Overview
Habitat for Humanity of Wake County is a branch of Habitat for Humanity serving Wake and Johnston County, North Carolina. Their mission is to work with people making less than 80% of the area median income to build and purchase a home with an affordable mortgage. They are steadfast in their belief that, despite people’s differences, we all share in the dream of owning a home.
We partnered with Habitat for Humanity to help them identify interested and qualified potential homeowners through behaviorally and geographically targeted lead generation ads.
Habitat for Humanity of Wake County wanted to increase their number of potential homeowners, as well as the overall number of people in homes, all while nurturing newly interested individuals to retain their interest.
The choice of platform was an important determination to ensure that we would reach as many users as possible while also remaining within Habitat’s home ownership applicant parameters.
We knew from previous campaigns that Facebook and Instagram would be two of the most efficient platforms for lead generation and that they register a significantly lower cost-per-lead (CPL) compared to other social media channels. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2021, a lead generation campaign with the same goal saw 1,438 in-platform leads at an average CPL of $4.01. Facebook and Instagram allowed us to behaviorally and geographically target specific audiences, build lookalike audiences to broaden our advertising efforts, and remain within the geographic and qualification parameters Habitat needed.
The target audience consisted of those interested in renting, renting-to-own, and first-time home buyer grants within a 15 mile radius of Wake and Johnston counties. The campaign consisted of a mix of static and video ads, promoting the Habitat home interiors and exteriors, as well as the sense of community Habitat instills through its homeownership programs.
We launched the lead generation campaign in January 2022 as a relaunch of our successful Q4 2021 campaign. This campaign was initially slated to run from late January to the end of February, but we extended the campaign through the end of March as we saw excellent results out the gate—with our cost-per-lead and average cost-per-click well below Facebook’s benchmark throughout the entire campaign.
We wanted to test carousel and video content to gauge whether this would be an effective means of showcasing the Habitat homes. We decided to include pathos-driven copy, such as “Come Home with Habitat,” to highlight the excitement and intrigue of being a prospective new homeowner.
The campaign consisted of a mix of static and video ads, promoting the Habitat home interiors and exteriors and the sense of community Habitat instills through its homeownership programs. Frequently checking on campaign performance allowed us to capitalize on audience and creative optimizations.
For example, adding in a new interest-based target audience segment in Starter Homes allowed us to keep our ad frequency lower and add new impressions into the mix. We saw some of our best performance metrics in the two weeks after this segment was added.
We also added in new creative in the last few weeks of the campaign, which prevented any ad fatigue and ensured that we were able to continuously engage our audience with new ad variations to encourage submissions until the end of the campaign.
Our comprehensive reports allowed us to optimize audience parameters and creative in an efficient and cost-effective manner. We provided weekly reporting dashboards to the Habitat team, showcasing the consistent stream of leads while keeping the CPL below $6.00 throughout the entirety of the campaign.
By creating a week-over-week analysis, we were able to show our client how our efforts were gradually increasing impressions, engagements, and form submissions while decreasing cost.
Using insights from our analysis, we were able to pause ads that were underperforming and regularly add new creative with the imagery and branding that users were engaging with most. This allowed us to maximize our results throughout the duration of the campaign.
