More Ad Transparency, Control Come to RE/MAX
Brands that advertise on real-estate site RE/MAX, now have the benefit of centralized control over their data and ad operations via a media automation platform called Unify. The platform also enables brands to precisely target local audiences.
As with any big-ticket purchase, the journey to buying or selling a home begins online, often times with Re/Max whose agents can customize ads on the site to account for geography, neighborhood, and zip code.
Unify is a new software within the Basis DSP and provides flexibility to work with an agency, in-house team, or Basis itself. Basis launched a pilot of Unify with RE/MAX over a year ago to address this need. Unify holds the promise of ad performance and transparency among all agencies running campaigns on the site.
StreetFight sat down with Abby Lee, EVP of Marketing, Communications and Events at RE/MAX, and Grace Briscoe, EVP of client development at Basis, to learn more.
What features of the Basis platform have been most beneficial to RE/MAX?
Abby: The robust reporting has been most helpful. From a high level, the data we can pull in Basis gives us a complete view of the performance of our media investment and helps us identify areas where we can improve and optimize. That gives us the information we need to dive in with our team and understand if or when we need to pivot our marketing efforts, where we should double down and what we should stop doing.
How has Unify helped RE/MAX collaborate more effectively with agency partners?
Abby: RE/MAX utilizes various teams to market efforts such as branding, housing inventory, or partner recruitment. This includes agencies, in-house teams and independent partner franchises. Having a centralized system that shows the different campaigns in the market helps them share insights and learn from each other.
What are some of the key metrics RE/MAX uses to measure the success of their ads?
Abby: Metrics that are important to RE/MAX include brand lift, conversions such as form fills, and views on properties or rental units. We are consistently driving traffic to remax.com with the intent of generating leads for our agents. Traffic to remax.com and lead generation are both key components of our business.
What is the primary challenge Basis is aiming to solve with Unify, and why did you decide to bring it to market now?
Grace: Advertisers want greater transparency into costs, performance, ownership of their data, and flexibility in execution. A brand can have many different entities involved in planning and activating advertising, often combinations of in-house teams and agencies each working on various initiatives. With silo-ed data stored in different systems, it becomes incredibly cumbersome for the brand to understand holistically what’s working and how to maximize the effectiveness of their media investment overall. We piloted this model of our platform with select customers and throughout that process, we’ve received feedback from users and potential customers that this is a market gap and a desirable approach for brands to gain transparency and a unified view of their media investment.
Which type of brands have been using Basis/Unify?
Grace: We began piloting the model with about a dozen customers across the real estate, financial services, healthcare, and CPG verticals over the past year. New interest is coming from a wide range of brands including from the technology and travel/hospitality categories, and from brands who have already in-housed elements of their digital media operations or are considering potentially doing so at some point.
What are the benefits for both brands and agencies?
Grace: Brands get flexibility in how campaigns are managed, accountability from the teams managing their campaigns, control of how their data is used, transparency in how their marketing efforts are performing, and our award-winning customer support, including flexible support to supplement or bridge temporary staffing gaps (one of the key challenges to brands’ in-housing). Agencies can seamlessly utilize their client’s customer data to execute campaigns via Basis’ top-tier global DSP. Additionally, the accountability and transparency that Unify delivers is beneficial for the relationship between the agency and its clients. And as brands increasingly adopt this approach, it will be a new business advantage for agencies who are familiar with working within Basis–and there are hundreds of them already.
