CFD & Derivatives Broker

The shape tilts toward Digital Maturity (68.3) and away from Retention & Loyalty (50.5). That tilt tells you where the industry's marketing dollars have gone and where they haven't. The businesses that correct the tilt first will see outsized returns because they're fixing the constraint that's holding everything else back.

Dimension Breakdown

Marketing in a category where most customers lose money

CFD marketing in Australia operates under constraints that do not exist in most other industries. ASIC requires prominent risk warnings on all advertising. Google restricts CFD ads to licensed operators. Meta has banned most financial product advertising outright. The brokers who score well in this environment have adapted by building content ecosystems rather than relying on paid acquisition alone.

The composite of 63.5 places CFD brokers in the middle of the pack, which might surprise people who associate the sector with aggressive marketing. The reality is more nuanced. Post-ASIC intervention in 2021 (product intervention order, leverage caps, negative balance protection), the surviving Australian brokers have professionalised significantly.

Acquisition at 66.5 is the strongest dimension, which makes sense given the weighting and business model. The top performers run sophisticated paid search campaigns targeting trading-intent keywords, supplemented by SEO content strategies around market analysis and education. The days of Facebook ads promising lifestyle transformations from trading are over.

The retention score of 50.5 is the elephant in the room. It is the lowest retention score of any financial services vertical we benchmark. The structural explanation is sound: retail CFD trading has high natural churn. But the variance within the industry suggests it is not purely structural. Brokers who invest in trader education, community features and multi-asset access (adding shares, ETFs, crypto) retain clients at 1.5-2x the industry average.

Data and tracking at 61.5 is adequate but not exceptional for a digitally native financial services category. The explanation is regulatory: Australian brokers are cautious about tracking and remarketing due to ASIC advertising rules. The ones navigating this well use first-party data strategies, CRM-driven nurture and educational content funnels rather than aggressive retargeting.

A 22.5-point spread between Pepperstone and Global Prime. That's not one industry. That's two separate leagues operating under the same name. The leaders are playing chess. The challengers are still learning the rules.

Where you sit in Financial Services

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Cross-cut CFD & Derivatives Broker data by taxonomy, compare dimensions across sectors and see where this industry sits nationally.

Frequently Asked

Where does your business sit in this picture?

CFD & Derivatives Broker scores 63.5 on average. That's one number across 6 dimensions. Your number will be different, and the breakdown will tell you exactly where to invest and where to stop wasting money.