How to Use FINTRX to Identify RIAs Using Competitor Funds—And Strategies to Replace Them

FINTRX combines award-winning RIA data, fund allocation insights, and AI-enabled analysis to give you visibility into which RIAs are using competitor funds and how to replace them with your own products. In this blog, we’ll walk through how to execute this strategy from start to finish using the FINTRX platform.

Why Replacing Competitor Funds Is a Smart Growth Strategy

Unseating a competitor isn’t about cold outreach or introducing an entirely new asset class. It’s about demonstrating value in a product category where the RIA already allocates—lowering the educational burden, improving conversion rates, and shortening your sales cycle.

Benefits of this strategy include: 

•  Targeting RIAs with proven buying behavior
•  Effectively positioning yourself as a superior alternative
•  Avoiding dead-end conversations with uninterested firms
•  Driving organic growth without launching new products

The real question is: How do you find these opportunities quickly and consistently?

How FINTRX Identifies RIAs Allocated to Competitor Products

FINTRX aggregates detailed fund allocation and exposure data across thousands of RIA firms and investment advisors, allowing you to search by a wide variety of datapoints, such as competitor firm name, strategy, fund family, or even by ticker symbol.

But it doesn’t stop at surfacing competitor allocations. With FINTRX AI, you can instantly break down an RIA’s portfolio, identify where competitor products sit, and uncover underweight areas that align with your offerings. The platform then suggests actionable strategies, complete with positioning guidance, tailored talking points, and even draft outreach messaging to help you present your fund as the superior alternative.

Powerful AI Queries You Can Use in FINTRX:

→ "Analyze this firm’s ETF and mutual fund holdings and highlight where they hold competitor funds. Identify categories where they are underweight compared to benchmarks, and suggest how our products could fill that gap.”

→ “Which RIAs in my territory are allocating to [Competitor Fund Name or Ticker], and what talking points should I use to position our product as a stronger alternative?”

→ “Break down this RIA’s top 5 fund providers by allocation share. Where is there concentration risk, and how can I frame our fund as a way to diversify away from overexposure to [Competitor Provider]?”

By combining comprehensive allocation data with AI-driven competitive analysis, FINTRX gives distribution teams a clear, data-backed roadmap for displacing competitors and winning new flows, with real-time accuracy and powerful segmentation tools.

"The AI is scary cool. . . we have used it to create marketing campaigns or target firms who are using a competitor's ETF."

- Carl Berg, Senior VP & Director of Sales Operations & Analytics at F/m Investments

Read more about how F/m Investments has been able to easily target competitor funds with FINTRX >>

Segmenting & Prioritizing Opportunities

Once you've identified RIAs using competitor funds, the next step is prioritization. Not every user of a competing fund is worth pursuing equally.

Use FINTRX to rank prospective buyers by:

•  Assets under management (total & strategy-specific)
•  Custodian platform compatibility
•  Number of reps at the firm
•  Geographic proximity to your wholesalers
•  Relationship overlap or mutual connections

This is where FINTRX's relationship intelligence engine shines. By surfacing existing connections between your team and the prospect, it becomes easier to warm up cold outreach and boost response rates.

You can also build dynamic watchlists that alert your team to changes—like shifts in allocation behavior, newly onboarded reps, or AUM growth.

Creating a Compelling Replacement Narrative

Finding the right prospects is just the beginning. To earn replacement flows, you need to articulate why your fund deserves to take the place of an existing holding.

Elements of a strong replacement pitch include:

1. Performance Differentiation: Use trailing returns, Sharpe ratio, or drawdown data to highlight risk-adjusted outperformance over 1-, 3-, and 5-year periods.
2. Philosophical Fit: Position your strategy as better aligned with the RIA’s investment ethos (e.g., risk mitigation, value orientation, ESG integration).
3. Cost Efficiency: If your product offers lower fees or a better structure, frame it as a win for the advisor and their clients.
4. Service & Access: Demonstrate how your team can deliver more personalized support, better data transparency, or ease of access through preferred platforms.

With FINTRX, you can tailor these messages to the firm profile and individual rep preferences, increasing the chance of success.

Tactics to Engage RIAs & Gain Shelf Space

Now that you’ve identified prospects and crafted your pitch, it's time to activate.

1. Email Sequences with Personalization

Use FINTRX contact data (including verified emails and phone numbers) to build customized email campaigns that speak directly to the advisor’s current holdings, bolstered with personal touches like common interests that help to create a warmer outreach.

→ Example subject line: "Seeing strong flows into ABC Fund—here’s how we stack up."

2. Call Scripts that Reference Fund Usage

When making outbound calls, use FINTRX data to reference the specific product they use:

→ “I noticed you’re allocated to XYZ Growth Fund—we’ve had advisors like you switch after seeing our Q1 numbers.”

3. Send Comparative Tear Sheets

Create fund comparison sheets that showcase key metrics (returns, volatility, expenses) and deliver them to the advisor via email or LinkedIn.

4. Leverage Existing Relationships

Use FINTRX's advanced relationship mapping tools to see who on your team—or your extended network—can make an introduction. Leveraging shared backgrounds, interests, or mutual connections can dramatically increase the chances of your outreach cutting through the noise and helping you to not only get your foot in the door, but giving your pitch a much stronger starting point.

4. Stay Visible with Alerts

Subscribe to firm and rep-level alerts to monitor activity that may signal readiness to switch funds:

•  Departure of a lead rep
•  Change in firm ownership or structure
•  AUM decrease or client turnover

Why FINTRX Is the Advantage You Need

FINTRX isn’t just a database—it’s an intelligence platform purpose-built for fund distribution teams looking to drive flows into their strategies. Beyond providing the most accurate, real-time data on RIAs and wealth managers, FINTRX delivers actionable insights that help you identify where competitor funds are winning, and how best to replace them with your own.

What sets FINTRX apart:

•  AI-driven competitive insights: Surface which RIAs hold competitor funds, uncover portfolio gaps, and get actionable recommendations on how to position your products as replacements.
•  Rep-level targeting: Get beyond the firm and speak directly to decision-makers.
•  Relationship mapping: Shorten the path to trust and warm up cold leads.
•  Smart alerts & automation: Be the first to know when circumstances change.
•  CRM integration: Seamlessly sync your intelligence into Salesforce, HubSpot, or your CRM of choice.

If you’re relying solely on traditional RIA firmographics or custodial lists, you’re missing out on the most actionable layer of insight: what advisors are actually doing with capital and how your products can most benefit their strategy.

“One of our RIA wholesalers in the Midwest was talking about how we were able to identify the top competitors of our ETFs and she was able to run a list of all RIAs in her territory that helped that. That was the warmest, easiest call list she said she was able to pull in a long time.”

- Julia Koller, Sales Strategy, The TCW Group

Read more about how TCW uses FINTRX to target and replace competitor funds >>

Turn Insight Into Action

Targeting competitor funds to directly replace with your own products is one of the most effective ways to sell into RIAs. To do it successfully, you need:

•  Verified, fund-specific allocation data
•  Precision targeting and prioritization tools
•  A compelling, data-driven narrative 
•  Consistent, relationship-driven outreach

In a competitive distribution landscape, guessing isn’t a strategy—precision is. FINTRX gives you the clarity to see where competitor funds sit, the intelligence to position your products as the superior choice, and the tools to execute with confidence. With FINTRX, every outreach becomes a data-backed opportunity to win replacement flows and accelerate growth.

Ready to target RIAs using your competitor's funds and win those allocations? Request your FINTRX trial today and start replacing your competitors—one RIA at a time.