Investment platforms want customers to open their apps, check their portfolios, and stay engaged. But what if the behaviors that make these platforms more profitable are the very ones that could hurt their customers?
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That's the question at the heart of this episode of Retail Investors Decoded, where Carl Hazeley, CEO of Finimize, speaks with Adam Lees, Head of Marketing at InvestEngine, about the tension between platform growth and good investing habits.
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Having helped InvestEngine grow from a handful of customers to billions in assets under management, Adam shares what the industry gets wrong about engagement, trust, and keeping investors invested.

When more engagement becomes a problem

Most digital businesses measure success through activity. More logins, more transactions, and more time spent on an app generally look like positive signals.
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But investment platforms present a different challenge.
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Adam argues that some business models depend on frequent trading, creating incentives that don't necessarily serve customers' long-term interests.
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Trading apps helped introduce more people to financial markets, particularly during the pandemic. But Adam believes they've also blurred the distinction between investing and trading.
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When investing starts to resemble a high-stakes, constantly changing activity, it can discourage people who want to build wealth simply and gradually.
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For InvestEngine, the goal is different: help customers build a diversified portfolio, contribute regularly, and feel comfortable leaving it alone.

The strange business of keeping customers away

InvestEngine has experienced relatively little customer churn, according to Adam. But its retention philosophy challenges conventional thinking about customer engagement.
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Rather than encouraging people to check their portfolios every day, the platform is designed to reduce the need for constant intervention. Automated savings plans and portfolio allocations help customers maintain their investments without repeatedly making decisions.
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That creates an interesting challenge for marketers. How do you maintain a relationship with customers when your product works best with minimal attention?
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Adam's answer centers on confidence. Customers need to trust their investment choices, understand what they're paying, and feel comfortable with their long-term approach.
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The objective is to make staying invested easier, rather than giving people more reasons to interact with the app.

Trust isn’t built with just an advertising budget

When Adam joined InvestEngine in 2020, the platform was gaining only one or two customers a week.
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Its early growth came from some unexpected places. A £50 welcome bonus gained traction in Reddit's r/beermoney community, helping the platform grow from a few hundred customers to around a thousand.

InvestEngine also strengthened its credibility through relationships with established ETF providers, content creators, and financial publications.
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For Adam, recommendations from trusted communities can carry more weight than advertising alone. The challenge is making the platform easy enough to understand that customers feel confident recommending it to someone else.

Low fees are no longer enough

For years, zero-fee investing helped platforms stand apart.
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But Carl highlights an interesting finding from the Finimize Awards 2026 research: removing fees as a factor didn't change the overall results.
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Competitive pricing increasingly looks like an expectation rather than a reason to choose one platform over another.
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Adam believes the next competitive advantage lies in investment philosophy.
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Does a platform encourage frequent activity, or help customers build sustainable investing habits? Does its marketing create urgency, or give people the confidence to make sensible decisions?
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Those differences may matter more as pricing becomes less distinctive.

Why should I care?

The investment industry has become very good at getting people's attention. The harder challenge is helping them invest with confidence and stay the course.
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Adam's experience suggests that better retention doesn't necessarily require more engagement, more education, or more notifications.
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Sometimes, the most valuable thing an investment platform can do is make investing simple enough that customers can get on with their lives.