They are narrower than they sound, and the wording is worth reading slowly.
Read every word of it: extemporaneous, live, oral. Prepared remarks are not extemporaneous. The deck behind you is not oral. A recording you then send round is not live.
(e)(1)(i)(A)Information inside a required notice or filing is outside it, but only where that information is reasonably designed to satisfy what the filing asks for. Marketing copy does not become exempt by being filed.
(e)(1)(i)(B)A piece carrying modelled or projected return figures escapes only where someone asked you for those figures unprompted, or where you handed them one-to-one to an investor in a private fund you advise. If you do not run a fund, this rarely comes up.
(e)(1)(i)(C)One-to-one is not an exemption. It is just out of reach.
You will hear that one-to-one communications are exempt from the Marketing Rule. They are not exempt. The first question simply starts at more than one person, so a single message to a single person never gets that far. The distinction matters, because reach is the easiest thing in the world to gain by accident.
Put modelled or projected return figures in it and the first question can reach a single recipient after all. And the same note sent to your whole client list is not one-to-one, whatever your email tool calls it.
Compensate someone to praise you or refer you and it is an advertisement however privately it happens. One person, said out loud, in a room, counts.
Six things that are now true of your blog post
This is the part that matters more than the label. Being an advertisement is not a problem. It is a list of conditions, and the list is short.
- 01It has to be true, including by omissionNot just free of false statements. Free of statements made misleading by what you chose to leave out.
- 02Every claim of fact has to be one you could back upThe wording is precise and slightly kinder than people expect: you need a reasonable basis for believing you could substantiate it if the Commission asked. Not proof filed in advance. But a number with no source behind it fails this.
- 03Benefits come with their risks attachedDescribe what your service does for clients and you have to give fair and balanced treatment to the material risks and limitations that go with it. In the same piece, not on another page.
- 04You cannot publish only the ones that workedName specific advice you gave, or show performance, and it has to be presented fair and balanced. Picking your winners is the classic way to fail this.
- 05A testimonial brings three disclosures with itClearly and prominently: whether the person is a current client, that compensation was provided, and a brief statement of any material conflict that relationship creates. The fuller terms of the arrangement have to be disclosed too, just not held to the same prominence.
- 06Keep a copyFive years from the end of the fiscal year you last put it out, the first two in your own office. That is a records rule rather than a marketing one, and it is the one people forget.
Items 1 to 4 are the general prohibitions at 206(4)-1(a). Item 5 is 206(4)-1(b)(1). Item 6 is the books and records rule, 17 CFR 275.204-2. Sources below.
Deciding it is an advertisement takes a minute. Keeping every post inside that list is the job.
Six conditions, six hundred words, twice a month, for years. Nobody fails this on the obvious sentence. They fail on the fourth paragraph of the eleventh post, written on a Thursday, where a benefit got described and its risk did not.
That list is what Verand checks. Name the SEC as your regulator during setup and the rulebook loads itself. From then on every draft is read against it before it can leave, and a person at your firm presses publish. It cannot publish for you.
What it does not do is decide scope. Whether your page is an advertisement is your call, which is what this page is here to help you make. What Verand does is check the claims inside the draft, on every draft, and refuse to hand over one that breaks a hard rule.
“Converting before year end guarantees you come out ahead on any reasonable set of assumptions.”
Validated against the SEC's published rules. AI-researched and operator-reviewed. Your counsel confirms applicability to your firm. Not legal advice.
Registered with the SEC, and nobody else
Everything above comes from the rulebook for investment advisers who are registered, or required to register, with the SEC.
- Investment advisers registered with the SEC
- Advisers required to register with the Commission
- State-registered advisers
- Exempt reporting advisers
Plenty of states have adopted something similar, but that is a different rulebook and this page does not speak to it.
Broker-dealers and their registered representatives are subject to FINRA's communications rules, Rule 2210 among them. The two regimes are not a clean split, and a dually registered person can be inside both depending on which hat they are wearing. That is a conversation with your compliance officer, not something to settle from a web page.
FINRA Rule 2210 and Regulation Best Interest are outside the pack, and Verand says so rather than implying coverage it does not have. Anything your state adds on top, you enter yourself in Brand Hub as your own banned claim, and it gates the same way.
Everything above, traced back
Quoted phrases are the regulation's own words. The rest is plain-English restatement, which is not the same thing as the rule, and your counsel is the one who applies it to your firm.
Three pages that pick up where this one stops
Deciding scope is your call. Checking every draft is ours.
Seven days, every feature unlocked, one click to cancel. Name the SEC during setup and the first draft is written against that rulebook.
Validated against the SEC's published rules. AI-researched and operator-reviewed. A person at your firm still presses publish.