Ads that Work. The Benefits of Programmatic Advertising in Real Estate with Julianne Martin

Episode Summary
Real estate professionals are constantly told to invest in their marketing tactics. The use of ads by real estate professionals is an excellent way to expand their marketing strategy!

Advertising refers to a form of paid communication that promotes a service, product, or brand. Marketers use advertisements to help companies achieve their goals and increase revenue; in the process, they employ various platforms for advertising and attracting customers (Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, etc.). But many of these platforms are very limited in their targeting. That's why programmatic advertising may be the right solution, as it can help you reach your target audience at a more granular level.

In this episode of Curb Appeal, our host Rachel Gombosch welcomes Julianne Martin, Partner and CMO at Above the Fold, a digital marketing company with a focus on programmatic advertising. Julianne and Rachel get into the benefits of programmatic advertising and why it should be part of every real estate professional's marketing strategy. They discuss programmatic advertising basics such as costs and the preparation process, and share resources for investing in programmatic advertising.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name:  Julianne Martin

💡 What she does: Julianne is a partner and CMO at Above the Fold.

💡 Company: Above the Fold

💡 Noteworthy: Julianne is an experienced marketer and team lead with experience in branding, product marketing, and digital strategy for organizations ranging from Fortune 100 companies to startups through an agency environment. Her focus is strategic, metrics-driven online marketing across channels. She loves helping businesses and agency partners diversify their marketing mix to be more engaging and personalized for their target audiences. 

💡 Where to find Julianne: Linkedin l Website

Key Insights
⚡What is programmatic advertising? Julianne is the co-owner of Above the Fold, a digital marketing and programmatic advertising agency. For those who don't know, programmatic advertising is a form of marketing most commonly associated with the real estate industry. "Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of ads in media in real time; you're able to serve ads across the web: apps, audio or podcast ads, like streaming audio, and also connected TV. So it's all automated, in real-time, and it's really easy to do."

⚡ Programmatic advertising is bought on a CPM. Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) is a marketing term that refers to the price an advertiser pays for a thousand impressions of an ad on a web page. As Julianne notes, all programmatic advertising, like almost any type of advertising, is bought on a CPM basis. "If you do Google PPC, that's on a cost per click basis if you're trying to get discovered in the Google search results. So if you have a certain budget, and if I know you want to reach a certain audience in a metro area, and I know how big that audience is, and I know how big your budget is, we figure out what the CPM needs to be in order to be competitive while also hitting your budget."

⚡ Programmatic advertising should be part of a real estate professional's marketing strategy. Advertising is one of the most important things an agent can do. "Always look for ways to differentiate yourselves and your listings, and find people earlier in the process. [...] If you can be there earlier in that process and start building that relationship with them, they start seeing you — and maybe different types of ads and messages — by the time they get down to that really competitive space where they're literally on the MLM or on websites getting quotes."

Transcript

[00:00:00] Julianne Martin: We still have the ability to target extremely granularly daunt I know I can do

[00:00:05] Julianne Martin: based on actions that they're actually applying for mortgages and that their credit score is above a certain amount, how much money their net worth is if they own other types of real estate. So the options are endless for curating and targeting. Programmatic is really one of the only avenues anymore to be able to keep doing that. 

[00:00:56] Rachel Gombosch: Welcome back to another episode of Curb Appeal. I am your host, Rachel Gombosch, and I'm so excited for this week's episode. I am joined with Julianne Martin, who is the co-owner of Above the Fold, a digital marketing and programmatic advertising agency who are helping agents in the real estate industry to really dominate their farm and also to help them stand out during any season of the year.

[00:01:21] So really excited to get into the details and all of the golden nuggets that Julianne has for you guys. Additionally, if you love the episode, please be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Also, we do have a promo code for all of our listeners out there. So any first-time clients with Virtuance who use POD, P O D 15 at checkout when you schedule your shoot at virtuance.com, will receive 15% off their first order.

[00:01:46] So be sure to head over to virtuance.com to schedule that shoot. And with that, let's get into the episode. So I want to really kind of just lay the foundation as far as what

[00:01:58] programmatic advertising is. Because I don't think a lot of people really understand that it's a type of marketing or a type of advertising that's out there, I think especially in the real estate industry. And so, really, in just blanketed terms, simple understandable terms, what is programmatic advertising?

[00:02:18] Julianne Martin: Sure. So programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of ads in media in real-time. And this, you're able to serve ads across the full web apps, audio or podcast ads like streaming audio, and also connected TV. So it's all done automated, real-time, and it's, it's really easy to do. And so if you compare that to Google or Facebook, those are just in those platforms.

[00:02:45] And programmatic is similar in that you buy it through technology, but it accesses all those other inventory sources.

[00:02:52] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. So if someone's looking like on their Facebook page, what would be like a programmatic ad that they, that pops up and populates in front of them versus just like a standard ad?

[00:03:03] Julianne Martin: Well, on Facebook, those are Facebook ads, and it, it's similar that it is bought programmatically, it's bought by setting up ads and bids, but it's only on Facebook. So with programmatic, we access the full rest of the web. So if you're on a website and you see a banner ad, or you're on a content site, you're reading a blog, and you see an article

[00:03:22] about a certain product, that's called a native ad. And also pre-roll video, so if you're on a news site and then there's an ad that shows up before you watch the, the item you wanted to see, that's called a pre-roll video. And then if you're listening to Spotify and you hear a targeted ad of like a website you visited two days ago, and it's now, it's an audio version of that ad.

[00:03:44] Julianne Martin: And then also if you're watching like a show on Peacock or Hulu and you see an advertising there. So it's all those different types of media, but it's not on Facebook and not on like Google PPC, Google search results. That's different as well. But it's all those other mediums and it's, and those could all be programmatic ads.

[00:04:04] They probably 90% of them are.

[00:04:07] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. So let's break down the process of the bidding of programmatic advertising 'cause I think that's a huge difference from a lot of different ad forms out there. So explain a little bit how that bidding process works.

[00:04:23] Julianne Martin: Sure. So if we think about media buying, maybe if you've been doing this a long time, you used to be able to, like call a TV station and say, "Okay, I wanna have a TV ad running during these dates." Or you would contact the New York Times or a local newspaper and say, "I want to have an ad on your website."

[00:04:40] And you used to have to do these iOS that like you'd buy that placement, and this is what media buyers would do. It's similar to when you place at add in a magazine, it used to be like that across the full web. So programmatic was created where you can buy and sell all the inventory from one platform.

[00:04:57] So you buy from a demand side platform. It's really accessible to everybody. There's a lot of different options. So you place how much you're willing to spend every day, who your target audience is, what types of inventory you wanna access. So if you have display ads only, you would only be accessing display inventory, and then you just let it run, and it finds your users where they are

[00:05:19] and makes those bids adjustments in real-time. So it's all automated and you just have to make, you know, if that's what our team does is we make adjustments. We kind of see what sites are working well, what ads are working well. We make adjustments based on the performance, and then you just start looking at the results.

[00:05:35] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. So what are some like, tips to win those bids that you've noticed? Like are, are there, are there tips that are consistent through like every client that you've ever had, or is it really, it just entirely varies based on who the person is, who their target audience is, what they're trying to accomplish?

[00:05:54] Julianne Martin: Yeah. It's really different for everybody and every site. So, so typically, all programmatic is bought on a CPM basis, and that's pretty much every type of advertising, even on Facebook, runs on a CPM. 

[00:06:07] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. And real quick, what's a CPM? 

[00:06:08] Julianne Martin: Like it's a cost per thousand impressions. So, um,if you do Google PPC, that's on a cost per click, like if you're trying to get found in the Google search results.

[00:06:17] But that's pretty much the only inventory I can think of unless you have some custom 

[00:06:22] thing with an agency that's priced out like that. So, if you have, based on your certain budget, and if I know, you wanna reach a certain audience in a, like, say, a metro area, and I, I know how big that audience is, and I know how big your budget is,

[00:06:37] we figure out what CPM it needs to be in order to be competitive, but also like hit your budget. So you, kind of just set that and then the algorithms by and self on your behalf based on what of all the like competition there. So sometimes you'll pay more than that. Sometimes you'll pay less than that.

[00:06:57] Julianne Martin: And it evens out just, it just evens out to your budget.

[00:07:01] Rachel Gombosch: Awesome. So how, let's, let's kind of bring that into real estate because I know you work with a lot of real estate professionals. One, why do you believe it's so important for real estate professionals to really adopt programmatic advertising? And two, kind of explain what that process looks like as far as what is the content, what are the ads look like for real estate professionals that you're trying to push out through these different ads and through these different bids?

[00:07:29] Julianne Martin: Sure. So let's first start about the types of advertising or like why it's important for real estate professionals to look at programmatic as part of their marketing strategies. So, advertising, as we all know, is one of the most important things an agent can do, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. You know, it could be the billboards, having flyers, postcards, that really personal touch is really important, mostly for realtors to build those relationships and things like that.

[00:07:58] But those that, always looking for ways to differentiate yourselves and your listings, and finding people earlier in the process so that you're not competing for attention right at that point when they're all like going head to head with trying to find the realtor for them or buying a home. But maybe when they start their process, when they start thinking about buying a home and they start researching, if you can be there earlier in that process and start building that relationship with them, they start seeing you and maybe different types of ads and, and messages to them.

[00:08:32] Julianne Martin: By the time they get down to that really competitive space where they're literally like on the MLM or like on websites getting quotes, they already know you a little bit. So it helps not only have these amazing types of reach and advertising, but also you're able to find people earlier on in the process.

[00:08:52] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. So do you, what are some like pain points that you've found? 'Cause I know that is obviously like really important to get ahead of the game, right? Like you need to start building your awareness, and you need to start building your brand. And an awesome way to do that is through this programmatic advertising.

[00:09:09] How do agents go wrong about it? Are there challenges that you've found in dealing with whether it's a real estate agent, an individual agent, or whether it's maybe a brokerage owner who is managing a team? What are some issues that you've found that maybe it's just they don't understand the process necessarily, or maybe they're trying to target the wrong thing?

[00:09:32] Right? 'Cause you're looking at it from a marketing perspective. They're looking at it really from a sales perspective. So how do you come in and kind of answer the challenges that they have and that they bring to you?

[00:09:42] Julianne Martin: So whenever I work with a new agent or brokerage, I also work with home new home builders and actual communities and things like that. We just kind of get back to the basics, like, "Who are you trying to target and be very clear on this customer persona." 'Cause I think a lot of times people just start advertising, and they don't really understand

[00:10:01] who exactly am I trying to communicate with. And it might be two or three of different customer personas. One, I think understanding that. Two, what are you really trying to accomplish. Yes, you want leads, but not every type of advertising is going to drive a direct lead. We're, you're building a funnel. You need to have some things that are more upper funnel, but they do need to feed into something.

[00:10:25] So I think it's kind of not just having a form on your website. Having like a guide about the local area and if people are starting to research, moving to a certain city that you really focus on. If you have the resource that give them like a city guide or the best neighborhoods and, and having that type of content that you can use in advertising to actually help educate and give them more information.

[00:10:50] So not everything is just getting that lead, but getting action points along the way. So maybe they download a white paper, and they have to give you their email list or their email address. That's a lead, even though they might not wanna buy a home for six months, but you at least got something in front of them. They're starting to trust you and, and you have that conversation with them before all those other agents do.

[00:11:14] So, and I think a lot of people just wanna jump right to, like, "Let's do a ton of advertising and start getting all these leads," but they haven't really built this funnel and haven't really thought it through.

[00:11:24] Rachel Gombosch: Right. They're trying to get to the bottom of the funnel when you really have to start at the top and have the appropriate touch points to work your way down to the bottom of the funnel. So just like when you said, you know, you're at that point of it's really competitive, they're ready to buy a house,

[00:11:39] they're looking at all these different agents. You're right in the mix with them. You've already had a series of touchpoints and a series of opportunities that you've been presented to be in front of them. You've maybe already assisted them in answering questions that they've already had. You've maybe already assisted them with the guides and templates that you've provided to help them in that buyer journey.

[00:12:00] So it's really important to have the, help them understand that you have to start at the top of the funnel before you can get to the bottom of the funnel. People don't just immediately buy.

[00:12:09] Julianne Martin: Exactly. And mostly things like homes. I mean it before I bought my home, we started thinking about it two or three years in advance. And it was kind of like, "Oh, what, you know, how much money do we need to save for a down payment?" And you know, "When should we start looking

[00:12:24] what's the market like?" And I didn't really have a realtor reach out to me. It's like, "Oh, it looks like you're interested in a home, you know, what can I help you with?" And maybe I would've bought a home two or three years earlier. So I think a lot of people get scared about doing brand awareness type things because they think they're gonna be spending money on advertising that doesn't have this direct return and direct lead of someone like they wanted make a

[00:12:49] return on investment in 30 days. But if you're able to have a lot of people at that top, it's gonna just be feeding in and have, you know, when you'll have more people at the bottom because you invested at more at that top. And you're not gonna have to work so hard.

[00:13:04] Rachel Gombosch: Right. Well, and you brought up a great point about when you were in that home-buying process of, "I probably would've bought my home two or three years earlier, had someone provided those touchpoints for me and had someone even just taken a chance to offer up." Like, "Hey, it looks like you're buying a home."

[00:13:25] Not even a, "Here's all the guides. Here's all the templates." But a simple, "How can I assist you? Is there any questions you have that like I can help you directly answer while you're in this process?" Right? 

[00:13:35] Julianne Martin: I got a ton of mortgage companies like the mortgage companies are great at this, uh, but I, I wasn't ready yet to do a mortgage, you know? And maybe yeah, if a realtor tour had been there with really important information and someone to talk to before I felt like they were gonna make me buy, apply for a mortgage, you know?

[00:13:55] But yeah, I think it's really important just to have to look at it. You're building a business, you're building a portfolio of people. That are all different stages of their life cycle.

[00:14:05] Rachel Gombosch: Right. And part of that is awareness. I actually was just reading an article that or act... no, it was a LinkedIn post from a content creator. And they were saying how, you know, names and building your name and how crucial and essentially is to your business. And your whole point of brand awareness is to get your name out there so often that when people hear it, they can immediately associate you with a form of content or a guide or a template, or, you know, being a speaker on something. Because that's how often you pushed yourself out there for awareness efforts.

[00:14:40] It's not necessarily that you were pushing leads at that point. And obviously any leads you get throughout the process are fantastic to have, but the whole purpose was, "I'm going to get my name out there so that when you are ready, I've already introduced myself to you without necessarily being right in front of you, introducing myself to you."

[00:15:02] Rachel Gombosch: And I think that's where, you know, you guys come in in programmatic advertising and where that can help is pushing that brand out there and pushing these professionals and teams out there to get their brand and their name in front of their clients, again, maybe two or three years before they're actually ready to buy.

[00:15:22] Right? Uh, so I wanna shift gears a little bit and I wanna talk about some of the logistics behind programmatic advertising. So if I'm a real estate professional or if I'm a team lead, and I am really invested in, you know, getting involved in programmatic advertising, "This is my time. I'm ready to raise that awareness,"

[00:15:42] what does, you know, the minimum ad spends look like? What does that reach potentially look like? What are the benefits I'm gonna see coming out of programmatic advertising?

[00:15:53] Julianne Martin: Yeah. So as far as if I jumping right into a like a minimum ad spend, of course it's contextual. It's difficult to give a minimum because it goes into what you're trying to do. So, but I can give a certain client a minimum. I think you just have to have a conversation and talk about the goals 

[00:16:12] and the customer persona, because if your customer persona is very wealthy individuals in a very certain geography and you wanna have a certain type of goal, then the investment that needs to happen for that goal might be a little bit more aggressive than just a general awareness strategy. So what I would do is like I have that conversation. We go through the goals, we go through the customer persona. We also look at what other marketing you've been doing that is working. So you know, if you're already doing great at referrals and you have a really great

[00:16:48] like postcard program that you've been seeing a return on and, you know, you're investing things in those, we can kind of, or there you're investing in things that aren't working, we might be able to show you what you can get by bringing that over to programmatic. So we can kind of look at your whole scope and help you know where the gaps are to reach that ultimate goal. So like, you can run successful campaigns like this that touch on different ad formats and different advertisers, you know, for under 5,000 or even less than that, but that could be much too low if you wanna hit a very aggressive growth goal in, in a very competitive market.

[00:17:24] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. Do you find that, you know, if they do spend lower than five, it is difficult because I, I would assume to say that, you know, the real estate industry is a very full and competitive market when it comes to just advertising in general? And now you're seeing how agents are trying to get themselves out on social media and creating content and trying to push

[00:17:46] their content over others. And so, in general, it's just a really competitive industry, not only as an actual agent but also from a marketing standpoint of trying to get your brand out there. So have you found some challenges within that?

[00:18:01] Julianne Martin: I think it's like anything you can't just go buy programmatic on its own without having a person if it's, it's a contractor or a consultant or using a company like above the fold to help look at your full marketing scope, 'cause we focus on programmatic, but I've been doing digital marketing and advertising for 20 years.

[00:18:21] So if I know like you're, so you want people that can not just sell you a tactic, but actually show how it's gonna help you fill the gaps. Because I could, if you're doing great, if you're building a, you know, organic social is huge for realtors, like having that following and building that trust. So if you're focusing all your energy on that, and maybe you've been trying to do paid search or Facebook and, you know, Facebook's just gotten really hard to target. And maybe you're putting money in those platforms and not really seeing a return, I'd wanna understand that because I could do a forecast and show how that investment would work in programmatic, how many people exactly I'd be able to reach every month, what the average click-through rate will be.

[00:19:01] And then based on the goal, if it's a call or form fill, we'll be able to forecast it out and try to really show what you would get for the investment and then optimize towards that.

[00:19:12] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. Can you give an example or speak to like maybe an agent or an individual agent or maybe even a team that you've helped where just the point at which they started when they came to you? And then where you were able to get them by utilizing programmatic advertising strategies and helping them to understand their marketing strategies so that they can get that larger reach?

[00:19:35] Julianne Martin: Yeah. One second. I wanna show, uh, have some stats here. So,...

[00:19:41] Rachel Gombosch: Yes. We love stats. 

[00:19:44] Julianne Martin: Yeah, stats. 

[00:19:45] I'm a data geek, so, so yeah, we had a, a real estate agent who, she was local and focused on luxury real estate. So it was the higher income type of properties. And she wanted to increase awareness for the property.

[00:19:58] So, actually advertising the property available and trying to get leads for that property. So, of course, she did have already have a, a good name in the industry, 

[00:20:08] but so she had that to build on. And, but wanted to drive potential buyers for these specific properties and fill out forms on our website. So in that sense, we were utilizing geofencing technology and other programmatic tactics, and we wanted to reach this very target audience.

[00:20:27] So we built a comprehensive strategy around, just different ways to identify people that would be in her persona. So they needed to be a certain income, they needed to maybe own another type of property. And so we built out this type of strategy and then had different ways of reaching them throughout the web.

[00:20:45] But we built targets around local affluent neighborhoods because in this, in this community, the people likely to buy these new homes would be just people already in the area that are like upgrading or moving to this new community. So we actually geofenced, um, which is you take satellite data, and we're able to draw a line on the map around a certain area.

[00:21:06] Julianne Martin: And only people that go into that area would ever see the ads. And so we know that that's, they live or at least visit affluent neighborhoods. And then we layer on some other types of targeting, like content they might be reading or kind of just indicates that they might be looking to buy another home.

[00:21:24] So you build on, like, location and, uh, behavioral data. So we built out this very niche audience. And then, throughout the course of the campaign, we just saw what types of tactics were working and what types of advertising was working. And ultimately, we were able to optimize that and start seeing good traffic on her site,

[00:21:42] and then, and leads from there. 

[00:21:45] So that was one example. And I mean, it was definitely like a more comprehensive example, but, previous to that, it was really just she had relied on her network and to just kind of build from there and just needed to get some new eyes on this that she didn't really have direct relationship with.

[00:22:01] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah, but that brings up a great point of, you know, your organic social can be a huge help for you, and obviously, it's there to help you build your brand and raise awareness. But if you're really serious about your marketing strategies and gaining really good reach and also really quality, you know, potential clients and, and leads, right?

[00:22:23] Adding that additional layer of programmatic advertising, where in this case, I think is a great example of it doesn't necessarily have to just be your own personal content that you're pushing out. Like it doesn't have to be the guides. It doesn't necessarily have to be a workbook. You can actually target for your listings themselves,

[00:22:42] in this case, the luxury where I know I've got a really high-quality home. I wanna make sure that the audience we're pulling in for it is qualified for it, and they're serious about it, to the best of our abilities, for us to manage that. Right? That's where programmatic advertising can come in, is it can really help you to attract

[00:23:03] that right audience really down to like the nitty-gritty of what you are looking for.

[00:23:09] Julianne Martin: Exactly. Yeah. 'Cause, unfortunately, a lot of the other channels for advertising, like Facebook, you can't do any types of demographic targeting, income level, and I, and there's a reason for that. It was abused by companies. They took advantage of it. But programmatic, because it's open web, there's a lot of transparency, and it's led the way for privacy that we still have the ability to target extremely granularly daunt I know I can do

[00:23:36] based on actions that they're actually applying for mortgages and that their credit score is above a certain amount. How much money their net worth is. If they own other types of real estate. So if you know, the options are endless for curating and targeting. Where if you go to Facebook, you really have to set it, you can do some interest-based, but you have to do 18 to 65.

[00:23:57] You can't really set any type of location geo-targeting. And you just kind of leave it up to Facebook to take it and find your people, and then you, you don't even get the insights for what, what they were. You know, it's very basic. So you need to have those insights to know what's working and programmatic is really one of the only avenues anymore to be able to keep doing that.

[00:24:20] Rachel Gombosch: Right, and I, you brought up a great point that a lot of these other platforms that are being pushed onto professionals to use are very limited in their targeting. And any targeting is great. Any targeting is fantastic to have. Right? It gets you closer to the audience you wanna reach, but at the end of the day, if you are really trying to get down to the nitty-gritty of a specific clientele, programmatic advertising can really come in and help, you know, help get to that next level of, of your target audience.

[00:24:52] Julianne Martin: Yes.

[00:24:53] Rachel Gombosch: I want... 

[00:24:53] Julianne Martin: Fantastic. 

[00:24:54] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. I wanna ask what is the most, like maybe unique targeting, either maybe unique audience you've had to target, or maybe just unique format of advertising that you've gone through with like a real estate professional?

[00:25:14] Julianne Martin: Huh. So one is, I think, when you try to get people that are at that beginning phases, you know? There's, it's like who is more likely to maybe wanna sell their home in the next few months.

[00:25:30] So there's things like who might be getting a divorce.

[00:25:35] Rachel Gombosch: Oh.

[00:25:35] Julianne Martin: You know? Or whose kids are about to graduate, who has like teenagers and they're gonna be empty nesters. And so, like trying to curate these types of lifestyle changes that are happening that have nothing to really do with that

[00:25:51] they're looking for real estate, but they might be likely to. 

[00:25:54] You know? 

[00:25:54] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah, there's a chance. 

[00:25:57] Julianne Martin: Yeah. 

[00:25:58] So it's, kind of, it's been kind of fun when we're able to get creative like that because we can test out these different types of audiences. And then it's, it's how we reach them. Like, connected TV is one of the biggest growth opportunities in programmatic as more people cut the cord of traditional cable and just watch streaming TV.

[00:26:18] I mean, I don't even have cable anymore. I don't know... 

[00:26:20] Rachel Gombosch: I don't either. I don't know. I, I use all the streaming platforms. I think I have all of them. 

[00:26:25] Julianne Martin: Right. So, but, like we are able to serve a TV ad, connected TV, and then because of the data, it's a digital, just like any type of digital, you know, who was in the room when it played. Who watched it, who was on their phone during that TV channel, and then you can retarget them after they watch that commercial with other types of advertising.

[00:26:48] And so you're able to like really have this exciting, like, multi-touch channel, different messages. So not only is it a really targeted audience, but you can have so many other types of advertisements and, and messages. And, and so, you know, it's fun when you're able to get to that scale, but it's still not, I mean, I think people think connected TV, they're thinking tens of thousands of dollars. I mean, this is under 10,000 a month, maybe even 5,000 a month as a minimum to serve TV ads. And then be able to actually know what happened after that. Like if, did they come to your website? You know, if you're doing geofencing at all and you wanna know if they're coming to,

[00:27:30] uh, your brokerage or your a location or maybe an open house, you can geofence an area and know if they're foot traffic. So there's just a ton of ways to measure. And so you're not really like splattering advertisements out there that you don't really know how they're doing.

[00:27:45] Rachel Gombosch: Right. So this is how when people, when you are talking with someone or you Google something and all of a sudden you're on a platform and an ad pops up, this is how it happens.

[00:28:00] Julianne Martin: Yeah.

[00:28:01] Rachel Gombosch: You know where are, like I just said that three seconds ago to friend, and now I'm getting ads about it. How? 

[00:28:10] Julianne Martin: I yeah, I mean, even me and I'm in the industry sometimes. I'm like, "I know I never searched for that. I know I just talked about it." Like I think there are still some things about Facebook we don't, and Google, we don't really know. But, but it, you know, it can even be like there's lookalike audiences.

[00:28:28] So if like people and you know, we all kind of learn things through other people talking about it or having been near something that, you know, it kind of triggers memory. So you might not even know that you had been doing something that says you might be likely to do this next thing. And it just, it's, the algorithms are so good 

[00:28:46] at guessing a lot of the times.

[00:28:49] Rachel Gombosch: It's that computer technology. It, it understands. It gets us.

[00:28:55] Julianne Martin: Yeah.

[00:28:56] Rachel Gombosch: It's 'cause we're giving them a lot of information.

[00:28:58] Right? So. 

[00:28:59] Julianne Martin: Yep. 

[00:28:59] Rachel Gombosch: It's just it, it, it works both ways. So I want to talk a little bit about, just kind of the seasons maybe that you've seen in the advertising industry, in the mar, in the digital marketing space.

[00:29:13] So obviously, we're starting to move into a slower season for real estate agents. There are less listings on the market. How can programmatic advertising really help them stand out from the crowd in these slower markets, slower seasons?

[00:29:28] Julianne Martin: Yeah, I think it's really about taking the idea away about, "Okay, I can do advertising now, but maybe my objective is gonna be different than in that really competitive season." And that really 

[00:29:39] competitive season, not only it's because buyers or, you know, whatever if buyer and sellers are out there actively

[00:29:47] taking action, and so you need to be there to capture them at that bottom. Right? But so if everybody stops advertising because it's slow, all your competitors stop advertising because it's slow. What can you do to start taking advantage of lower costs, less competition? Um, use this time to build up that brand awareness.

[00:30:10] And you could probably do it for a lot cheaper than if you're doing it all during that competitive busy season. So I think this is a time to, to build out content that can be helpful at those what's called like awareness and consideration phases 

[00:30:24] of the funnel. And so it's not necessarily all advertising, you know, I've done

[00:30:29] content creation and social media as well. So I think on those slower times, if you double down on getting great content and resources, social media presence, and you can have some advertising definitely like top of funnel, have something that's kind of evergreen, that you can test out different messages. You can use this time to test out like different tip sheets or neighborhood guides and things like that. And so then when it's busy season, and it starts getting really competitive, you actually have some data telling you what's gonna work. So that's what I would recommend. It's like if you're not doing advertisement, some of your competitors might, but ultimately it's kind of a, a great time to start learning and, and it's gonna build that funnel earlier on because...

[00:31:14] You know, maybe they're not, people aren't wanting to buy right now, 'cause I know, like, interest rates are really high right now in 2022 in 

[00:31:21] September. Right? So they might be waiting, but they still, if someone is talking to them right now and they, they start trusting someone right now when they're ready to take action, then you're good,

[00:31:32] you know, you're good to go.

[00:31:34] You're there, right, with them. You don't have to go and compete with everybody.

[00:31:39] Rachel Gombosch: Exactly. So what are some of those tools and resources if, you know, a team or even just an individual, if they wanted to start really getting serious about their advertising techniques and strategies? What would you recommend to them on how they can get started? 'Cause obviously this is, again, a very detailed,

[00:31:59] you know, type of marketing. And so they might not necessarily understand everything that goes into it, but what's like a good starting point for anyone who's interested in really investing in programmatic advertising? 

[00:32:11] Julianne Martin: I think it's a, it's taking a few days, or even if you like, we do this growth analysis where we help people do this before we start talking about the media plan. But you can do this yourself as you, you have to understand your customer persona. And I know for real towards that might change with the type of listings you have.

[00:32:29] So if you get a luxury real estate, like your customer persona is gonna change, trying to sell that versus, you know, more average homes or townhomes and things like that. But I think trying to understand that as an aggregate and understand the type of client you want, and you know, if the types of homes you typically sell or that are in your, your area.

[00:32:50] Because if you wanna launch advertising or you come to an agency, and you wanna know that, my best clients are ones that hand me a customer persona and says, "This is who we wanna reach." And they, they actually name it sometimes, like Sarah Jinx. Like, she's this age, and she loves these hobbies, and she has this type of home, and you know, she has, she's married with no... I mean, like, it can get really granular,

[00:33:16] Julianne Martin: but that's gonna make your advertising so much more successful. And then you can see that the agency you work with come back with a plan that fits that. And also, you just have to understand what are you willing to pay to get a new customer. Like what return do you have to see, and I think you just have to kind of know your finances a little bit.

[00:33:38] So I think just planning about that and if this is hard for someone to do, like we help people do this, but you can also find some good resources or like business managers and talk about that. But, but yeah, it's, if someone came to me and they had that no idea about that, I would take a step back and really talk through that and make sure they really understand that. Because too often we start run, like I've done this in the past on previous agencies, you just kind of start running an advertisement, and they're like, "Oh, I'm getting all these leads, and they're not the type of person I want, or they're not 

[00:34:08] targeted for me." And you know, there is information that wasn't shared at the beginning.

[00:34:14] So...

[00:34:15] I think that... 

[00:34:16] Rachel Gombosch: There's a lot into the preparation.

[00:34:17] Julianne Martin: It's a lot of the preparation. It really is. And yeah, the budget can, I think, and if you know that your budget can be a lot more effective, like you probably don't need spend as much. 'Cause a lot of times people, if they say, "I don't know who my customer is and I have to use advertising to figure it out," you're gonna have to spend a lot of money to like do broader targeting and tests maybe five or six different types of personas.

[00:34:42] And then you just have to see what, which of them are engaging with your ads. And you're gonna get that information, but you know, it's just gonna take a lot of time and effort to do that. You always wanna be testing kind of what, but I think it's also being open to testing too because you might know or think you know who your customer persona is.

[00:35:01] Julianne Martin: But if you are okay with a little bit of testing beyond that, like, "Let's actually try," you think it's like people that are under 50 or with kids, like, "Let's just try a little bit older than that and like maybe a little bit empty nesters and just do a test and see how it does." 

[00:35:16] You know, you might be surprised.

[00:35:18] Rachel Gombosch: Well, and it could be your base, your, the base of your customer profile is. It is what it is. It's foundational. But again, it's those different variables of it might not be, you know, people 30 to 40. It might people be people 40 to 50. Right? And it's just a slight difference in age, but that can really help you when you consider generating leads and the type of people you're looking for.

[00:35:40] And again, back to the point of advertising and targeting, if those are gonna be the qualified leads you get that you want, then you need to know that, right? And that's where testing comes in as, well, if the leads you're getting from the profile you think is right and you think is the bright target audience you want, but that's not the qualified leads, right?

[00:36:00] You're not getting those leads that you want. But then you just change the variable, and now all of a sudden you're getting the leads that you had originally imagine. That's where programmatic advertising can really help you out. But ultimately at the end of the day, it's gonna come down to the preparation and, and at least having that ideal customer profile base. 

[00:36:19] Julianne Martin: Yes. 

[00:36:20] Rachel Gombosch: Prepared.

[00:36:21] Julianne Martin: Yeah, the preparation you can do, like what you wanna see out of it, what your goals are. That's part of building up a successful campaign. 

[00:36:29] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. So 

[00:36:30] real quick, before we wrap up, I want to talk about if there's one piece of information that you want everyone to leave with when it comes to programmatic advertising or digital media, what, what would that golden nugget be?

[00:36:49] Julianne Martin: I think it's really understanding who you are as a company and what you wanna bring to your client base and being able to build a strong message around that. So it's not only understanding who your customers are, but really defining you as a realtor, what your differentiators are. And kind of why you wanna,

[00:37:09] what your North Star is, and what you wanna do in your business? 'Cause I think that passion and bringing that into everything you do and you know, growing your business is gonna make this a lot of fun, 'cause ultimately advertising and real estate and growing businesses and helping people buy homes is really fun.

[00:37:26] And I like kind of thinking about why you're doing this, what you wanna accomplish, and bringing that into everything that you do.

[00:37:33] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah. Great answer. Fantastic. Uh, and then where can our audience connect with you? Where can people find you?

[00:37:41] Julianne Martin: Well, our website is getabovethefold.com, and you can reach us there. We also are building up our audience on TikTok if you wanna 

[00:37:50] check that out. So, I mean, we're on LinkedIn and Facebook and all that as well. But we're a programmatic ads on TikTok, and we just do some fun videos. We kind of use it as a stress reliever.

[00:38:02] Rachel Gombosch: Yeah.

[00:38:03] Julianne Martin: You know, funding. 

[00:38:03] Rachel Gombosch: A good way to... 

[00:38:04] Julianne Martin: Yeah, but it, you know, it's, so we're there, you can see Jessica and I, we're, we own this company. We're woman-owned business. And so we're on programmatic ads on TikTok or just getabovethefold.com.

[00:38:18] Rachel Gombosch: Fantastic. Julianne, thank you so much for joining us. This was an awesome conversation. And I hope people really saw the value that programmatic advertising can really bring to elevate their business, get them through a slow season, get them through this competitive market. So thank you so much for joining us.

[00:38:34] Julianne Martin: Of course. Thanks for having me. Hopefully, I had some good tips for everybody.

[00:38:38] Rachel Gombosch: Sure you did. I learned a lot. That's for sure.

[00:38:41] Julianne Martin: Good.