Solved: Targeting HNWIs Without a Location (Data Inside)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on this. Targeting high net worth individuals is a common challenge, and honestly, the way most people approach it is completely backwards and ends up burning a tonne of cash. The problem isnt the lack of a specific geographic location; it's the fundamental assumption that you can target "wealth" directly. You can't. The platforms just dont have a 'show my ads to rich people' button, its just not how it works.

The solution lies in a pretty big mindset shift. You have to stop thinking about demographics (net worth, income) and start thinking obsessively about psychographics – their specific pains, passions, and status signals. We'll need to dig into that.

Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Net Worth...

Let's be brutally honest. The idea of targeting "high net worth individuals" is a trap. It leads you down a path of using broad, useless targeting options like "luxury goods" interests on Facebook, which lumps in aspirational teenagers with actual billionaires. You end up paying a premium to reach an audience of people who want to *look* rich, not people who *are* rich. It's a complete waste of time and money.

To stop burning cash, you have to redefine your target completely. Forget the sterile, demographic-based profile. "Individuals with over £1M in investable assets" tells you absolutely nothing of value about how to reach them or what to say to them. It leads to generic ads that get ignored.

You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, and sometimes career-threatening nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a *problem state*. What keeps them awake at 3 AM? What frustration are they willing to spend a significant amount of money to make disappear, right now?

For example:

• A wealth management firm isn't selling "financial advice." They're selling a solution to the nightmare of "losing a lifetime of work to a market crash or poor tax planning."
• A private jet charter company isn't selling "convenient travel." They're selling a solution to the nightmare of "a CEO wasting 8 hours in airport security, losing a multi-million-pound deal."
• A bespoke tailor isn't selling a "suit." They're selling a solution to the nightmare of "a senior partner looking out of place and losing credibility in a room full of impeccably dressed peers."

The same logic applies to passions. HNWIs don't just have hobbies; they have obsessions they pour immense resources into. Art collecting, classic cars, yacht racing, philanthropy, thoroughbred horses. You dont target "art lovers"; you target people whose behaviour indicates they attend Art Basel, follow specific galleries on Instagram, and subscribe to publications like Apollo Magazine.

Once you've isolated that specific nightmare or passion, your entire strategy changes. You stop looking for 'rich people' and start looking for people exhibiting the behaviours associated with that specific problem or interest. This is the absolute foundation. If you get this wrong, nothing else we discuss will matter. You have to do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads.

I'd say you need to find their digital 'watering holes'...

Once you've defined your ICP by their problem or passion, the next question is where to find them. The good news is they use the same platforms as everyone else. The bad news is you have to be much, much smarter about how you use them. You're not looking for a needle in a haystack; you're looking for the specific corner of the farm where all the needles hang out together. These are their digital watering holes.

Google Search: The High-Intent Goldmine

This is probably your most powerful channel, especially for services or high-consideration products. People dont idly browse Google for "bespoke wealth structuring solutions" or "how to buy a Gulfstream G650." When they type these things in, they have a serious problem and are actively looking for a (likely expensive) solution. Their intent is sky-high.

Your job is to intercept this intent. You need to do exhaustive keyword research not just on what you sell, but on the *problems* you solve. For instance, a cybersecurity firm for family offices wouldn't just bid on "cybersecurity services." They'd bid on terms like:

• "protecting family assets from cyber threats"
• "secure communication for family office"
• "risk of phishing for HNWIs"
• "inheritance data protection"

These are long-tail keywords that signal a highly specific, high-value need. The search volume will be low, but the quality of the lead will be exceptional. I remember one client in the B2B SaaS space where we shifted focus from broad industry terms to hyper-specific problem keywords. Their lead volume dropped by 30%, but their sales qualified leads more than doubled because every click came from someone with a burning problem. They were pre-qualified by their own search query.

Meta (Facebook & Instagram): The Passion Playground

This is where you target the passions. Forget broad interests. You need to get granular and layer your targeting. HNWIs signal their interests through the niche, high-end brands they follow, the exclusive events they're interested in, and the media they consume.

Instead of targeting "Watches," you'd target people who like "Patek Philippe" AND "Hodinkee" AND "The Wall Street Journal."
Instead of "Boating," you'd target people who like "Ferretti Yachts" AND "The Monaco Yacht Show" AND follow "Boat International" magazine.
Instead of "Art," you'd target people who like "Gagosian Gallery" AND "Frieze Art Fair" AND an interest in "Art Basel."

The key here is layering. Combining several specific, high-end interests creates a proxy for affluence and discernment. A single interest is useless; a combination of three or four is powerful. One campaign we worked on was for a luxury brand launch, where we used this exact strategy, layering interests in specific high-fashion designers, exclusive travel destinations, and premium financial publications. This allowed us to reach an incredibly refined audience and generate over 10 million highly relevant impressions that established the brand in its target market.

LinkedIn: The Professional Battlefield

If your offer is B2B or relates to professional status (e.g., executive coaching, high-end corporate services), LinkedIn is your best bet. Its targeting is unparalleled for professional demographics. You can target with incredible precision:

• Job Titles: "Chief Executive Officer", "Founder", "Managing Partner"
• Seniority: "C-Suite", "Owner", "VP"
• Company Size: "50-200 employees" (often a sweet spot for services)
• Industries: "Financial Services", "Venture Capital & Private Equity", "Law Practice"

For B2B services, this is often the most direct path to the decision-maker. We've run campaigns for software companies targeting C-level executives and consistently achieved lead costs around $22, which is an absolute bargain when a single customer can be worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The key is that your ad and offer must be hyper-relevant to their professional role. A CEO of a tech company doesn't care about your generic business solution; they care about how you'll help them beat their competition and increase their valuation.

You probably should stop selling and start signalling...

This is where most campaigns targeting this audience completely fall apart. High-net-worth individuals are not just marketed to; they are besieged. They have developed an incredibly sophisticated filter for sales pitches and generic marketing. If your ad looks, sounds, or feels like a typical ad, it will be instantly and irrevocably ignored.

You have to stop *selling* and start *signalling*. Your entire message, from the copy to the creative, must signal that you belong in their world. It must communicate exclusivity, deep expertise, and an implicit understanding of their values. They don't care about discounts; they care about quality, status, and solutions that save their most valuable asset: time.

Copywriting that Resonates

Your ad copy needs to speak directly to their highest-level motivations. You deploy the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework, but with a focus on sophisticated, high-stakes problems.

• Don't say: "We offer the best wealth management services."
  Instead, say: "Your portfolio grew, but so did your tax burden. Are you confident your current strategy is preserving your wealth for the next generation, or just for the tax man?"
• Don't say: "Fly private with us."
  Instead, say: "While your competitors lose hours in security queues, you could be closing your next deal at 40,000 feet. Your time is your most valuable asset. Invest it wisely."

The language should be confident, direct, and focused on outcomes, not features. It acknowledges their intelligence and respects their time by getting straight to the point.

Creative that Commands Attention

Your visuals are non-negotiable. They must be of the highest possible quality. Stock photos are an instant killer. Your imagery and video must *look* as expensive and premium as the product or service you're selling. This means professional photography, high-end cinematography, and impeccable design.

Think about the visuals used by brands like Rolls-Royce, Patek Philippe, or the Four Seasons. They are clean, elegant, and aspirational. They don't just show the product; they show the *life* the product enables. For a service, this could mean showing the feeling of relief and control your client experiences, not a picture of your office. The visual itself is a signal of quality. If you skimp on creative, you're telling the audience that you skimp on everything else, too.

You'll need an offer that delivers value upfront...

Now we arrive at what is, without a doubt, the most common and catastrophic failure point in advertising to this audience: the offer. The "Request a Demo" button is perhaps the most arrogant and ineffective Call to Action ever conceived for this market. It presumes your prospect, a time-poor, high-value individual, has nothing better to do than book a 30-minute meeting to be sold to. It screams "I want your time, and I'll give you a sales pitch in return." It is high-friction, low-value, and instantly positions you as a commoditised vendor they need to avoid.

Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your full solution. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve their entire problem for a fee.

What does this look like in practice?

• For a wealth management firm: Don't offer a "Free Consultation." Offer a "Complimentary Second Opinion on Your Investment Portfolio." This is non-committal, provides tangible value, and respects their existing relationships while showcasing your expertise.
• For a luxury travel agency: Don't have a "Plan Your Trip" form. Offer a "Curated Lookbook: A 7-Day Bespoke Itinerary for the Amalfi Coast." This is a high-value, beautifully designed digital asset that demonstrates your taste and knowledge without asking for anything in return.
• For a B2B SaaS targeting executives: Don't use "Request a Demo." Offer a "Free Industry Benchmark Report" or a simple tool that calculates potential ROI from your solution.

The principle is simple: give first. Provide so much value in your initial, free offer that they feel compelled to learn more. This completely reframes the dynamic from you chasing them to them wanting to engage with you.

This approach also justifies a higher cost per lead. You aren't just buying a click; you're buying an opportunity to demonstrate your value to a potential customer who could be worth a fortune to your business. This brings us to the most important calculation you can make: understanding what a customer is actually worth.

This is the main advice I have for you:

So, how do we pull all this together into an actionable plan? It’s a phased approach that moves from foundational strategy to testing and then scaling. You can't just turn on the taps and hope for the best; it has to be a deliberate, methodical process. Here’s how I would structure it.

First, you have to get the foundation perfect. This means forgetting about ads for a moment and focusing entirely on your ICP and your offer. As we discussed, you need to define your customer by a very specific pain point or passion. Then, you must build a value-first offer—a free assessment, a bespoke report, a high-value piece of content—that solves a small piece of their problem upfront. This is non-negotiable and where most of the work should be done.

Once the foundation is solid, you move into the testing phase. You don't know for certain which channel or message will resonate best, so you have to test intelligently. I'd recommend starting with no more than two channels. A good combination is often Google Search (to capture high-intent demand) and one social platform like Meta or LinkedIn (to generate demand based on psychographics or professional roles). On these platforms, you need to rigorously split-test your messaging. Test an angle focused on security/fear against one focused on status/aspiration. Test different creative formats. The goal here isn't massive scale; it's learning. You're looking for the winning combination of audience, message, and channel.

Only after you have a predictable, repeatable way of generating qualified leads do you enter the scaling phase. This is where you increase the budget on your winning campaigns. You also build out your retargeting. Someone who downloaded your report or visited your services page is a highly valuable prospect. You should have a dedicated campaign to stay in front of them with different messages—client testimonials, case studies, invitations to a private webinar. The sales cycle for this audience is long; your retargeting needs to match that, nurturing them over weeks or even months until they are ready to engage.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you in a table below to give you a clear overview of the process from start to finish. This is the framework we use to build successful campaigns for high-value offers.

This all goes to say that targeting high-net-worth individuals is less about finding a secret channel and more about a fundamental shift in strategy. It demands a deeper understanding of your customer, a more sophisticated message, and a more generous offer. It's a nuanced process where mistakes can be very expensive, given the high cost of media for this audience.

Working with someone who has experience navigating this specific landscape can make a significant difference, preventing costly errors and accelerating the path to finding those truly great customers.

We offer a complimentary, no-obligation strategy session where we can discuss your specific business and challenges in more detail and review any existing campaigns you might be running. It's a chance for you to get a second opinion and for us to show you how we think. If that sounds helpful, feel free to get in touch to schedule a call.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh