Two CFD brokers made two completely different bets on where growth comes from this half. One is spending like market share is still up for grabs. The other has quietly decided it isn't, and is putting its money somewhere else instead.
Two things that happened:
One broker went all in on brand. Total H1 2026 marketing spend jumped 65% year over year to roughly $117m. That was the biggest marketing push in the company's history, and it included three football shirt sponsorships inside four months. Here's the part that actually matters. It worked. New client acquisition hit 703,000 for the half, up 94.5% year over year, pushing the active client base to 1.49 million and total accounts past 2.9 million. Revenue grew 79.7% to roughly $562m. Net profit grew even faster, up 150.5% to roughly $277m. Marketing spend went up 65%. Profit went up 150%. That's not a company burning cash for vanity growth. That's a company that found a channel where the payback curve is still bending in its favor, for now. The real test comes next half, once the football deals are old news and the CAC math has to hold up without the novelty.
The other broker decided the better return isn't more clients. Revenue was up 12% for the half, profit up only 2%, and it still declared a $182.5m payout to shareholders: $100m in buybacks and $82.5m in dividends, more than it earned this half. Of that, $111.9m came straight out of cash reserves, not from H1 profit. But it isn't sitting on its hands either. It's making narrower, more selective bets. Its non OTC business (futures, prediction markets) is up roughly 30% year over year to $70m in H1 revenue, targeting margins above 20%. That's double what its own CEO calls the market standard. On top of that, bolt on acquisitions are picking up licenses and distribution in India, Canada and Brazil ahead of a "super app" launch next year. Translation: it isn't choosing between growth and shareholder returns. It's choosing which growth to fund, and returning the rest.
One thing I'm seeing from inside the industry:
Growth teams comparing notes right now are split on which of these is the smarter playbook to copy, and most of them are copying the wrong half of it. Everyone wants the brand led client surge. Almost nobody wants the discipline of admitting some of their pipeline doesn't deserve more budget.
The prediction:
The brand spend broker's real number lands in six months, once you can see how many of those 703,000 clients are still funded and trading, not just registered. The disciplined broker's bet pays off on a longer clock, but it's a much safer one. If you're building an affiliate program right now, model both. Don't fund the one that only wins if next half looks exactly like this one.