Case Study
From 96 to 440 monthly home listings
More than four times the listings with half the media cost per listing.
Four15 helped an online home-selling platform scale from 96 reported monthly listings in October 2020, the month of our kickoff, to 440 in July 2021. Monthly media spend grew from $104,372 to $233,824, while reported media cost per listing fell from $1,087 to $531. That was 358% more listings at a 51% lower cost per listing.
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Reported performance
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October 2020
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July 2021
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|---|---|---|
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Monthly listings
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96
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440
|
|
Media spend
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$104,372
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$233,824
|
|
Media spend per listing
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$1,087
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$531
|
Source: November 3, 2020 and August 3, 2021 agendas. October is the takeover-month baseline; kickoff was October 23. July listings are backend Looker counts; the October summary does not label its listing source. This is a reported business-performance comparison, not a paid-only attribution or controlled lift study.
By July 2022, the business reported 490 monthly listings and 2,789 Google Analytics signups on $456,378 in total media spend. That represents more than five times the listing volume recorded in the takeover month. The later expansion came at a higher cost per listing than July 2021, so the first-year period remains the clearest combination of growth and efficiency.
The client already advertised on Google and Microsoft when Four15 began in October 2020. The audit found that search campaigns mixed people trying to sell a home with people looking to buy one. Broad keywords overlapped across campaigns, some targeted property types the business did not serve, and the homepage carried most of the conversion work.
Measurement also needed attention. Account signups and package purchases were included together in the bidding conversion total, despite representing different stages of the customer journey. There was no active, developed remarketing strategy. Four15’s job was to improve the quality of the traffic, give bidding a clearer goal and help more interested sellers become listings.
We separated seller intent from buyer and mixed-intent searches, tightened keyword matching and cleaned up negatives. In January 2021, we removed buyer and land terms, regrouped competitors and moved key campaigns from portfolio to campaign-level target CPA bidding. Budgets and bids were adjusted around the themes producing signups and listings, including FSBO, MLS and selling without a realtor.
Expansion was tested rather than assumed. City and state campaigns were built, evaluated and pulled back when their conversion rates could not support the click costs. Microsoft Ads was rebuilt around a more controlled keyword structure; the May 2021 QBR reported 28 April signups at $145.61 each following the April restructuring.
Facebook testing expanded in February 2021, with separate prospecting, remarketing and campaigns for people who had created an account but not a listing. Creative emphasized the service’s seller benefits, including savings and an alternative to the traditional agent model.
The QBR reported 57 Facebook-attributed listings from remarketing signup campaigns on $4,760 in February–April spend. A separate account-holder conversion campaign reported 34 listings on $555 in April. These small, warm audiences were useful complements to search acquisition; their platform-reported costs are not the cost of acquiring a new customer across the whole program.
Four15 ran campaign-specific landing-page experiments and worked with the client on signup flows, copy and conversion reporting. Tests covered FSBO, MLS, selling a home and selling without a realtor. The team reviewed both signup and listing performance, then revisited earlier decisions as more data became available.
We also pushed measurement further down the funnel. Initial changes separated signup optimization from purchase reporting. Later work reconciled Google Analytics, Looker and Wicked Reports, and in August 2022 the team switched primary Google goals to Wicked Reports listing imports alongside signup tracking. This helped campaign decisions account for listings as well as cheap signups.
July 2021’s 440 backend listings beat June’s 404 while spend fell approximately 5%, according to the August 3 review. The following week’s notes discuss reduced spending and the client’s team bandwidth. Scaling required coordination with the business’s ability to handle the demand.
The engagement continued through November 2022. Later budgets were reduced, and volume came down from summer levels. September still delivered 318 backend listings on $204,508 in spend, at $643 per listing. The business finished the engagement with a larger acquisition program, following especially strong first-year efficiency gains.