CFP Board

Making a rigorous process a personalized experience

Professional certification is a commitment. The organizations that support it must make the path feel achievable.

CFP Board certifies financial planners across the United States, setting the standard for competence and ethics in the profession. They first came to Interactive Strategies needing an intuitive website that could guide and support visitors through a complex certification process. That was the beginning of a multi-year relationship that now spans both of CFP Board's flagship properties: CFP.net, which shuttles users through the certification experience, and Let's Make a Plan, which connects the public to CFP® professionals.

The initial challenge wasn't the credential itself. It was how the organization was talking about it. CFP Board was leading with the rigor of certification, which was accurate but discouraging. Prospective candidates were hitting the site and losing confidence instead of gaining it.

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What we did

Analytics
Audience research
Brand strategy
Content governance
Content strategy
Digital strategy
Information architecture
Messaging
Sitecore
UX

#1

W3 Gold Award winner for Best Financial Services Website

1%

increase in new account creations

#1

Sitecore Experience Award

The focus

CFP Board had a demanding, respected certification and a candidate audience ready to invest in their careers. What they needed was a digital experience that made the path to certification feel supported and achievable, not just rigorous.

Our strategy

We started with the message, because no amount of smart UX fixes a story that's pushing people away.

Reframing certification as a career asset. CFP Board had been emphasizing how hard the process was. We shifted the focus to what certification unlocks: career growth, credibility, and long-term professional value. Message development included a comprehensive voice guide to help the CFP Board team bring that new framing to life consistently across every touchpoint.

Building dashboards that move with the user. The bespoke candidate dashboard that we designed and built shows users exactly where they are in the certification journey, what comes next, and what deadlines are approaching. It tracks progress, fits each candidate's pace, and removes the guesswork that was creating friction and drop-off. The result is a digital experience that feels less like a checklist and more like a guide.

Personalizing the experience at every stage. From first interest to final exam, the site adjusts to where each user is in their journey. Custom homepage layouts, targeted messaging, and dynamic content surface next steps at the right time. Behind it all is a flexible personalization engine built in Sitecore that responds to user behavior and intent.

Giving the CFP Board team control. All personalization and page-building lives inside the Sitecore CMS, so admins can update content, launch landing pages, and adjust components without developer help. Content stays current and on brand without creating a bottleneck.

Growing with the account, not the project. What began as one site’s project is now an ongoing engagement across CFP Board's digital ecosystem. We’ve partnered on full site strategy and refreshes for both CFP.net and Let's Make a Plan, AI assessment and user consent management to meet shifts in the landscape head on, and technology and security work spanning a move to Auth0, Cloudflare alerting, and spam mitigation. Now, we are working on staff and audience surveys and a creative exploration of what the future could hold for CFP Board and the financial planning industry.

The results

The CFP Board site now provides a highly personalized, supportive member experience that reflects the diversity of the profession and lets candidates see themselves in it. Account creations increased 14% and visitors engaging with candidate resources climbed 22%, reflecting a candidate audience that's finding what they need and moving forward. The W3 Awards also took notice of our work, recognizing us with a gold award for financial services sites. Most importantly, our work helped CFP Board build a digital infrastructure that matches its ambition by standing as the pillar of the financial planning profession so that every financial planner sees a clear reason to pursue certification.

What we did

#1

1%

#1

The focus

Our strategy

The results

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