Self-directed investing accounts are critical to a customer’s relationship with their primary investment firm, and an increasing number of customers use their computer to find, research, and open an account. To discover how effectively companies are meeting customers’ expectations, we evaluated the desktop websites of 13 investment firms in the US and Canada. Charles Schwab and CIBC had the strongest sales sites overall. But all firms have significant work to do to improve the self-directed investing account purchase journey. Digital execs can use this report to understand where North American investment firms’ sites excel, where they fall short, and how to strengthen their own website.