Marketing Compliance for Financial Planners: What ASIC Actually Restricts

09 August 2026·6 min read

Quick answer: Financial planner marketing sits under general advertising conduct obligations as well as your AFSL licensee's own compliance requirements, and the areas that catch firms out most often are performance claims, testimonials and endorsements, and blurring the line between general and personal advice. None of this means you can't market confidently — it means every piece of content needs a quick compliance check before it goes live, not a legal review of the entire website every time. Build the check into your process once, and it stops being a bottleneck. 🤍

Financial planners are often given two extremes when it comes to marketing advice: "just don't say anything specific, ever" from an overly cautious compliance team, or "everyone else is doing it, it'll be fine" from a marketer who's never had to sit through a licensee audit. Neither extreme serves the practice well. The practices that market with genuine confidence are the ones who've actually built a repeatable pre-publish check into their content process, so nobody's guessing case by case whether a testimonial or a claim about past performance is going to cause a problem down the track. Compliance isn't the enemy of good marketing here — vague, over-lawyered marketing that says nothing useful is usually the bigger commercial risk 💖

Please note: this is general information, not financial or legal advice — check current ASIC guidance and your AFSL/licensee's compliance requirements before relying on it.

What most firms get wrong

The most common mistake is assuming marketing rules are the same as advice rules — that if you're not literally sitting in a Statement of Advice meeting, the usual obligations don't apply. In practice, ASIC's general advertising requirements around misleading and deceptive conduct apply to a Facebook post exactly as much as to a formal document. The second mistake is copying language from a competitor's website or ad without checking whether it's actually compliant — a claim being common in the industry doesn't make it low-risk, it may just mean nobody's been checked on it yet. The third is treating compliance as a one-off review at website launch rather than an ongoing check applied to every new piece of content, including social posts and ads that feel too small to worry about.

Pre-publish marketing compliance checklist

Returns and performance claims: Does the content reference specific returns, growth rates, or comparisons to market/fund benchmarks? If yes, flag for compliance review before publishing — general statements about the value of advice are usually safer ground than specific figures.
Past performance: Does the content use past results (yours or a client's) to imply future performance? Confirm with your licensee whether any required disclaimer applies, and never present past results without context on how representative they are.
Testimonials and endorsements: Does the content include a client quote, review, star rating, or third-party endorsement? Use of testimonials in financial advice marketing carries specific conditions under ASIC's framework — this is not a simple "allowed" or "banned" situation, so confirm current rules with your compliance team before publishing any testimonial-based content, including on social media and Google reviews used in ads.
General vs personal advice distinction: Does the content risk being read as personal advice (i.e. tailored to an individual's circumstances) when it's intended as general information? Add the appropriate general advice warning where relevant, worded per your licensee's standard template.
Required disclosures: Are your AFSL number, licensee name, and any other mandated disclosures present where required (website footer, formal documents, relevant ad formats)?
Urgency and scarcity language: Does the content pressure a reader toward a quick financial decision ("act now before rates change")? This kind of framing sits close to conduct risk and is worth removing or softening.
Approval trail: Has this specific piece of content actually been signed off by whoever holds compliance responsibility at your practice, with a record kept of that approval?

Solo financial planning practice: A one-adviser practice had been publishing a monthly "market update" blog written personally by the adviser, including lines like "this fund has consistently outperformed the market." After running future posts through a checklist like the one above, they reworded the section to discuss general market conditions and what questions clients might want to ask, without specific fund performance claims — a small wording shift that removed a genuine compliance exposure without losing the substance of the content.

Practice using testimonials/case studies: A practice had several glowing Google reviews they wanted to feature directly on their homepage and in paid ads. Before doing so, they checked with their AFSL licensee's compliance team on current conditions around using testimonials in financial advice marketing, and adjusted their approach based on that specific guidance rather than assuming the reviews were automatically fine to repurpose simply because they were already public on Google.

Practice running paid ads: A practice running Meta and Google ads had copy written by an external freelancer that included a general advice warning in the landing page footer, but not in the ad itself. Compliance review flagged that the warning needed to appear wherever the messaging could be read as advice, not just once on the destination page, prompting a full audit of every live ad's wording.

How it actually works

Assign one person (adviser, practice manager, or your licensee's compliance contact) as the final sign-off for all outward-facing marketing content.
Keep a simple log of what was published, when, and who approved it — useful for your own peace of mind and for any audit or review.
Build the checklist into your content workflow (e.g. a step in your content calendar or CMS) rather than relying on memory each time.
Review evergreen content (website pages, old blog posts) periodically, not just new content — rules and licensee guidance can change.
When in doubt on any specific claim, ask your AFSL licensee's compliance team directly rather than guessing based on what competitors are doing.

💡 Build the checklist into your workflow once, and compliance stops being a bottleneck. Practices that treat every post as a fresh legal question move slower and market less — the ones with a repeatable checklist publish more confidently and more often.

Mistakes to avoid

Assuming social media posts and ads sit outside formal marketing compliance obligations.
Copying competitor claims or testimonial usage without checking your own compliance position.
Treating compliance review as a one-off at website launch instead of an ongoing process.
Using vague blanket disclaimers instead of the specific wording your licensee actually requires.
Assuming a claim is fine simply because "everyone in the industry says it."

Frequently asked questions

Is it ever okay to mention specific investment returns in marketing?

This is genuinely one of the higher-risk areas and depends heavily on context, required disclaimers, and your licensee's specific position — there's no blanket yes, so treat any reference to specific returns as needing individual compliance sign-off rather than assuming a past example is safe to reuse.

Are client testimonials allowed or not?

Neither — it's not a simple allowed/banned question. Use of testimonials and endorsements in financial advice marketing carries specific conditions under ASIC's framework, and the honest answer is you need to confirm current rules with your compliance team before using them, rather than assuming either extreme.

Does this apply to organic social media posts, or just paid ads and formal documents?

General advertising conduct obligations are not limited to paid ads — an organic LinkedIn post or Instagram caption carries the same basic obligations around not being misleading or deceptive as a formal brochure, even though the format feels more casual.

How often do these rules change, and how do we keep up?

Honest nuance: guidance and interpretation can shift over time, and this article reflects general principles rather than a fixed, permanent rulebook — the safest approach is checking in with your AFSL licensee's compliance team periodically rather than relying on any single article, including this one, as a final word.

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Written by

Kate, founder of Chronically Online

I help Gold Coast and Brisbane businesses grow with branding, websites and marketing that actually works.

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