In any fintech marketing campaign, you’re probably using some form of content to attract leads, right? You’ve created exceptional content that your audience will enjoy and hopefully, act upon. Producing high quality content requires a lot of resources. You want to get maximum exposure, but you also need to get a measurable return on your investment

This often leads to the question: to gate or not to gate your content? To determine an answer, you must first understand what each of these terms means.

Gated vs. Ungated Content
In simplest terms, gated content is anything that is hidden behind a form. It’s content that requires a user to provide additional information -- usually personal contact information like an email address or phone number -- in order to see, read or interact with the content. As examples, almost all eBooks are gated. Just about every webinar or white paper is gated. Other examples of gated content include demos and newsletters.

With ungated content, visitors can view and download your content for “free” without having to divulge any information. There is no exchange for the content, and users can see it instantly. Common examples of ungated content typically includes blogs, product videos, podcasts and/or social media content.

Which is Best?
This is a question fintech marketers ask themselves a lot these days. The answer really lies with your marketing goals and overall strategy. Are you prioritizing traffic and reach, or qualified sales leads?

If your organization is looking to generate more market awareness for your brand, products and/or services, then ungating content likely makes more sense. If you’re a relatively new company and your main goal is to get people talking, then keeping most of your content open and available may be a better strategy.

If your organization is more established and lead generation is your number one priority, then gating most of your content may be  the right choice. The more you gate content, the more leads you’re able to capture and qualify. By introducing a registration form into the visitor experience, you can know your audience better and better qualify prospects that are genuinely interested in your organization. With gated content, you also benefit from quantifiable data reflecting the value of your content, i.e. which content is most frequently downloaded.

The type of content may also be worth considering. For example, a multi-page white paper that you’ve invested hours of time into may be more valuable to potential customers than a simple infographic. Similarly, gating a press release would rarely make sense since its goal is to actively spread your company news. Consider the end goal of your content and whether website visitors will be willing to share their valuable information in exchange for it.

Within marketing circles, the value of gated versus ungated content is debated.  But whether to gate content or not really depends on your specific goals and objectives, whether that be creating general awareness or lead generation.