By Tim Healey,
In a world of often shrinking marketing budgets, Zoopla’s is growing. The property search firm’s head of marketing tells Tim Healey how proving ‘marketing is underplayed’ is allowing it to thrive and branch into burgeoning spaces like AI.
You have a BA in ancient history, an MSc in international marketing. On top of that, you were one of only four graduates selected to complete Omnicom’s ‘DAS Accelerate’ Graduate Marketing Programme. Your roles have included press officer for UK film festivals, working agency side at Naked Comms and VCCP, and setting up your own marketing consultancy. But since 2019 you have been at Zoopla – starting in strategy, then forming the brand marketing function and now leading B2C and B2B marketing. Please walk us through your career to your role today.
I’ve been really fortunate to have had a very varied marketing career. And I think that’s set me up to navigate the ever-changing world of marketing. When I entered the industry, it was the arrival of the smartphone, then there was the social media boom. Next, it was ‘big data.’ Now it’s all about machine learning and AI. I also consider having been a marketer during the pandemic a formative experience – and we can all add that to our CVs now.
I’ve always felt marketing was a great fit for me given I’m fascinated by culture and change. I studied ancient history and the world of art, language and politics, and my first role was running PR for a film festival in London (even though I had no idea what public relations actually was!) From here I went on to help launch live entertainment – various musicals and exhibitions.
I decided to study a masters in international marketing so that I could connect the theory to marketing application. Upon graduating I got really lucky, landing a place on what was at the time a very renowned graduate fellowship run by Omnicom. I blazed my way through five agencies over 16 months, working in all areas of brand, insight, advertising, CRM and digital. I was in a pitch on my first day of the program and then in New York on one of my last pitching my own marketing strategy to Omnicom agency leaders.
After the program, I joined one of Omnicom’s agencies, Rapp, helping digitize Barclays bank communications and build strategies for Virgin Media. I then joined Naked Communications, a creative agency brewed for ‘misfits,’ working on social for eBay and across Virgin Atlantic’s global loyalty program. Interested in more upstream marketing, I moved into a strategy and innovation role at boutique consultancy The Gild (run by Simon Massey, now founder of Neverland) for some of the world’s most valuable brands: Campari, Microsoft, Nike and Diageo. At this stage, I received some wise advice to round out my marketing skills with through-the-line communications experience and so joined the esteemed agency VCCP as a strategist on Cathay Pacific, Müller, and many more clients – winning a string of awards and steeply growing professionally.
Next, I had the courage to set up my own independent marketing consultancy and work directly with startup, scale-up and established brands. About a year and a half later I received a call from someone in my Omnicom network about a role at Zoopla, the property marketplace, which had recently been acquired by private equity and was embarking on a transformation journey. I saw this as an opportunity to step into the world of tech and reimagine a brand and consumer experience end-to-end, to better empower homeowners and movers today.
There was a lot to do! The first task was to put purpose back at the heart of the business, then overhaul Zoopla’s proposition, establish a new brand platform and rebrand (visually and verbally). We redefined channel roles, improved attribution, hired a new agency bench and started developing ‘peak’ marketing campaigns supported by data-driven, hyper-localized content programmes
In my next role there as head of brand I was focused on inserting Zoopla bravely into culture and the nation’s conversations around home. The distinctive brand ecosystem we built and the increased frequency with which people were using Zoopla (every 1.5 seconds) is probably one of my biggest achievements.
Now my role has expanded to lead consumer and customer marketing, working in partnership with a growth director. In my view there is so much more to do to improve our industry and the rollercoaster journey that is moving home – for buyers, sellers, renters and property professionals.
In February this year, Zoopla was awarded the ‘UK’s Biggest Brand Mover’ accolade by YouGov – ranking higher than ITV and Google on brand, perception and purchase movement – which was a real testament to the journey I’ve been on.
Zoopla’s out of home campaign
In my research, I read that Zoopla saw losses narrow in 2021. And then in 2022, revenue increased. Zoopla was profitable on an operational level the following year at £2.2m. Perhaps you can explain to our readers what’s going on at Zoopla?
When I joined we were a pure play property marketplace – a destination to search for a home. We were playing the same game as the category leader, who obviously is doing a good job with a larger network effect. Our ambition had to become bigger than just home ‘search’ in order to better support homeowners, movers and professionals as well as Zoopla’s commercial growth longer term.
Since 2021 we’ve focused on positioning Zoopla as a trusted partner for more confident home decisions. Instead of talking about property search, we now talk to the main reason people appreciate Zoopla and use us, which is for the data and insight we give people about property. You come to Zoopla, get the latest house valuation, understand when’s the best time to move, how much to sell your current place for, find the best agent to sell it, what’s the best area to move to and what type of home you would prefer. All of this adds up to better home decisions.
We’ve built product and marketing around the role of being a moving partner, which has given us license to outmanoeuvre the competition, because now people are coming to Zoopla first when they’re first thinking about making a home decision. Because they are getting the information they need, they’re more likely to stick with us. This strategy has been growing our active user base and, as a result, is powering more personalized experiences on site/in-app. When someone is registered with us they are 3.2 times more likely to request to view a property or find an agent through Zoopla.
What’s interesting is that we’ve actually increased search volume on Zoopla by not talking about ‘search’ specifically. By going against the conventions of the category we’ve supported business growth. We are still a place to find your next home, but are also so much more than that.
Brand marketing on a local level: Zoopla’s branded taxis
Zoopla is planning on spending a 41% increase in marketing in 2024…
The journey at Zoopla has been nothing short of a rollercoaster. Covid happened three months into my role starting and the housing market effectively shut down. We’ve since had an ongoing cost of living crisis alongside a tech recession. So by nature, our budget previously contracted to reflect the macro environment; we don’t need to be spending on marketing when people are not spending as much money or, indeed, moving home.
However, coming out of the pandemic and still today, we are experiencing a large volume of pent-up demand for moving home. Lockdown built this up as it forced us all to reevaluate what we want from our homes today and seek out something that fit this vision. Enter Zoopla…
This positive market outlook has given our business and our board confidence that we should be investing more in marketing to consumers. The more high-intent audiences we attract to our site or our app, the more we can better support agents and house builders’ businesses.
I will say that we’ve been very ‘streetwise’ with our marketing, constantly defining and redefining our approach based on what the category is doing, what new technologies and channels are available, as well as what consumers want today.
We focus on regional, localized marketing opportunities for a start. Given property and local area is so personal, we need to address people according to where they live in tandem with addressing the nation (for mass appeal and volume). We’re also smart with our spending, targeting audiences who have a higher propensity to move in the next 6 to 12 months.
This streetwise approach has helped build business confidence in marketing spend, given it is hyper-targeted and we can demonstrate the ROI alongside commercial and product efforts.
Cassandra walks an audience through Zoopla’s precision approach to marketing
Seeing marketing as an investment rather than a cost. Many marketers reading this interview will be going: “I need to convince my C-suite of that.”
I have to be honest, there have been moments where it has felt like marketing is being viewed more as a cost, but you have to step back as a team: regroup, own the narrative, get closer to the CFO and the board to confidently land “Everyone, this is what’s working. This is how, and this is why we should invest.”
Zoopla’s website offers increasing amounts of supporting knowledge to help buyers and renters make their home decisions
Zoopla also announced that AI will be used to help optimize property searches. Are you able to share any info on that?
We know that AI is integral to improving the home-finding experience because searching for a home that fits your criteria is hard. I personally struggle with online retail, where you’re faced with sifting through thousands of t-shirts with no real way of categorizing and personalizing that experience. We are building the opposite of that at Zoopla whereby instead of you finding the right home, the right home finds you. AI is a driver of that, ensuring that every time you come back to Zoopla and show a behavior, we’ll serve up a set of personalized property recommendations and information relevant to that. We know people are searching for very specific property features or specific areas – for example, proximity to green space or renovation opportunities – so we use data science to tag and surface the properties that feel the best match to an individual.
We know it’s also not just about the property – the bricks and mortar – it’s about the area and the community. So we’re also investing in AI to build out hundreds of local area guides with multiple data points, including Ofsted school data as well as local pub ratings, plus what other areas ‘you might be interested in’. We’ve got over 300 on site right now.
AI is also behind a lot of our marketing because we know that a single marketing message delivered on a national level will not resonate. After all, moving home is an incredibly personal decision. Using AI we create over 370 local market reports tailored to where a user is looking to move. In addition, our monthly property estimate email informs over 2.3 million homeowners when the value of their home has changed.
The Zoopla site provides price guides and local area information to help home-hunters make the best choices
Can you tell us about your marketing team? How is it organized and structured?
Our marketing team has been through different structures and shapes but the fundamentals of organizing ourselves across the funnel remains demand generation (brand, media, social, PR), acquisition (SEO, paid search, content, app) and retention (CRM, content). We also have an in-house creative studio, who work across everything, particularly when it comes to fast experimentation of design and messaging in the middle of the funnel. Over time, the team has definitely become leaner, but as a result, we are working faster and closer than ever before.
How big is your team?
At the moment we are 25 people and are growing. We understand that Zoopla needs to be more of a publisher of supremely useful content, and we can only achieve that with more creative and media control. We will still have strong reliance on agency partners in some respects, but there will be more of the work coming in-house very soon.
Zoopla’s effective brand marketing on a local level
What skills have you acquired agency side that hold you in good stead now you’re client side?
Agility and pace has to be up there. You’ll struggle to be a successful marketer without the ability to adapt at speed to changes happening around you. We have largely hired from agencies for this reason, because we believe in the pace, as well as the breadth of experience it brings to a dynamic business.
Also, creative taste is something I’ve nurtured from the agency side. When you’re judging creative, validated data is hugely valuable, but nothing beats that instinct of ‘does this feel right?’ Because ultimately, if you don’t feel something with creative, no one else will. Creativity is something I have really championed at Zoopla – culture, bravery and insight are our foundations to ensure we always speak to the hearts and minds of the nation.
Finally, the purity and first principles of marketing is something that agency side has ingrained in me. On the client side, there is far more focus on the commercials – which is brilliant – but it can sometimes overshadow the importance of really leaning into the art and science of changing audience behavior. By hiring a blend of agency and client-side marketers, you can achieve the art and science that’s needed.
How do you feel about synthetic data, where AI can create models of your target customers, and you can ask them questions and even test hypotheses?
I’m open to it, given we are already using AI for insight and automation, to shortcut to better decisions. But ultimately, there still has to be a human involved. Potentially an augmentation of synthetic data with real human data could work. But we need 100% confidence; until that’s there there is risk, and you’ve got to mitigate that. We can’t just rely wholly on AI tools, particularly when it comes to fake versus real audiences.
AI generally is a risk to individualism and differentiation when it comes to brands. If everyone is asking the models the same thing, the same data is being churned out in response. The result could ultimately be this proliferation of sameness. It poses an interesting opportunity for marketing today: how to focus on the top of the funnel and codify what makes you truly unique.
What have you learned in your career journey that enables you to get the best out of marketing teams?
I think the discipline of marketing sets any people leader up well, given our whole job is about empathy and going deeper to understand and influence behavior.
For me, it’s all about identifying what drives people and then what drives the business and how you can connect those to create a bit of magic. I really enjoy inspiring and empowering others to develop themselves while simultaneously developing the business at the same time. So in short, it’s about bringing together great people with great business outcomes.
A Zoopla out of home campaign
As a marketer, you’re faced with a barrage of new technology solutions. How do you approach this to ensure you make the right choices?
This is where you have to be humble. You’re not going to be a marketeer who is as technically strong as you are creatively and/or commercially strong. You need to rely on your network around you for support and learning. For example, partner agencies who are closest to publishers and new tech platforms. They’re exploring them with potentially bigger brands with more investment to test where you can’t always take the risk to.
For example at Zoopla we can see the decline of reach through more traditional media and are exploring diversification across AV channels, working alongside our sister companies Confused.com and uSwitch, who are equally navigating and testing substitute platforms and solutions.
How do you ensure clarity around market orientation with your competitor and customer knowledge?
We take a comprehensive 360 view. We scope the property market, our category, our audience, and then build a plan off the back of it all. Given we have a lot of consumer tracking capability, we can identify propensity to move home before a person hits the top of the marketing funnel. This allows us to develop audiences and rightsize our spend based on prospect size and also based on our overall market share versus competitors.
In terms of tracking results, we use ‘share of voice’ and other indicators such as ‘share of branded search’ through to ‘share of lead’ metrics. The business really believes in brand health and when we continuously spend, we generally see quite an uptick in terms of spontaneous brand awareness and consideration.
What advice you might have for younger marketers that might be reading this interview? Imagine you’re speaking to a younger Cassandra, as you start your career in marketing. What advice might you give her? What should she do more of? What should she avoid?
First, always be open and say ‘yes’ to every opportunity. I got caught up when I was younger – I would think: “If I make this decision, does that put me into this box as a marketeer?” It didn’t matter. I just needed to grab every opportunity that was presented to me. When I look back, I have really cut marketing from every angle to understand where I best fit. Undoubtedly, it’s made me a better marketer.
Second, really know the opportunity and your audience. I often see junior marketers come into a business and they’re most excited about the output, the activation. But it’s only going to work if it all starts from a place where you completely understand what you’re solving for and who you’re creating for: that knowledge will make your work more impactful.
Sometimes, that means knocking on the door of the C-suite and other leaders saying: “I want to know more. I want to understand.” In my first 30 days at Zoopla, I don’t know how many coffees with stakeholders I had. It’s about being humble and asking the questions that will get you the information you need. This way you will build your repertoire much faster. You genuinely want to be the most helpful and inquisitive person in the room – curiosity and a desire to learn are what I personally hire for.
Zoopla out of home advertising celebrates their knowledge base
If there’s one thing you’ve learned about marketing it is…
Marketing is underplayed. It’s our job to get people to act and think differently. That’s not fluffy: it’s scientific, creative and above all, commercial. Demonstrating ROI on your marketing efforts is everything.
I feel that having been a marketer, one could almost enter any industry or take on any role, because you’re wearing 20 different hats every day. That’s why I love it, but it makes it a more challenging career choice – especially today. It’s a constant evolution, from increasingly data-rich environments to global pandemics through to the fluctuating economy. To thrive, you need to have the ability to define and redefine what effective marketing looks like, and then deliver those results.
You might die tomorrow so make it worth your while. Worth Your While is an independent creative agency helping brands do spectacular stuff people like to talk about. wyw.agency.
