Trend Analysis &

Competitive

Benchmarking

Overview

A real estate company struggled to compete during the pandemic-era housing surge, where record-low interest rates created extreme market saturation. With new agents and brokerages entering the space daily, the company needed a clearer competitive edge in SEO, messaging, and paid digital advertising. I led an insights-driven initiative focused on trend analysis, competitive benchmarking, and A/B campaign development to maximize ad spend efficiency and improve lead generation.

A two-story red house with white trim and a blue front door, surrounded by green bushes and trees, in a suburban neighborhood.

The Challenge

The real estate market was oversaturated with agents and competing brokerages.

  • SEO performance lagged due to outdated language and non-optimized content.

  • Paid digital ads were becoming increasingly expensive with limited return.

  • Messaging lacked differentiation and failed to speak to user intent.

  • The client needed fast, data-backed decisions rather than guesswork.

The goal was to build an insight-driven marketing strategy that strengthened visibility, improved ad efficiency, and helped the company stand out in a noisy digital landscape.

Black and white photograph of a large crowd of people sitting in stadium seats.
People engaged in a collaborative planning or brainstorming session, using colorful sticky notes placed on a large sheet of paper on a table.

Strategic Approach

I began with a full landscape analysis, reviewing trending search behaviors, housing market sentiment, competitor messaging, and digital ad performance benchmarks. This informed a targeted SEO and content direction strategy designed to improve discoverability and audience alignment.

Key goals:

  • Improve organic search performance with data-backed keywords

  • Modernize brand language to resonate with buyer motivations

  • Use A/B testing to validate creative and content decisions

  • Maximize ROI in an expensive digital ad environment

  • Strengthen the company’s position among competing brokerages

Close-up of a digital dashboard displaying various graphs, metrics, and quality scores with dark backgrounds and colorful lines.

Creative Solution

1. SEO & Messaging Optimization

I audited competitor websites and digital ads to identify keyword themes, tone, and value propositions. I then rewrote and refined the company’s language to be more keyword-aligned, personable, and authority-building—meeting both user intent and search relevance.

2. A/B Landing Page Campaign

I designed and tested two distinct landing pages to measure engagement, conversion paths, and user behavior. This allowed us to determine which messaging resonated most and where paid traffic performed best.

3. Insights-Driven Direction

Using trend data and collected examples of high-performing ads, I shaped the creative direction for Google Ads and supplemental social media content. We leveraged free social tactics when possible and allocated paid spend only where we saw validated impact.

Laptop displaying a dashboard with graphs and analytics in a modern office setting.

Outcome

The insight-driven approach created measurable improvements in visibility and client acquisition:

  • 12% growth in clientele while staying within the existing ad budget

  • Higher-performing landing pages informed by real user behavior

  • Increased efficiency in paid advertising through strategic A/B validation

  • Enhanced keyword presence and stronger SEO alignment

  • Improved brand positioning through more relevant messaging

  • Valuable analytics data that informed future targeting and cold outreach initiatives

This project demonstrated how trend analysis and competitive benchmarking can drive smarter creative decisions, maximize budget, and generate sustainable growth in a crowded market.