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Recently I got my first YouTube ad from FTMO, which was…weird. Not because it’s unusual to get hit with ads but just because the aesthetics of it were really unappealing to me. I’m basically a curmudgeon though so you be the judge.
Anyway, that got me thinking about how FTMO is doing relative to other companies in the sector.
On a global search basis, FTMO is number one…
There are a few countries where FundedNext is ahead, like India, Ethiopia, and Iran. I’m not sure FTMO will be that bothered about that. Otherwise it seems like FTMO is the most searched for prop firm pretty much everywhere in the world.
What you can also see here is the fact that FTMO had a first mover advantage. It existed before its big rivals and, although they’ve grown a lot since, they haven’t quite caught up.
This actually surprised me because if you look around, FTMO does not seem to do as much marketing as its peers.
To give a simple example, if you Google ‘best prop firm’ (or similar terms), they are not playing the SEO affiliate game. The first big listing there is the prop page of Myfxbook, which they are not paying to be on. It’s a similar story with the other major review sites.
FTMO is more active on the affiliate front. For example, there are a number of big influencers on YouTube and other social media sites who they have a relationship with.
However, a lot of those guys also work with a bunch of other prop firms as well, so even if they are promoting FTMO, it’s usually just one of several brands that they are pushing.
For example, Dan Cheung is one of these ‘educator’ affiliates and in his latest video he promotes FTMO. But less than a week ago he made a separate video promoting FundedNext.
That’s not me ‘throwing shade’ at the guy, it’s just to point out that affiliates in the space, unlike the broker industry, tend to promote a lot of different brands at once.
Consequently, FTMO’s success – in terms of being the prop most people are looking for – does not seem to be due to some amazing affiliate network.
You could argue some of their success is due to them working with affiliates early on and coming up with certain marketing tools for them (like payout certificates) but that is now standard fare for most props.
So why are people still searching for them more than their peers?
The other marketing channels are basically organic and paid. With regard to the former, this is not as developed as it is in the broker space. Plus it’s not as easy.
For example, IG ranks really well for a lot of terms like ‘trade gold’ or other asset classes. If you are a prop, this is not exactly the client you are looking for. In contrast to a broker, where that could be a high intent search, for props it’s more likely to be top of funnel.
FTMO does rank well for some terms that are higher intent, like ‘funded trader firm’ or ‘forex prop firm’ but its peers rank above it in search results for the most part.
FTMO does seem to have gained some press in the Czech Republic because it’s a local success story. But aside from that, it hasn’t done much in the way of PR (that I can see) which would help to grow its brand. Indeed, when we spoke to the company’s CEO a year ago, he noted that a lot of its success was driven by word of mouth.
Again, the point being that for organic today, there is not much that you see FTMO doing that would put it ahead of its peers and help it maintain that top spot in search.
The final route for the firm to get new clients is via paid ads and FTMO is currently machine gunning the entire world with ads across Meta and Google.
With regard to the former, Meta currently has 2.7k live ads from FTMO. Interestingly, Cyprus has been deliberately excluded from European advertising and there are no ads running in the US.
My guess is that they may be trying to get a license in the former and OANDA, the brokerage group that the company is acquiring, has one in the latter. There is an expression about not visiting the lavatory where you eat that comes to mind.
Unfortunately the level of granularity you can get from Meta ads is not that good for countries outside of Europe.
However, for FTMO’s Meta ads currently running in the EU, the estimate for total impressions is 112.53m. You can see an estimate below of where the company is targeting. Note that I believe some data is not captured by Meta accurately. I think Germany should be higher, for example. Alas – you have to work with what you’ve got.
Note that this does not include countries outside of the EU and so the true figure for total impressions is higher. The company is advertising all over the world at the moment – truly a wet dream for most brokers and a sign of how much props continue to benefit from a lack of regulatory oversight.
Over on Google, it’s a similar story. The company has run more than 2,000 ads since the start of the year. A small sample of 200 shows a huge range of countries, usually targeted on a regional basis.
For example, the company is running one set of videos targeting all the former Yugoslav states, plus Greece and Moldova. Another is going after Jordan, Oman, Lebanon and er…Yemen? Then there are several targeting groups of countries in Latin America.
For me there are two ways of looking at this. On the one hand, they are clearly spending a lot on paid ads and are likely getting good reach from it.
But on the other, it’s basically a huge mix of AI slop. It’s hard to know but I wonder how much these actually convert. Moreover, a lot of the time the geotargeting is weird. For example, why run this ad in the three Baltic states and then use this one for Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda?
If I compare this to the broker space, companies like XM and Exness run similarly large campaigns across different countries but they tend to be much more localised than FTMO’s are.
To top that off, running an AI slop machine is not that hard to do and lots of other props are already doing the same thing. For example, FundedNext and Funding Pips are also running thousands of ads across Meta and Google at the moment.
The point being that if we want to understand why FTMO is doing well, ads might be part of it but it’s hard to see them being the full story, firstly because the company isn’t doing anything that novel and, secondly, because looking through its ads, you just feel like it’s throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks.
So what gives?
I think the answer is ultimately brand. In the broker space in the UK, a lot of people will default to IG Group because it’s old and has prestige. They trust the company and think it will ‘work’ well for them.
It’s the same with loads of stuff. You might buy a pair of Nike running shoes, not because you love their design or the materials they use, but just because in your head you go ‘oh yea, Nike, that’s a good brand’.
Looking through some influencer videos and forum discussions, you get the impression people feel the same way about FTMO. They are the ‘go to’ prop firm because they have built up a high level of credibility.
That likely explains why they continue to drive the most search volume. Unfortunately for newcomers, it’s also something that’s hard to imitate.
