local media insider
TOP AD

Bellevue Collections fills new high end apartments with search and programmatic ads

A combination of programmatic and paid search drove sales

Posted

Client:  Bellevue Collections, downtown shopping area

Market: Bellevue area of  Seattle Washington

Campaign: Bellevue Collections

Type: Programmatic and search


Objective:   Bellevue Square is a 180 story high end shopping center anchored by Nordstrom, ZARA, UNIQLO and Crate and Barrel and specialty stores such as Tiffany's and Godiva. Located in an affluent neighborhood that boasts Microsoft campus and other technology companies, the group planned to open with Bellevue Collection at 2 Lincoln Center, a high end apartment complex with waterfront views and a price tag of $3000 to $5000 a month.  Less than a year away from the opening they needed to drive qualified leads for these units. “It was a question of getting their message in front of the right customers who could afford these units,” Resnick said.


Strategy: Bellevue worked with a local radio station to put together a campaign that incorporated programmatic and search.

  1. Programmatic  

The general programmatic strategy was to reach as many people who fit the target profile as they could in the eight months before the complex opened. “They originally wanted to to only retargeting, but this approach drove more traffic to the website.” The opted for roughly 500,000 impressions per month, using the the following criteria:

  • Geography

For the programmatic component, the primary geographic forcus was Bellevue and the greater Seattle “with some marketing going into places that were high income where people have second or their homes: The Bay Area, New York City and Los Angeles.”

  • Demographics

From a demographic standpoint, the target was ages 25 to 54, and income of  $100,000 plus . “We identified that the market was composed of young professionals working for technology companies and  and people who were selling houses and getting ready to retire.”

  • Behaviors

On the behavioral level, the targets were professionals, executives and management, the technology industry and tech related professions, and DINKS, double or single income no kids.

  • Message

Most people “knew the area” so the ad needed to create a general awareness of the option: The headlines read “exceptional homes” and  “exceptional living” and  “Lake Washington, apartment homes in downtown Bellevue.”   


Three frames rotated so the second image showed the apartment homes, and last one was  call the action to take the tour.

According to the sales representative, few people clicked on the ad.  "They were more likely to be sitting around the table iwth a loved one, saying, hey, maybe we’ll go over to the Bellevue Collection in Lincoln Square and take a look.”

Conversions

A retargeting pixel was left on on the tour page so the managment company could see the engagement rates of the page from retargeting, and track  impressions and engagement back to the site.  In this case the “follow-up site visits” were even more important than the first click.

Adwords

Adding an additional Adwords plan used a matrix strategy bidding on the “best apartments in Bellevue”  and other key words,optimized for the best results.  The last few months of campaign the team started to manage to the average position, rather than to the conversion, to get the highest results. 

Results:

The apartments had a 75% sell-out.   

The Adwords campaign generated  427 conversions, including 361 contact form  filled-out a nd 53 phone calls.

Over the course of 8 months more than 4 million impressions ran across general display - mobile, desktop and tablets. 

With 500,000 a month impressions a month drove about 4500 clicks to the .1 to .15 range, website.

They also used paid search, television, direct-mail to support the buy.