Case study

How UrbanEdge cut cost per lead by 45% by tailoring its ads to its buyer personas with Plug

UrbanEdge markets new-build homes in the UK to two audiences with different reasons to buy. With Plug, its team produces on-brand static ads for each audience. Spend doubled, and each lead now costs 45% less.

For home buyers
Live
Live
For investors
Live
Live
Customer
A London property brokerage marketing several new-build developments.
Challenge
Two audiences with different reasons to buy, and creative that took weeks to produce.
Result
45% lower cost per lead, while spend doubled.
01 The challenge

Two audiences, and creative that could not keep pace.

UrbanEdge is a London property brokerage that markets new-build developments on behalf of their developers. Its buyers fall into two groups. Owner-occupiers in the UK are looking for a home to live in. Investors, many of them overseas, are looking for a property to let. The two groups respond to different messages, and which group a development attracts depends largely on when it completes.

The marketing team is small and its advertising relied on short-form video. Each new video depended on a shoot and an edit, and could take weeks to reach the account. During that time, budget continued to run on Meta behind existing creative, and new messages for either audience went untested.

02 The approach

One brand kit, and a brief for each development and audience.

1
Step 1

Set up the brand kit

UrbanEdge's colours, typography, tone of voice, pricing conventions and compliance rules are stored in Plug, together with the key facts for each development. Every brief starts from this kit, so it is on brand by default.

2
Step 2

Brief by development and audience

Plug produced 28 creative briefs in two days. Each brief pairs a development with the audience it attracts and a message chosen for that audience, drawing on UrbanEdge's own knowledge of its buyers.

3
Step 3

Build from the brand's own imagery

Plug fetched the CGIs and development images from the developments' online brochures and saved them to UrbanEdge's library. The account uses only those images. No stock imagery is used, and no people or homes are AI-generated.

Brand kit in Plug
UrbanEdge
Playfair Display for headlinesDM Sans for everything else
Edge Gold · Charcoal · Slate · Ivory · Stone Grey
Tone of voice
ProfessionalCalmExpertPremium without hype
Always
  • Lead with one concrete fact per static
  • Write every price as a 'from' price
  • Present UrbanEdge as the sales partner
Never
  • No AI-generated people or AI-generated homes
  • No guaranteed returns or promised price growth
  • No false scarcity or deadlines
Image library
The brand's own images only. People, scenes and objects must be real.
03 From brand imagery to finished ad

Each static is built from the development's own imagery.

The images Plug fetched from the brochures are stored in the brand kit and tagged by development. For each brief, Plug selects the image that fits, composes the layout to the brand kit, and adds the headline and supporting copy. Three examples are shown below.

Source imageAerial over the parkland
Finished ad Live47 acres of historic Berkshire parkland, right outside your apartment.
Source imageLarch Court exterior, golden hour
Finished ad LiveReturn to the space you need.
Source imageLiving room and balcony
Finished ad LiveApartments from £445,000, with end-to-end investment support.
04 Creative for each audience

Each audience gets its own message, from the same brand kit.

For home buyers

Spring Hill and Abbey Barn Park, where homes are ready or close to completion. These ads lead with space, schools and the commute into London.

LiveReady to move into: freehold 3 to 5 bed houses at Spring Hill, Maidenhead, from £680,000.
LiveUpsize from a London flat to a freehold house by a 34-acre country park.
LiveA 34-acre country park and three Outstanding grammar schools, 27 minutes from Marylebone.

For investors

Lillibrooke and other off-plan releases. These ads lead with prices, completion dates and the mortgage and tax support available to overseas buyers.

LiveNew launch: off-plan freehold houses from £600,000, completing late 2027, with mortgage and tax advice for overseas buyers.
LiveApartments from £445,000. UrbanEdge handles the search, the tax and the mortgage.
BriefedMaidenhead house prices up 32.2% in 10 years. Apartments from £299,950.
05 Results

Twice the spend, 45% cheaper leads, a fifth of the hours to run it.

-45%
cost per lead, while spend scaled 2x
4x
creative portfolio, every development with fresh ads live
-80%
time spent on ad operations
< 1 day
to launch, with creatives adapted to each audience's motivation

UrbanEdge doubled its lead generation spend and paid 45% less for each lead. Its creative portfolio is four times the size, so every development has fresh ads live, and the team spends a fifth of the time it used to on ad operations. UrbanEdge can now test a message with each audience before committing video production to it.

BeforeAfter
New creative depended on a video shoot and could take weeksStatic ads briefed and produced in Plug, without a shoot
One set of creative per developmentCreative tailored to each development and audience
Buyer knowledge held informally by the teamBuyer knowledge recorded in the brand kit and applied to every brief
Video onlyVideo and static ads running side by side

Want this on your account?

Book a call with Farrukh, co-founder of Plug, to walk through how Plug would brief creative for each of your audiences. Getting started requires a connected ad account and your brand guidelines.

Book a call with Farrukh

Best for: teams that sell to more than one audience and whose creative output is limited by production capacity.