Search Marketing Blog
Century 21 Moves TV Ad Budget to More Targeted Online Advertising
Posted by Scott Fish on 01.20.2009
In a move that will surely have the real estate industry talking, Century 21, a long-time television advertiser, has decided to pull all of its national TV ads in 2009, and shift this budget to online channels.
In a January 14, 2009 AdAge article, Beverly Thorne, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Century 21, stated that in years past the company has spent up to half of its advertising budget on television marketing. However, in an unprecedented move, the company will now focus the majority of that money to its online efforts in 2009. Mr. Thorne identified the ability online advertising, especially Search Engine Marketing, to directly target consumers interested in making a purchase in the near term as the main factor in making this decision.
To directly quote this AdAge Article, “With the beleaguered real-estate market showing no signs of a turnaround, the realtor has decided to play the numbers and go where the buyers and sellers are: online.”
Measurable Increase In Leads Shifting Marketing Dollars
During the first nine (9) months of 2008, Century 21 spent $26 million on domestic advertising, of which only $2.3 million of that total was spent online.
Ms. Thorne stated that “In 2008, our year-over-year results from 2007 are that we saw a 237% increase in the number of leads we were able to produce for our brokers and agents. At the same time, our cost per lead dropped 62% year over year because we learned how to integrate our search methodologies with our display, and enhanced listings to create a far more targeted and efficient lead process. Our decision from there was very clear.”
Shifting Marketing Dollars
Century 21 understands the power of online advertising and the impact that it can have on the quantity, quality, and cost of new leads for their business. If you’re interested in learning how EngineWorks services can dramatically increase our lead generation and client acquistion effort, please reach-out to us today.
Ryan 01.21.2009 at 8:55 pm
Hey there. Great post. Everything is moving online and some argue that there won’t be a full shift of written content (magazines, newspapers) and visual media (sitcoms and sports) from their traditional mediums to the internet. Either way, the internet is too much of a valuable supplement for these mediums so we’ll be seeing more and more articles like the one you discussed. Most broadcasting companies aren’t shifting over because the advertising on TV is where the money is, but this article shows that things are changing!
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Ed Weldon 07.13.2009 at 12:52 pm
Just like it makes no sense to create a website with no one knowing who you are, it will soon become apparent to Beverly Thorne at Century 21 that getting all of the way out of National TV will soon cause the Public to forget who Century 21 is – and therefore push them down on the list of Companies to Contact.
“out of media – out of mind!”
Ed.