BDX

How can a business accurately quantify the effect that their efforts have on consumer awareness? In most cases you simply hope that all of the dollars you spend on marketing and advertising show tangible effects on sales or on some other meaningful call to action. However, through our Retargeting efforts, we can accurately pinpoint how much more valuable a consumer is that has shopped your site and seen your products versus someone who has never run across your business. The results can sometimes be startling.

Several months ago we began a campaign dedicated to serving banner ads on general real estate sites with the goal to drive traffic for our builders and convert home shoppers into new home shoppers.  The results were fair, with click thru rates marginally above the industry average (.20%, or 2 clicks/1,000 impressions).

However, as the campaign progressed and we became more in tune with the ins and outs of Retargeting, we came across something interesting. Simply sending banner ads to websites that may be in your line of business may drive large volume in terms of impressions, but it may not be the best way to go about things. The real value comes when your banners follow those consumers who have shopped your site and THEN go to visit other sites.

For example, our real estate campaign received an impressive amount of volume from Homes.com, but we saw low performance in terms of click-through’s and consumer action.  The click-through rate hovered around a .10% and did not merit additional dollars towards this website. However, when we had users who had already shopped our site and were then retargeted on Homes.com, we saw an incredible lift in performance. In the month of October, our Retargeted users are more than 10 times more likely to click one of our banners than a new consumer would on the same website. We saw an even more extreme example on Hotpads.com, a highly valued partner in our Vertical Ad Network. Historically our campaign dedicated to getting new traffic on this site averaged a .20CTR. In the month of October, our pool of Retargeted users is averaging a 2.79CTR. 10X that of our regular campaign and 27 times the industry average!

From all of this, we can deduce that while a traditional campaign dedicated to new users certainly has merit, performance will not be as strong as it could be when targeted to pre-existing users. It’s obvious that in the world of online banner ads, there’s no better resource for your business than the people who have already shopped your site and are familiar with your product and brand.

Jaime Lintner, BDX Ad Ops Assistant, helps manages over 30 million ad impressions per month across a network of real estate websites for hundreds of homebuilders. For more information about advertising on the BDX websites and our network of affiliates, email info@thebdx or contact your local sales rep.

Taking advantage of new rich media and data features on NewHomeSource and Move New Homes websites leads to double-digit increases in performance for builders.

Austin, TX – October 12, 2011 – Builders Digital Experience (BDX), a leading provider of digital marketing solutions for new home builders, today released the latest performance details for the company’s flagship websites, NewHomeSource and Move New Homes showing significant increases in leads and click-throughs for builders.

BDX recently launched new versions of NewHomeSource and Move New Homes, the #1 and #2 new home websites[i]. The new sites create a more useful and useable home shopping experience and feature a host of rich media upgrades including larger images and video galleries. The BDX sites also allow builders to highlight hot homes, promotions and spec homes for consumers. The company analyzed builder data across the two new sites and found that the builders who were taking advantage of the sites’ rich media and data features saw dramatic improvements in performance over those who didn’t utilize the enhancements.[ii]

[i] comScore 2011

[ii] Study based upon Newhomesource.com website and all communities published during the study look-back period of June and July 2011 . Performance statistics, by community, were correlated to counts (“completeness”) of certain data, such as descriptions, pictures, videos, promotional text and other data assets.  The findings represent the percentage gains in lead and click-through performance of those communities having the desired data or with the data present in larger quantities, versus those with lesser amounts or absent data.   BDX considers these results to be significant and representative of the average performance gains that could be achieved by those builders who currently have none or little of the data now, if such data was provided in the future.  As with any correlative study, there may be other unknown factors that account for the results seen; and BDX does not guarantee specific results for any builder.

 

It’s a common question and I’m sure there are some people that would say, “All of them!”  Just like with print advertising, too few impressions won’t give you the impact you need. One business card ad in your local paper won’t give you the same bang as a full page spread.  Conversely too many impressions can be overkill. Do you really need a full spread, every month to be noticed and convey your message? Probably not.
At BDX we won’t sell a builder more than 30% Share of Voice (SOV) or 30% of total impressions per market. At that level a builder is guaranteed to appear on every page above and below the fold and from the data we’ve seen even at this volume campaigns still perform well. Meaning that performance at 15% is the same as at 30% but with just fewer clicks…

Shortening the Ad Window To Improve Performance

However, we have seen performance suffer on campaigns with too small a SOV if not properly managed. For the BDX that means shortening the window on our smaller buys. We’ve found that we can drive more clicks for our smaller buys by reducing the advertising window to  15-20 days instead of a full 30. It equates to more impressions per user and stronger performance overall.

The Impact of Good Creative

I’ve consistently seen that creative is the strongest driver of performance and even a small campaign can perform well. Once you’ve established the right site and the right message it’s easy to scale.

In Summary – Focus On Frequency

With the right site, high frequency appears to be the right move. We’ve seen a similar trend in our retargeting and the performance of our VAN advertisers (who advertise across a network of vetted real estate websites).  Our retargeting audience is self-qualified and we’ve seen high frequency against narrow windows have very positive results. Builder advertisers on the VAN are successful because in addition to a large SOV these ads reinforce the builder’s listings on those websites which also improves conversion.

For me when testing new sites I think you can learn a lot in a one month flight and a strong SOV. In the end you’ll know where you stand or if you need to tweak your message.  I recently heard of a builder who will cut the number of websites they advertise on by 70% in 2012 choosing to focus on those few that drive the greatest value.

If you have questions about marketing strategies or advertising with BDX contact Thane Tennison, Advertising Manager for the BDX Network.

Everyday we have discussions with builders about online marketing performance. From setting benchmarks to ongoing measurement, our experts can provide unique insight into a builder’s online marketing iniatives. One of the most common questions we receive is — What can I do to improve my performance? We always start the discussion with builder data — what elements are you including with your listings and what can you add to make them even better. We recently performed some analysis on builder data across the BDX network and below are some of our findings. Here are our top five ways to see a lift in your leads and click-thrus.

Download: Improving Performance Whitepaper