How Maronda Homes Improved Lead Quality Without Increasing Budget

Read Time 7 mins | Apr 19, 2024 12:00:00 AM | Written by: John Peragine

Maronda Homes Got Better Leads at the Same Budget. Here's How.

Maronda Homes, a premier homebuilder renowned for quality and value since 1972, faced a unique challenge in selling inventory for one of their upscale communities. Like most builders, they were spending on paid search without a clear picture of which keywords were actually reaching in-market home buyers. With Audience Town analytics platform, their Digital Marketing Manager Nikki Corcoran could finally see which search terms delivered visitors who matched their communities, and move budget behind what worked. The result: better lead quality, same spend. No new budget required.

This case study explores how Audience Town's professional-grade marketing analytics platform for home builders helped Maronda refine their advertising strategy, resulting in a significant improvement in lead quality - and a positive impact on sales performance.

‍The Challenge: Low Conversion Rates

Maronda's community had successfully sold most of its inventory for one of its new construction communities. This community featured single-family homes in the $600K-$1M+ range.

Initially, Maronda's marketing strategy focused on promoting their last $600,000 home, aiming to cast a wide net. This strategy worked! However, after some time, there was only one $600K home remaining; the remaining properties were primarily luxury homes priced over $1 million.

Despite strong engagement with their ads, and steady website traffic, Maronda noticed that these new leads simply weren’t converting. So, they turned to Audience Town to find out what factors were driving the relatively low conversion rates.

The Solution: A Data-Driven Approach to Improving Marketing Performance

Maronda worked with Audience Town to analyze their community website’s traffic, including the traffic generated by paid search ads. This analysis revealed a crucial truth: the incoming traffic’s average household income (HHI) didn't match the million-dollar price tag of most homes. In other words, Maronda was attracting window shoppers, not serious buyers. There was a real lack of qualified leads for these high-end properties.

Audience Town's platform allows us to see which paid search keywords deliver visitors that are a fit for our communities because of all the consumer insights they share.

Nikki Corcoran
Digital Marketing Manager, Maronda Homes

Leveraging Audience Town’s actionable insights, Maronda Homes implemented a two-pronged approach:

Creative Realignment: The team adjusted their ad creative to prominently feature the luxury properties, effectively communicating the true nature of the available inventory.
Keyword Optimization: Utilizing AT's platform, Maronda refined their paid search strategy, prioritizing high-engagement keywords that were already attracting high-net-worth individuals capable of purchasing million-dollar homes.

“Audience Town's platform allows us to see which paid search keywords deliver visitors that are a fit for our communities because of all the consumer insights they share,” says Nikki Corcoran, Digital Marketing Manager of Maronda Homes. “We’re now able to understand and allocate more dollars behind high-opportunity keywords that are truly driving better marketing results.”

Want to see what keywords are really driving qualified buyers to your communities? Get a demo →

The Result: Better Leads, Same Budget

Within weeks of implementing these changes, Maronda observed a marked shift in their traffic demographics. The Audience Town platform provided clear metrics showing an influx of qualified leads perfectly matched to the luxury home market.

More specifically, Maronda experienced::

Improved lead quality: A significant increase in prospective buyers with the financial capacity for million-dollar homes.
Reduced ad spend waste: They were no longer spending valuable advertising budget on attracting unqualified leads, which optimized marketing budget efficiency and ROI
Accelerated sales cycle: Better-matched prospects led to quicker conversions and reduced time-on-market for luxury properties.

Know Your People, Sell More Homes

This case study demonstrates the power of data-driven marketing in the real estate sector - especially for home builders.

By leveraging Audience Town's transformative marketing analytics platform, Maronda Homes successfully pivoted their strategy to align with their current inventory, resulting in enhanced lead quality and improved sales performance for their luxury properties.

Maronda Homes' experience underscores the importance of agile marketing strategies that can adapt to changing inventory and market conditions. It also highlights how precise targeting, enabled by platforms like Audience Town, can transform marketing effectiveness in the competitive homebuilding industry.

The bottom line: when you truly know your audience, you can market to them better and sell more properties.

🏡 Click here to get a demo and see how you can improve your home builder marketing today.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Maronda Homes improve lead quality without increasing their marketing budget?

Maronda Homes used Audience Town's analytics platform to identify which paid search keywords were delivering visitors who matched the buyer profile for their communities. By understanding the consumer attributes behind each keyword, their team was able to reallocate spend toward high-opportunity terms, getting better-fit leads at the same total budget.

What is Audience Town and how does it help home builder marketers?

Audience Town is a marketing analytics and activation platform built specifically for home builders. It connects website traffic to real buyer profiles using the Whengine, a proprietary data engine that processes over 300 billion data events daily on 280 million US adults.

Unlike Google Analytics, it shows builders who is visiting their site, whether those visitors are likely in-market buyers, and which marketing channels are actually driving qualified leads.

It also allows home builders to target that high-quality traffic with custom ad solutions, designed for home builders, and managed or measured in-platform.

One of those channels? Smart retargeting direct mail, which allows home builders to target qualified website visitors while filtering out agents, bots, and people who recently purchased a home.

How long does it take for a home builder to see results with Audience Town?

Most home builder clients begin identifying actionable insights within the first 30 days. The platform is designed to be set up quickly and does not require additional staff, like a data team or analysts. A dedicated customer success manager works with each builder to surface wins and guide decisions from day one.

What marketing channels does Audience Town support for home builders?

Audience Town supports analytics across all digital marketing channels, including organic and paid search, social media, and more.

With the Attribution Add-On, home builders can track the performance of offline channels, too. This add-on integrates the home builder's CRM to unlock 1:1 lead matching and evaluate real prospect quality. This means home builders can see the full path-to-purchase, from first click to closing.

We offer advertising across digital display, direct mail, CTV (connected TV aka streaming television), streaming audio, and geofencing.

Builders can see performance by channel, by community, and by buyer profile, all in one platform.

Can home builders use Audience Town if they already have a marketing agency?

Yes. Many Audience Town clients work with marketing and advertising agencies. In fact, we partner with many of the best agencies in the business.

The platform gives the builder's internal team and any agency partner visibility into campaign performance, including which keywords, audiences, and channels are delivering the highest-quality traffic.

Better marketing is a click away.

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John Peragine

John Peragine is the Chief Revenue Officer and Co-Founder of Audience Town, where he leads go-to-market strategy, sales, and revenue growth. A seasoned sales executive with over 25 years in media, ad tech, and audience data, John has built and scaled high-performing teams at Magnite, BBC, and Rubicon Project, consistently driving transformational growth.