Builder Success

Hear it straight from the builder’s themselves – who’s having success and why.

By Thane Tennison, Advertising Manager, BDX

One of the greatest benefits of online advertising is the ability to track performance and make data driven decisions.  As a marketer these data points allow you to qualify performance, optimize spend and manage ROI.  However, without the proper tracking elements in place before you begin, it can be much harder to understand which advertising channels are driving the greatest value.

There are lots of software solutions to help online marketing managers track and analyze performance including Omniture, Webtrends, and Google Analytics; most of the builders we work with have Google Analytics installed.  The service is free and automatically integrates with other Google services such as paid search.  Google UTM Tracking Codes allow marketers the ability to track activity from third party sites like listings on NewHomeSource or a banner campaign. Tracking URLs are quick and easy to set up and can provide a wealth of information regarding performance of listings, banners, emails and more. At BDX, we’re a strong advocate of implementing tracking not only to help our clients highlight performance, but also to help us improve our products and services.  

The following is how you can implement tracking codes and keep them organized.

I recommend keeping a consistent naming convention. This will pay dividends when you want to look at performance over a long period of time or when comparing two different channels.  Google’s UTM codes are case sensitive so “BDX_listings” and “bdx_listings” can appear as two separate line items and distort actual performance.  A consistent naming convention will also help keep things organized. Having some campaigns labeled “Banners” and others “Display” will create a lot of extra work when reviewing performance.

WHAT TO TRACK:

Campaign Source:  Where are you receiving your traffic? For builders this could be from BDX, Realtor.com, NHSPro, Zip Realty, Trulia, Zillow etc.  Keeping the source consistent will also help you understand the services you have with each product. For example, if you have listings with BDX as well as a banner campaign you’d want keep the source for both as “BDX.”

Campaign Medium:  The medium is the type of service.  Listings, banner, email are the most common mediums used by builders.  By consolidating into these three buckets it’s easy to compare performance of all your banner campaigns or traffic from all or your listing services.

Campaign Name:  The third level of segmentation helps you differentiate creative and offers. If you’re running the same art across multiple networks this field should be the same for each network.  Many builders who advertise across multiple markets will identify the market here. It makes for any easy filter when you want to compare performance for a particular division.

Campaign Content: If you’re doing A/B testing between offers or have multiple links from the same source you could use the content filter to drill into performance for each link. For example, if you wanted to differentiate incoming traffic from Realtor.com listings vs. the Realtor.com Ryder Sign, you could differentiate using the “content” field.  For advertisers who want to review ad performance by size I’d also recommend this field.

As a marketing manager, you’ll need as much information as possible to manage and optimize performance and I would recommend adding UTM tracking to every link and paid media source.  However, starting with a plan and maintaining a clear naming convention will make it easier to review performance year over year and allow for greater and easier segmentation.                                                                                                     

Below is an example of how I would set up some common links used at BDX.

 

With tracking codes in place, you will be better equipped to make the smart decisions and optimize for a better ROI.  For example, you might find that you’re getting a great rate and a lot of traffic from one advertising vendor but the traffic tends to have a high bounce rate and those consumers don’t convert into home sales while other more expensive channels drive more value and therefore may have a better return.  You may decide you want to test a new marketing initiative and need an established benchmark to gauge success and justify the program.

  If you have questions about setting up tracking links or creating campaign goals in Google Analytics please feel free to contact me.

Thane Tennison is the Advertising Manager for the BDX and manages hundreds of home builder brands across a network of over a dozen real estate websites.

 

 

 

 

By Ryan Folgate, BDX Advertising Coordinator 

NewHomeSourceProfessional.com is the BDX website for real estate professionals to attain all the information they need to find data on new communities in their market. Data not often available on the MLS can be found on the site as well as the physical New Home Source Professional (NHS Pro) printed map. 

The map was designed to offer customers and clients of NHS Pro, as a physical supplement to the website. The map has the same inventory on a per market basis as the website. It contains school districts, tax and community information, builder contact information and pricing. All of these tools have been designed specifically for agents to meet the needs of their clients.

The NHS Pro Map is now offered in eight markets and printed twice a year. These markets include: Atlanta, Phoenix, Washington D.C, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and Tampa. By producing a single market map twice a year, NHS Pro provides the most reliable and up-to-date listing information. Think of it as a physical MLS that you can fit in your glove box.

In addition to the listings and community information, the NHS Pro Map gives builders, MLS’, home builders associations (HBA), and any organization involved in the new home process, an opportunity to advertise and promote their communities. Many builders run both print and digital ads on New Home Source to not only persuade the reader to purchase a product or service but to support a lifestyle change. Maybe that means buying a home that is Green and good for the environment. Maybe it means buying a home in a development with a good school and parks for your children. Either way, builders want to connect with the reader on an emotional basis. This encourages the consumer to see the product or service offered as allowing them to achieve that desired lifestyle change.

The map ad can be very beneficial and valuable for any company competing for market share. In markets that have many big national builders with big national budgets, advertising on the map gives local builders an affordable option to market themselves.  This also gives new builders, who have not established themselves in a market, an opportunity to promote their brand to a specific audience. Small and large companies alike can expect their messages to be delivered directly to the hands of their target client. BDX works closely with local MLS offices and HBA’s to ensure that these maps are positioned for the best possible reception.   

For more information on advertising to local agents and builders with New Home Source Professional, contact your local sales rep or email info@thebdx.com.

Ryan Folgate is the Advertising Coordinator for the Builders Digital Experience and manages both traditional and digital advertising for the BDX and affiliate channels.

 

By Builders Digital Experience

84 percent of today’s home buyers contact a real estate agent when starting their home search and according to the National Association of Realtors, 63 percent of new home buyers are represented by a Realtor®.  With such a large percentage of homes being purchased with the help of an agent, it is important to have a good relationship with the agents in your area.

BDX recently conducted research that shows that 50 percent of agents prefer to sell new homes! This is a HUGE opportunity. While many of these agents understand the benefits of a new home, they don’t always feel comfortable with the new home process.  Help agents get comfortable with the process of new home sales by providing training materials that not only highlight the features of your home and neighborhood but also set expectations for the sales process so agents are familiar with your procedures.

Keeping your website information current is also extremely important.  This is generally the first impression agents and buyers will have of your company, communities and homes.  Having outdated information may force an agent to overlook you even if your products are great.  Including information specifically for agents such as your commission structure and your registration policy is also helpful.

In addition to maintaining an engaging website, expand your exposure by making sure your homes are listed on New Home Source Professional, where your communities are featured for agents to search and share with their buyers.  This agent facing site is designed to help agents sell new homes and showcase all of your new home advantages.

Another way to keep agents informed of your inventory and consumer promotions is by sending e-blasts.  One thing to keep in mind when creating content for your e-blasts is that 89 percent of  agents think consumer promotions are very important when they are putting together recommendations for a buyer; so be sure to include them.  And remember, especially in large markets, agents can receive hundreds of emails a day from builders promoting their homes so instead of sending blasts daily, try sending weekly or bi-weekly emails that are concise and have a singular focus. If you’d like help with your emails to agents, click here.

Additionally, having agent only events in your communities is a great way of targeting your best prospects.  Exclusive events, like a broker’s open, can drive excitement while making a memorable impression of you and your brand and making it more likely for an agent to refer one of your homes to their clients.

It is important that we as builders give agents the tools they need to sell more new homes.  In order to ensure good referrals and repeat business in the future, we must establish and maintain long term collaborative relationships.  What are you doing to make the real estate agent connection?

 

 

By Jamie Lintner, Advertising Accounts Manager, BDX

In the advertising industry there are two main tiers or “dimensions” that quantify advertising campaign performance. The first is the most basic and simply measures engagement with your content.  With this metric you put all of your eggs into the baskets that presumably provide the best Return On Investment (ROI), but it doesn’t tell the complete story as to how effective those clicks are. Click totals do not provide you with insight on what actions the users actually took once on-site. For example, you could run a campaign that has an incredibly high click thru rate that simultaneously has a high bounce rate, meaning your campaign generated little meaningful actions. The most sophisticated builders also look at actions to determine best performing campaigns.  This can be done by syncing up the click thru URL’s of your ads with your Google Analytics.

Executive Summary 

    

        
Advertiser Impressions* Clicks CTR Report Start Report End
BDX_Banner Ads

3,711,856

7,283

0.20%

 12/1/2012 3/31/2013

Google Analytics is a free tool that everyone has in some capacity, but not everyone actually fully utilizes. For advertising purposes, it allows you to see ad performance in a broader, two-dimensional scope. Not only can you see which sites and/or creative generated the most click traffic, but you can also parse out which ones resulted in strong site-activities like direct leads. Conversely it also allows you to see which channels have a high bounce rate. Thankfully this integration is actually quite simple and painless to use. All you need to do is append each click thru URL with a separate code that can be generated on the spot. This can be done at sites like this (http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1033867). Simply type in your domain name that would be used for the click thru, and then attach it with whatever identifiers you’d like to use to differentiate the ads. See the below example of a URL that has been appended. Once this is in place, I can query by source in my analytics for “BDX”, by medium for “banner”, or by campaign and am able to see how long the users that clicked on this particular ad stayed on site, how many pages they viewed, etc., and then compare them to campaigns running against similar channels.

Example of an Appended Link: http://www.testlink.com/?utm_source=BDX&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=CampaignA

 At BDX, we’ve recently unlocked a third dimension to quantify advertising performance for any type of ad placement. Google Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool when used to gauge performance of users that physically clicked an ad, however that leaves out any sort of reporting on the large percentage of users that DIDN’T physically click the ad. With our new PETRA tool, not only can we calculate how many people clicked on an ad or how many of those clicks resulted in leads and strong back-end activity, but also how many leads were generated by users who didn’t actually click. Traditionally view thru reporting is something that is calculated only for Retargeting campaigns, but PETRA allows us to sync up with all campaigns regardless of where the ads run. Quite literally, the sky is the limit as to how detailed this reporting can get. In the system we can name any event that we’d like to track for any particular site, i.e. Got to the Site, Filled out a Brochure, Converted to a lead, etc., and then track all actions taken by everyone that came into contact with an ad in some capacity. This is truly the definitive way to compare performance because it allows advertisers to measure a true cost per lead for any and all advertising channels.

Conversion Process Name Event Name Uniques Post Imp Post Click Total
Events Events Events
BDX  Conversions Search Result Page Landing 5,722 12,868 1,939 14,807
  Home Detail Page Landing 4,539 13,554 453 14,007
  Thank You Page Form 269 541 26 567

BDX advertising typically provides great value for builders, but there is still opportunity in optimizing these campaigns for the best possible ROI.  Want to get more from everyone advertising dollar you spend?  Talk to us, we can help.  For more information on advertising or integrating your existing ad campaigns with our PETRA reporting, please contact traffic@thebdx.com.

Jamie Lintner is the BDX Advertising Accounts Manager and is responsible for monitoring all campaigns through all BDX Advertising channels.

 

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Instagram, the fast, fun app used to share photos with the world   has skyrocketed its way to the top of the social media food chain since launching in 2010. With more than 90 million active users, 40 million photos posted per day and a recent format change to include web browsers, real estate agents need to be paying attention.

Now that Instagram photos and profiles are completely viewable from your desktop or laptop computer, it’s more important than ever for real estate professionals to start snapping away. The ability to view Instagram on web browsers equals easier accessibility, which also more than likely means you’ll see an increase in views on your Instagram page. Instead of having to rely on the app to share your photos to the appropriate social media profile, you’ll now be able to pull the photo’s specific URL, so that you can share it everywhere, including your blog. You’ll also be able to direct your clients to your online profile instead of having to make sure they have the app on their phone. A third crucial benefit is that you’ll have easier access to the photos you are tagged in, making it easier for you to share them with the world.

Next time you’re out and about with your buyers or sellers, use Instagram to snap a few photos of the home they love, the home they are selling and even them smiling as they sign the contract for their new place! Then, be sure to capitalize on these happy memories by sharing them everywhere you can.  The end result will not only be happy clients, but also a happier business.

If you’re ready to show off your creative side and need help getting started, contact Marketing RELEVANCE.