Ask most registered investment advisors whether they can put a client testimonial on their website, and the answer is almost always “no, compliance won’t allow it.” That answer was correct until 2020. It has not been correct since the SEC’s Marketing Rule took full effect in November 2022, and the anxiety attached to the old rule is now costing advisors real prospects who trust peer testimonials far more than a firm’s own marketing copy.
What Changed in 2020
For nearly six decades, the SEC’s advertising rule under the Investment Advisers Act effectively banned testimonials in adviser advertising outright, full stop. The Marketing Rule, adopted in December 2020 and fully enforced starting November 4, 2022, replaced that blanket ban with a permission structure: testimonials and third-party endorsements are allowed, provided the adviser meets specific disclosure, oversight, and disqualification requirements.
| Requirement | Pre-2020 Rule | Current Marketing Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Client testimonials | Prohibited outright | Permitted with disclosure |
| Third-party ratings | Heavily restricted | Permitted with methodology disclosure |
| Compensation disclosure | Not applicable, testimonials banned | Required for any compensated testimonial or endorsement |
| Recordkeeping | Minimal | Books and Records Rule amended to require documentation of every testimonial and endorsement |
What “Compliant” Actually Requires
1. Clear Disclosure
Every testimonial or endorsement must clearly disclose whether the person is a client, whether they were compensated, and if compensated, a description of the compensation and any material conflicts of interest. This disclosure needs to be prominent, not buried in a footer disclaimer nobody reads.
2. Oversight of the Person Giving It
The adviser is required to have a reasonable basis for believing the testimonial or endorsement complies with the rule, which in practice means a documented review process before publication, not a client emailing praise that gets pasted directly onto a website.
3. Disqualification Provisions
Advisers cannot compensate a person for a testimonial or endorsement if that person has been subject to certain disqualifying events, such as specific SEC actions or felony convictions, within the prior ten years. This requires an actual check, not an assumption.
CLIENT WORK: 360 Financial
For 360 Financial, an RIA under LPL supervision, BSPKN tracks 75 AI visibility queries bi-weekly and produces 20 educational videos plus 3 M&A insight clips a year, all reviewed and documented before publication. A compliant testimonial and content workflow is not a slower version of marketing. It is the version that survives an audit.
The Three Ways Firms Get This Wrong
Publishing Without Documented Review
A testimonial that was never run through a compliance review before going live is a books and records gap waiting to surface in an exam, even if the content itself would have passed review. The process has to exist and be documented, not just be technically compliant by luck.
Missing the Compensation Disclosure
Referral fee arrangements, gift cards for reviews, or any other form of compensation for a testimonial trigger a specific disclosure requirement that many firms overlook because they do not think of a $25 gift card as “compensation” in the regulatory sense. The SEC does.
Treating All Client Feedback the Same Way
A five-star Google review, a LinkedIn recommendation, and a video testimonial on the firm’s website are all technically endorsements or testimonials under the rule, and each channel needs its own disclosure and documentation approach, since the format and platform affect how disclosure has to appear.
What a Compliant Testimonial Program Actually Looks Like
In practice, a compliant testimonial program has four parts running continuously, not a one-time legal sign-off. First, a standard intake form that captures whether the client is being compensated in any way, even informally, before a single word of the testimonial is collected. Second, a review step where compliance checks the draft testimonial against the disclosure and disqualification requirements before it goes anywhere public, website, social media, or a pitch deck. Third, a dated record of that review kept in the firm’s books and records, since the amended Books and Records Rule specifically requires documentation of every testimonial and endorsement used. Fourth, a recurring audit, at minimum annually, of every testimonial and endorsement still live on any platform, because a testimonial that was compliant when posted can become a problem if the underlying relationship or compensation structure changes.
Firms that build this as an actual workflow, rather than a one-time legal memo, are the ones actually using testimonials in the market. Firms that treat it as a compliance question to revisit later are the ones still operating as if the 2020 rule change never happened, six years after it was adopted.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are financial advisors allowed to use client testimonials in 2026?
Yes. The SEC Marketing Rule has permitted testimonials and endorsements since it took full effect in November 2022, provided the adviser meets disclosure, oversight, and disqualification requirements under the rule.
Do unsolicited Google or Yelp reviews count as testimonials under the rule?
Generally yes, if the adviser has any influence over the review being posted or references it in marketing materials, the disclosure and documentation requirements apply. A firm cannot simply ignore reviews because it did not solicit them if it then features or links to them.
Does a $50,000 AUM household need the same disclosure as a testimonial from a large institutional client?
Yes. The rule does not scale disclosure requirements by account size or client type. The same disclosure and oversight standard applies regardless of the size of the relationship being described.
Can a firm use a client’s name and photo in a testimonial?
Yes, with the client’s consent and the required disclosures. Using identifiable client information raises separate privacy and consent considerations on top of the Marketing Rule requirements, so both need to be addressed.
The old blanket ban on testimonials is gone, but the anxiety it created has outlasted the rule itself by years, and that anxiety is a real cost: prospects trust peer testimonials more than firm-written copy, and advisors who still assume they cannot use them are leaving that trust signal on the table. Related reading: the compliance anxiety tax costing advisors growth, why most agencies cannot work with financial advisors, and the referral ceiling advisors plateau at.
BSPKN builds documented, compliance-ready testimonial and content workflows for RIAs and wealth management firms. See our financial marketing services or explore Propel for the full growth system.
Marketing That Compliance Can Sign Off On.
Book a 15-minute strategy call with BSPKN. We will show you what a documented, review ready testimonial and content process looks like for an RIA.
