From Baseline to Benchmark: Building Crestone Capital’s Digital Presence

Challenge

When Crestone re-engaged GroundFloor Media in late 2021, the firm had a strong reputation and deeply established client relationships, but its digital presence had not yet been fully leveraged as a strategic growth driver. Key channels, including LinkedIn, paid search and digital advertising, represented untapped opportunities to more actively reflect the firm’s expertise and point of view.

Crestone sought to evolve its digital presence to match the sophistication of its client experience, building a more visible, differentiated identity that could cut through a crowded market, engage UHNW audiences and drive qualified traffic aligned with its client-centric approach.

To support this next phase of growth, Crestone partnered with GroundFloor Media to design and execute an integrated digital strategy across SEO, paid search, display advertising and organic social media.

Approach

A sample ad for Crestone Capital that reads: Support to sell your business

Our team designed and executed a full-funnel digital program anchored in audience intelligence, continuous optimization and a deliberate evolution from awareness to conversion. Rather than treating channels in isolation, the strategy was built as an integrated system: organic search informed paid targeting, paid performance data shaped content strategy and LinkedIn thought leadership drove qualified audiences deeper into the site experience.

SEO and Content Strategy: We conducted a comprehensive content gap analysis benchmarked against Crestone’s key competitors and then developed a keyword mapping framework targeting both branded and non-branded wealth management terms. Content strategy emphasized the firm’s differentiators – its people, awards and client-centric approach – aligning the pages that consistently drove the highest organic engagement across the engagement.

Paid Search (PPC) Campaigns: We launched and iteratively optimized Google Ads campaigns across Crestone’s priority markets, Colorado/Utah, California and Texas, in addition to a national Brand campaign. As the account matured, we refined audience targeting, negative keyword lists, ad copy and landing page alignment. In year two, campaigns evolved to incorporate a newly built remarketing audience and shifted optimization toward more valuable form submission conversions, driving efficiency lead quality over time.

Display Advertising: We launched Crestone’s first display advertising program using multi-method audience targeting to extend reach well beyond what keyword-based search alone could achieve. The launch immediately expanded the firm’s paid footprint and established a retargeting infrastructure that grew in sophistication through the engagement.

LinkedIn Social Media Management: We evolved Crestone’s LinkedIn presence into the top-ranked engagement rate among a competitive peer set that includes Baird, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Wells Fargo Advisors and ICONIQ Capital. Our content mix, weighted toward employee recognition, thought leadership, events and video, was refined continuously through performance data. Just one quarter into managed social, Crestone ranked first among competitors for engagement rate, a position it held for the duration of the engagement.

Funnel Evolution and Gated Content: Building on early awareness gains, GFM recommended a strategic pivot: shift emphasis from the top-of-funnel awareness toward engagement and measurable conversion. We introduced gated content assets promoted across paid search and paid social, built out a retargeting campaign and reconfigured conversion tracking to prioritize hard conversions, driving a meaningful improvement in qualified lead generation in the back half of the engagement.

Sample ads

“For more than two decades, the team at GFM was a trusted communications partner to our firm. From our early days as Crestone to our evolution and combination with Pathstone, they supported us through major transitions, crafted our messaging, shaped our digital ecosystem and helped elevate our brand in a competitive industry. Their strategic insight and deep understanding of financial services made them an invaluable extension of our team.”
Patience Peterson
Director, Pathstone (formerly Crestone Capital)

Results

Over more than two years, GFM significantly expanded and optimized Crestone Capital’s digital footprint from evolving it into a high-performing, full-funnel program aligned with the firm’s growth objectives. Website traffic quality improved steadily as the strategy intentionally shifted from volume to conversion efficiency, prioritizing more qualified audiences and higher-value actions.

On LinkedIn, Crestone consistently outperformed competitors with audiences hundreds of times larger. On paid search, strategic optimization drove a CTR trajectory that climbed from 4.54% in in year one to 7.95% by the end of year two, well above benchmarks for the financial services category.

#1

LinkedIn engagement rate among wealth management competitors, including Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo and Baird, held from Q1 2022 through the close of the engagement.

998%

Increase in LinkedIn impressions in the first fully managed quarter, while maintaining an 8-9% engagement rate against a platform average of 1%.

143%

Above Crestone’s year one new LinkedIn follower goal — surpassing the annual target by the end of Q4.

7,098%

Increase in paid impressions upon the launch of Crestone’s display advertising program.

7.95%

Google Ads account-wide click-through rate, a 20% quarter-over-quarter increase, reflecting two-plus years of continuous optimization.

57%

Increase in form submissions quarter-over-quarter in year two, as the shift to conversion-focused campaigns and gated content drove measurable lead generation growth.

By the close of the engagement, Crestone’s Google Ads account was generating 3,198 clicks per quarter with 91 tracked form submissions, built on a remarketing infrastructure, sharpened audience targeting and ad creative refined over eight consecutive quarters of optimization.

What Came Next

The results GFM delivered for Crestone Capital didn’t go unnoticed. When Pathstone, the national wealth management platform that acquired and rebranded Crestone Capital, was ready to launch its national brand campaign, they turned to GFM to lead the effort. The track record built over two-plus years of integrated digital work for Crestone became the foundation for a much larger stage.