Client
The Place Group is a chain of premium and luxury office spaces, co-working spaces and meeting rooms in Dubai and the UAE. The brand’s priority is corporate clients, with freelancers, influencers, events and photo shoots in the background.
Task
- Enter the commercial property rental market in Dubai and become competitive.
- Rent out all network premises within the marketing budget using digital marketing tools.
Initial Data
The Place approached us in October 2020 with the task of launching a brand within the commercial real estate market in Dubai. The client considered using all available digital tools, but needed to be within a marketing budget. The main requirement was that we needed to attract relevant traffic and leads.At the start of this project, the Place Group team was confident that it would be able to attract either freelancers or real estate agents as clients, but we were able to get some big companies as well.
Solutions
At the start of the project, we connected three main marketing tools:
- Facebook Ads (targeting by relevant professions, positions and interests, Look-alike audience, remarketing);
- LinkedIn Ads (Targeting by relevant professions, positions and interests, Look-alike audience);
- Google Ads (English and Arabic search campaigns, Dynamic Search Ads to gather non-obvious semantics, outreach campaigns on the Google Display Network, remarketing).
Unobvious keywords are low-frequency keywords that may have been missed by manual keyword selection, and automatically picked up by Google neural networks based on the site content.
For the first step, we placed our focus on social media. Facebook was the priority channel for finding freelancers who might be interested in co-working. The targeting settings on LinkedIn were aimed at an audience of estate agents and company owners.
There are now two business centers open:
THE ONE TOWER
DMCC
The company has scheduled the opening of its third Dubai Chamber Center for May 2022.
On Facebook, we used quite specific targeting. We selected users who indicated in their profiles that they were freelancers, Influencers, and creatives. In addition, we tested the audience of top managers and managers who indicated “real estate” as their type of employment.
An example of interest-based targeting
It’s important to note that the location-based campaign settings were spot-on: the client specified the desired areas of Dubai where the potential target audience was located. But this geo-targeting did not produce the desired results.
Example of geo-targeting
We explained the lack of results from social media campaigns by the fact that potential client audiences prefer to search for a co-working space or office primarily through a search engine, trusting Google more. In this case, banner advertising proved ineffective.
LinkedIn ー is one of the most expensive advertising platforms, where the cost per click can be as high as $5 or more. Invest in this platform only if it returns consistent good results and a return on your investment. In the beginning, this social network was a priority tool for us, as its the potential target audience of company owners and top management.
For the test run of the campaign, we generated audiences by:
- positions;
- on real estate agents;
- on combinations of: company name + position, real estate agency + position.
Example of a LinkedIn ad
An example of LinkedIn targeting
However, in test mode, this tool, like Facebook, did not return the desired results. Therefore, we decided to redirect the budget for conversion campaigns to Google Ads.
Comparison of the number of leads from LinkedIn and Google channels
Google Ads
In three months of testing different types of campaigns, Google Ads proved to be the most effective:
- DSA campaigns to gather non-obvious semantics;
- remarketing;
- search campaigns in English and Arabic.
Example of an adaptive text ad with an image (using a logo)
Google search campaigns became the most effective tool: clients were looking for an office ‘here and now’ or in the short term. Media remarketing worked for an audience that was already familiar with the resource.
Importantly, the use of Arabic-language campaigns helped to find natives who have a budget for premium office rentals and do not always use English.
Example of a text ad in Arabic
The campaign on the Google Display Network did not produce the desired results, as it was aimed more at a «cold audience». In our case, the potential target audience was uninterested.
The customer, for their part, regularly provided us with relevant USPs, taking into account the needs and preferences of their audience:
- Proximity of the office centre to the transport interchange.
- Discounts at the conclusion of the contract.
- Underground parking (in a hot climate ー one of the important USPs).
- Availability of a bar.
- The availability of air conditioning and much more.
We used these suggestions both in the ad texts and in the advertising extensions.
Example of an extended text ad with different extensions
To further engage the audience, we have also included an image of the office centre’s premises in the new Google Images extension.
Results
Usually, it can take two to five years to promote a new brand, depending on the marketing strategy. In our case, through effective interaction with the client, a competent marketing strategy and focused targeting, we were able to fill the premises faster than expected and recoup our investment.
In 16 months of work, we were able to bring the brand to the commercial property rental market from scratch and achieve a competitive level. As early as January 2022, all of The One Tower’s vacant offices were delivered. Demand for the client’s commercial property was higher than expected.
Contextual advertising is still the main source of customer acquisition today. However, we also generate targeted traffic through this channel, which is then converted into leads through other channels. Contextual advertising provides us with the «first touch».
Since social media as advertising platforms proved to be too expensive and low conversion rate for us, we continued to work with them only in the format of image support.
Example of statistics on leads from different sources
“We’ve had an interesting situation! We don’t have any shared office available in The One Tower location. We even rented out our own administrative office in The One and moved our own office to another location! We need to decrease budgets until the next stock is ready, as we currently simply have no space to rent”.
Sergii Voronovych, Board member of The Place
What’s next?
In May 2022, the client plans to open a third Dubai Chamber office centre. To lease this new office space, we plan to use tried-and-tested tools: Google Ads search campaigns and remarketing, and to increase brand awareness and attract a fresh audience in the first 1-2 months, we will additionally connect Google outreach campaigns.
