Gladstone Morgan Growth Plan
The Growth
Approach
Who we are, how we work, and why we're built for wealth advisory.
The growth team is a marketing and intelligence function built specifically for independent financial advisory firms. We exist to help advisers make more from their data, waste less on inefficient marketing, and connect the dots between client acquisition, adviser production, and firm growth.
Why We Exist
Wealth advisory is drowning in data, starving for insight.
0%
of the average workday is spent on things that have little to no value.
The industry has changed rapidly, and traditional marketing agencies have failed to keep up. Advisory firms are drowning in data but starving for insight. Marketing budgets get spent without clear line of sight to client acquisition. Teams waste hours on manual reporting instead of driving strategy. We built the growth approach to fix this, by harnessing the full power of data and AI to connect marketing performance to business outcomes.
What We Do
Two connected disciplines, one growth engine.
The growth team operates across two connected disciplines that work together to drive growth for wealth advisory firms.
Growth Marketing
A full-service marketing capability built for wealth advisory. We plan, buy, and optimise media across paid search, paid social, organic search, LinkedIn, and more, all powered by intelligence models that feed real client data into every decision.
- ▸Paid Media (Google, LinkedIn, Meta, DV360)
- ▸Organic Search & SEO
- ▸Analytics & Measurement
- ▸Content Marketing & Thought Leadership
- ▸CRO & UX
- ▸Website Development
- ▸Strategy & Planning
- ▸Consultancy
Growth Intelligence
We build internal marketing and client acquisition platforms tailored to your firm. Your data, your systems, your KPIs, connected into a single intelligence layer that gives every team the answers they need, in real time.
- ▸Unified data layer connecting CRM, enquiry forms, compliance, media, and adviser production systems
- ▸AI-powered insights, anomaly detection, and recommendations
- ▸Role-based dashboards for firm, office, and adviser teams
- ▸Client acquisition cost and adviser production optimisation models
- ▸Direct vs. platform channel mix analysis
- ▸Need period detection and demand stimulation
- ▸Forecasting and media planning
Growth Intelligence · The Platform Architecture
The Growth Team
Built by practitioners, not theorists.
The growth team was founded by Tim Durgan and Daniel Gibson, who built their careers together at one of Hong Kong's leading independent advisory firms before forming the growth function.
Tim Durgan
Growth & StrategyTim ran digital marketing, led data science, and rose to Head of Growth through three promotions, working with advisory leaders across Hong Kong and Singapore. As the industry's centre of gravity shifted to data and AI, he expanded his skillset to stay ahead of it, completing the London School of Economics' Data Analytics Career Accelerator. He leads growth and strategy for the Gladstone Morgan growth team.
Daniel Gibson
OperationsDaniel joined as the third employee of the original digital team and spent 18 years with the firm, growing up alongside it as it evolved from a single-office advisory to a three-market operation. He ran and grew the Singapore paid media and client acquisition function for 12 years, delivered work for brands including Zurich International and RL360, and left as Head of Digital Operations. He runs operations and the day to day of the growth team.
The growth team exists on a simple conviction: advisory firms don't need more dashboards, they need intelligence that connects the dots between marketing, client acquisition and adviser production.
How We Work
The connected approach.
We don't operate in silos. Our four connected departments work together to ensure the entire growth ecosystem is connected across all offices.
Insights
Leading the market through research analysis, powered by AI integrations with client data for advanced analysis.
Interaction
Taking clients along the technical maturity curve through MarTech development and AI consulting.
Ignition
Making every media dollar more effective through AI optimization and reporting.
Impact
Uncovering growth opportunities through machine learning models to deliver advanced analytics at scale.
Built for Wealth Advisory
AI in action, advisory-specific use cases.
Our AI models are trained specifically on wealth advisory data and business challenges. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Live Client Scoring
AI models that score each variable to predict inquiry likelihood and optimise plans against it.
Adviser Production Optimisation
Feed adviser production data into the framework to optimise media to client acquisition, not just clicks.
Cohort Modelling
AI-powered cohort identification to inform targeted marketing and client retention strategies.
Total Client Value Optimisation
Optimise to total client value, increasing overall revenue from each client relationship.
Outcome Influence Testing
Measure the true incremental impact of marketing efforts for maximum ROI.
Media Impact Testing
Precisely evaluate campaign effectiveness to enhance decision-making.
Proven in Production
Impact Analyser, a wealth advisory case study.
The Challenge
An advisory client relied heavily on brand paid search, but soaring CPCs (up 88% YoY) were eating budget with no clear view of incremental impact on client acquisition.
Our Approach
We designed a controlled experiment using regional traffic splits, then built advanced statistical models to isolate the true incremental value of paid search for inquiry generation.
+0%
incremental inquiries, without increasing overall marketing budget.
57% of brand paid search visits were not driving incremental inquiries. Budgets were reallocated to LinkedIn lead gen, content marketing, and referral programmes, driving raised brand awareness and sustainable client acquisition growth.
Proof in the market
What AI-managed media looks like in practice.
For a Hong Kong boutique advisory firm we partner with, direct inquiries had been declining through 2024, with over 88% of client acquisition still tied to a single, saturating domestic market. We rebuilt their paid media programme on the growth intelligence platform, shifting budget away from low incrementality brand search and toward higher value international expat demand.
Results, Q4 2025 vs Q4 2024
Before vs after, Q4 2024 vs Q4 2025
Inquiry ROI improved from 16.4 to 20.4, and international inquiry share rose from 10.7% to 18.3% of the total.
Paid search inquiries
on just a 13.5% increase in spend, three times faster than the investment behind it
Spend increase
the investment behind +40.6% paid search inquiry growth
LinkedIn inquiries
from LinkedIn lead gen alone in the final quarter, while spend fell 6.0% and cost per inquiry fell 31.1%
This is not a one off. It is what happens when an advisory firm lets AI find the incremental client acquisition a manual review cycle is too slow to catch.
Partnership Principles
How we work with you, across marketing and AI.
Intelligence before spend.
Every recommendation starts with your data, your market and your clients, not with a media plan template. We connect the dots before we commit a dollar.
One team, two disciplines.
The people shaping your media are the same people building your intelligence capability. Marketing and AI shouldn't be separate conversations, so they never are with us.
Evidence over opinion.
If we can't measure it, we don't claim it. Our intelligence platforms exist to make every decision testable, traceable and defensible in front of your CFO.
Your systems, your data.
We build inside your environment, not a black box. Your data stays yours, your team learns as we go, and you keep the capability if we ever part ways.
Practical pace.
We favour quick wins that fund the bigger build. Every phase is scoped to show value before the next one starts, so momentum never depends on blind trust.
Want to see it in action?
Your Gladstone Morgan portal already includes growth audits and SEO analysis. The growth intelligence platform is live and connecting your data in real time.