×· Q4 2026
— days since II's search traffic peaked (September 2025); it's down 47% since

What new manager memberships from search, AI and retargeting are worth to Institutional Investor

II's search traffic has fallen 47% since September 2025 (25,476 to 13,480 visits a month, Ahrefs) as the pages Google ranks fell 84%. Its 90+ events are largely missing from Google's AI answers and the conference calendars they quote. This models what fixing that, plus retargeting II's own visitors and a LinkedIn test, is worth in new manager memberships. Only the 21% manager share of readers is II's own figure; every other rate is a placeholder until II's numbers replace it.

Search & AI
8,000
Half the 11,996 visits a month lost since September 2025, plus half of the near-miss searches and event searches reaching the top three (Ahrefs, modelled). Redirects recover in 1–3 months; new pages take 3–6 to rank.
21%
II's own: 21% of readers are asset managers, 79% allocators, intermediaries or bankers (readership survey, Aug 2026 sales deck).
Retargeting & LinkedIn
£10,000
Retargeting II's own 140K–240K monthly visitors (LinkedIn Matched Audiences, Google/YouTube, Meta), plus a LinkedIn test to asset-manager marketing, distribution and IR titles.
£4.50
Placeholder. ROAST's working range until live CPCs are checked: LinkedIn finance targeting ~£6–9 a click, retargeting ~£1–3. Replaced by the first month's data.
Funnel
0.2%
Placeholder until II shares its own: "Apply as a Manager" and partnership enquiries from site visits.
0.5%
Placeholder. Clicks land on membership and partnership pages; retargeted visitors usually convert above cold LinkedIn traffic.
12%
Placeholder; one of the two rates that move the number most (see the sensitivity table). II's CRM has the real figure.
£25,000
Placeholder: II doesn't publish membership prices. For scale, peers charge managers ~US$3,000–3,500 per single event; a membership covers a year of roundtables.
0.5%
Placeholder: free accounts, newsletter sign-ups and invite requests from allocators. Counted, not priced.
First-year membership revenue a year
£520,960
from new manager members won through search, AI answers and ads
20.8
New manager members a year
4.8 from search & AI · 16.0 from ads
174
Membership enquiries a year
40 from search & AI · 133 from ads
£3.33
Revenue per £1 of ads
ads alone: ~16.0 members
379
Allocator sign-ups a year
from search & AI, not priced

Ads alone: ~16 new members. With search & AI answers: ~21 on the same ad budget.

New manager members a year, by channel

Ads alone
16.0
Search & AI
4.8
Both together
20.8

Yellow is what search and AI answers add on the same ad budget.

From visits to members, one year

122,667
Visits & ad clicks
96,000 visits · 26,667 clicks
46,827
From managers
21% of visits · every ad click
174
Enquiries
40 search & AI · 133 ads
20.8
New members
12% of enquiries

A year of visits and ad clicks at the rates set above. Ads are aimed at managers, so every ad click counts as a manager click. Only the 21% manager share is II's own figure.

If the least certain rates come in different

Enquiry to member£15,000membership£25,000placeholder£40,000membership

First-year membership revenue a year. Every other rate as set above; the yellow cell matches the current setting.

The paid view

Ad budget a year£120,000
Ad clicks a year26,667
New members from ads16.0
Revenue per £1 of ads£3.33
Ad cost per new member£7,500

Search & AI add ~4.8 members on the same ad budget.

For scale: the same 8,000 search visits a month would cost ~£9,325 a month in Google Ads at ~£1.17 a click (Ahrefs' value per visit). Search also reaches what ads can't: AI answers and the event calendars.

What waiting costs

Each month without the plan defers ~£43K of first-year membership revenue. II's search traffic is down 11,996 visits a month since September 2025 (−47%) and has fallen every month since June 2026 (Ahrefs). At the 12-month trend (−36%), another year takes ~4,800 more visits a month off search, worth ~£73K a year at these rates.

Assumptions & sources. Only the manager share of readers is II's own: 21% asset managers, 79% allocators, intermediaries or bankers (II readership survey, May 2026, in II's August 2026 digital sales deck). Every other rate, and the membership value, is a placeholder until II shares its own (membership prices by package, enquiries by source, enquiry-to-member rate). Search: Ahrefs, pulled 13 Oct 2026, subdomains, worldwide, modelled estimates: organic traffic of 25,476 visits a month at the September 2025 peak and 13,480 in October 2026; pages ranking in the top 100 fell from 11,662 (August 2025) to 1,894; Ahrefs traffic value of $26,172 a month on 16,949 visits, $1.54 (£1.17) a visit. Near-miss searches: 19 searches at positions 4–20 with 300+ US searches a month; event searches: 24 head terms (1,630 US, ~2,580 worldwide searches a month), visits at a standard click-through curve with a 50% AI Overview haircut. AI visits are an assumption. II publishes 140,000+ monthly visitors (about page) and 240,000 monthly users (sales deck); GA4 would replace the Ahrefs estimates. Ad costs are placeholders. Exchange rate: $1.3212 per £1 (13 Oct 2026). ROAST fees are not in the number.
Formula. Search & AI members = new visits a month × 12 × manager share × visit to enquiry × enquiry to member. Ad members = ad budget a month ÷ cost per click × 12 × click to enquiry × enquiry to member. Revenue = (search & AI members + ad members) × first-year membership value. Allocator sign-ups = new visits × 12 × (1 − manager share) × sign-up rate (counted, never priced). Revenue per £1 of ads = ad members × membership value ÷ ad budget a year. Each month of waiting = revenue ÷ 12. The tiers change only the visits and the ad budget; the rates stay as set.
Part of the ROAST × Institutional Investor search, AI and paid media analysis, October 2026.