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Welcome back to our Ed-itorial, where we dig into consumer data so you can sell more homes. After attending lots of events the last few months, one theme keeps surfacing on the floor, in sessions, and at dinners: advertising. Specifically, the gap between what builders currently spend on advertising and what the numbers say they should be spending. Most builders believe they're marketing aggressively. The data tells a different story. The opportunity in 2026 is not to keep pouring money into the same three channels where every other builder is bidding against you. The opportunity is to look at where you're spending nothing, where there's zero competition, and where the math on return actually works.
When you can measure what's working, advertising stops being a cost center. It becomes an investment.
And 5X becomes the obvious move. |
First, the forecast.
One flat theory that actually holds up (and no, I'm not talking about the Earth).
Audience Town's Wengine analyzes 300B consumer data events daily, covering 280M adults and 121M households. We use these insights to forecast how many people will move primary residences in a calendar year, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate. |
As a reminder, Audience Town's WhengineTM analyzes 300B consumer data events daily, covering 280M adults and 121M households. We use these insights to forecast which households are likely to move primary residences in the next 12 months. |
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There's demand, but not where we'd like it to be. Rates aren't coming down in any meaningful way. And builders are sitting on homes that need buyers.
That last point matters for everything that follows. |
The 9.5% gap you're not seeing |
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U.S. advertising spend is projected to grow 9.5% in 2026, with digital channels driving double-digit gains. Brands across nearly every industry are increasing their ad budgets this year. Now look at home building. A builder spending $3-5 million on advertising sounds like a significant commitment. Until you realize that represents roughly 0.5% of a $1.2 billion business.
By comparison, consumer packaged goods companies routinely spend 8-12% of revenue on advertising. Auto manufacturers spend 2-4%. Even other real estate categories outspend residential construction.
If your ad spend is growing slower than 7-9% this year, you are losing share of voice while competitors across every other category accelerate.
The question worth asking at your next budget meeting: are you spending less because you've decided it's the right number, or because that's just what you've always spent? |
The red ocean problem: you're overspending where everyone else is |
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Here's where it gets interesting. We estimate that 35-40% of the typical builder's ad budget is concentrated in three channels: Google search, Facebook/Instagram, and listing sites like Zillow and Realtor.com. That means one thing: Bidding wars. If you're building in Charlotte, Greenville, or Central Florida, you already know this. You're competing against 15 or 20 other builders for the same keywords, the same audiences, the same listing placements. The cost per click keeps climbing. The cost per lead keeps climbing. And you keep paying it because you don't know what else to do.
Meanwhile, connected TV, streaming audio, digital out-of-home, geotargeted display, and predictive direct mail are sitting there with very limited builder spend. Not because these channels don't work. Because most builders have never been exposed to them.
Your competitors in other industries are already there. Auto brands are running CTV campaigns targeted by zip code and life stage. Financial services companies are buying streaming audio inventory during commute hours at a fraction of Google's CPMs. Retail brands are using digital out-of-home along migration corridors. Builders are doing none of this. Which means the auction price in these channels, for your audience, is essentially zero.
You're overpaying in channels where everyone is competing. And you're ignoring channels where you'd be the only builder in the room. |
Why this happened (and why it's not your fault)
Most builders are working with self-service tools. Google Ads. Meta Business Manager. Maybe a listing site rep who calls every quarter.
The martech vendors who build sophisticated multi-channel campaign platforms need clients spending $100K+ per month to make the economics work. Most builders don't “qualify”.
So you end up in the same three channels as every other builder. Not because you chose them strategically. Because they're the only options that were presented to you.
The good news: this creates an advantage for builders who move quickly. Speed is an asset when you're entering channels with no competition. |
Carrying cost math changes everything
It bears repeating that every unsold home costs you roughly $2,000-3,000 per month in carrying costs. Land payments, taxes, insurance, maintenance, opportunity cost on the capital. A community with 10 unsold homes is burning $20,000-30,000 a month just sitting there.
So here's the question: would you rather spend $10,000 on a targeted advertising campaign to move those homes, or absorb $30,000 in carrying costs while you wait for organic traffic to convert?
The builders running targeted campaigns with good audience data are seeing 320-350% return on ad spend. That means for every dollar going into advertising, they're getting $3.20-3.50 back in revenue acceleration by shortening the time those homes sit on the market.
When you know where your ads are going and who they're reaching, the math tips. Advertising is no longer a line item you're trying to minimize.
The constraint has never been budget. The constraint is confidence in measurement. When you can prove what's working, the budget conversation changes completely. |
What 5X actually looks likeTo be clear: I am not suggesting you 5X your Google Ads budget. That would be lighting money on fire if it’s an auction you're already losing.
5X means strategic expansion into channels where you're currently spending nothing. Here's what that looks like in practice:
📊 Connected TV: Weather-triggered ads that reach Northeast audiences when temperatures drop, promoting your communities in Florida and the Carolinas. Olympics and World Cup inventory at CPMs that would surprise you. Addressable household targeting that listing sites can't match. 📊 Streaming audio: Commute-time targeting on Spotify, Pandora, and podcasts. Lower CPMs than any digital display channel. Audio ads during the exact moments when people daydream about a different life in a different house. 📊 Digital out-of-home: Billboard and screen placements along migration corridors. Airport conquesting in markets where you know people are relocating from. Hyper-local presence in the communities where you're building. 📊 Geotargeting: Retargeting audiences who have visited competitor showrooms and communities. You can reach someone who walked through a competing builder's model home and serve them your community within hours. 📊 Predictive direct mail: Mover data that identifies households showing relocation signals, delivered as physical mail with specific community information. This is not the spray-and-pray direct mail of the 1990s. It's data-driven, precisely targeted, and measurable.
These are not experimental channels. They're proven across dozens of other industries. Builders just haven't been in them yet. And that's precisely why the economics are so favorable right now.
And just to put a fine point on it:
Audience Town is the only ad platform specifically built for home builders.
Our leadership team has deep roots in both the AdTech world and the home building industry - decades of experience - and we brought that to the Audience Town platform. If you're intrigued by the opportunity available to you, there's no better partner. And we've worked with valued agency collaborators to do this for years. Now, we're making it available directly to home builders, too. |
What you can do now
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2026 will not reward the builders who spend cautiously. It will reward the builders who spend strategically. More budget, yes. But deployed in channels where there's no competition yet, with data that tells you exactly who you're reaching and whether it's working. The homes are built. The buyers are out there. The channels are open. Now it's about putting the right message in front of the right person in the right place. |
How Audience Town helpsThe constraint, as I keep saying, is confidence. Confidence that you know who's in-market. Confidence that you know which channels are actually producing results. Confidence in your true cost per sale. Audience Town's advertising solution combines Whengine data on 100M+ mover profiles with full-funnel campaign execution across the channels we've been talking about. We can show you where your audience is, deploy campaigns in channels where you currently have zero presence, and measure the results down to the lead and the sale. If you want to see what a channel deployment strategy looks like for your specific markets, schedule a demo to see how we can help. |