How to Choose a Fintech Marketing Agency

Score every agency out of 100

Use the same scorecard for every candidate, so a good pitch deck cannot outweigh weak controls. The weights reflect what goes wrong in regulated marketing.

Below 70, walk away. If two agencies score alike, pick the one that pushed back on your brief, since a supplier who only agrees will not protect you.

Ten questions for the first call

1. Which rules apply to our product in our top three markets?
2. Who writes, who reviews, and who has worked on regulated content before?
3. What happens if our compliance lead rejects a page?
4. How do you keep approved versions and evidence?
5. Do you use AI to draft? How is that checked and disclosed?
6. Do you use subcontractors or freelancers?
7. How do you build links, and do you ever pay for them?
8. Which metrics will you report, and which will you refuse to promise?
9. What would make you tell us not to spend?
10. Who owns the content, data and accounts when we leave?

Watch how they answer the seventh. Google's spam policy treats paying for links for ranking purposes as link spam unless they are qualified as sponsored or nofollow. An agency vague on this is a risk to your domain.

Why your agency is part of your compliance picture

An agency's work can land inside your regulatory duties, so vet it accordingly. CySEC's circular C217 from 2017 covers third parties that promote a firm online, host its marketing, direct traffic to it or raise its profile through search engine optimization, however the firm labels them. It says firms should do due diligence, keep marketing pre-approved and monitored, and cover oversight in their internal controls.

ESMA's May 2024 report also called for adequate approval and review of marketing, including material prepared by third parties, and for records covering social media. Looking ahead, the Commission's summary of the Retail Investment Strategy describes written agreements with third parties and marketing records kept for at least five years. Those rules are not yet in force, and the Commission's estimate for application is about July 2029.

So write these into the contract now.

• Your compliance lead can stop or pull any content at any time.
• The agency publishes nothing without recorded approval.
• It keeps and hands over working files and final versions.
• It names any subcontractor and gets your consent first.
• It places no affiliate links or paid placements without telling you.

Red flags

• Promises of rankings, leads, AI mentions or funded accounts.
• A pitch with no mention of your regulator.
• Case studies with no client name, no dates and no method.
• Offers of link packages or sponsored news placements as "SEO".
• Reluctance to let compliance see drafts early.
• Fees tied to client deposits or trading volume. This creates a conflict, and it can make the agency look like a paid introducer.

When you do not need an agency

Keep the work in-house if you have a strong content lead, a technical specialist and a compliance lead with time. Hire narrowly for an SEO audit, a migration or a translation project. A full retainer makes sense when you need several skills at once and cannot justify hiring them all.

If you plan to build the team internally, our fintech marketing strategy guide will help you work out which two channels to staff first, and our guide on fintech content marketing sets out the workflow an in-house team needs. If your product is crypto, read our crypto agency guide, since the failure modes differ.

Where Sempor Labs fits

We are a studio in Limassol. What we offer is a fintech and forex SEO service, honest writing, and a process built around your compliance sign-off.

Put us through the same scorecard. Ask us to critique one of your live pages, then compare the result with what other candidates tell you. That is the fairest test of any agency, and it takes under an hour.