As you may or may not know, one of the core missions of reAltitude is to identify high-value member benefit products/services that can not only aid the members in their business but also can bring direct operational value to the association or MLS. 

That’s why I was so excited when I found Chalk Digital in my backyard here in San Diego, and to my amazement, I don’t think anyone is grasping what these guys have created. 

Every time I have started a conversation about Chalk Digital with a realtor or broker and mention that Chalk Digital offers “In-App Mobile Adverting” I get the same response. 

1. “Yeah, I already do Facebook advertising.”

2. “Yeah, I have already heard of Adwerx.”

Let’s see if we can solve this disconnect for the members and make a clear distinction in what is happening in the digital advertising space. 

The first thing to be aware of is the MAID- Mobile Advertising Identifier. All you need to know about this is that every mobile device has one, it is unique to that device, and can serve  up to ad networks what other applications are on the device. 

The second is delineating between CPM and unique viewers. CPM is the cost per thousand impressions or times your ad was seen. Unique views are just as it sounds, if the same device views your ad more than once it’s not counted.

The third is to understand the difference between browser-based (desktop & mobile) advertising and “In-App Mobile”. There a couple of very important items to highlight here and let’s use a Facebook Open House campaign to illustrate. 

In any environment that you use to build a Facebook ad including Facebook itself as well as ad builders like the one that Homesnap Pro offers you can: 

• Create an “ad unit” that may or may not be optimized for a mobile browser.

• Choose an audience

• Choose location

• Choose time frame

• Launch

This ad can be seen on Facebook’s website, in its app, and can be retargeted off. Location is referenced via zip codes or IP addresses of their ISP. 

“In-App Mobile” references the MAID for location. The GPS location of the device! 

There is a whole bunch more to understand here like having the ad service videos, GIFs, scrollable images etc. But let’s touch on that another time. 

Using the same scenario as above a campaign in Chalk Digital looks like this:

• Create an “ad unit” that is optimized for mobile applications

• Choose a location based on the number of potential unique views

• Choose time frame

• Launch- the AI ad network references what apps are on the mobile devices in the selected area, and your ad now has the possibility of being served upon any of them that allow “In-App Mobile Advertising.”

• Geo-fence the parcel where the open house is being held

• Go back to your analytics dashboard and see the unique views on apps for music, news, entertainment, games, weather etc.(+100k different app possibilities)

• See which device got a view, the time, the location, and if that device walked through the (Geo-Fenced) door of your open house!!

The possibilities boggle the mind. What jumps to the top of my mind are to fully leverage the great data prospecting tools like Remine and Rebogateway. 

I have always thought that there was a huge disconnect when prospecting an area off public record data and predictive analytics only to find out a parcel has a 17% chance to list in the next 12 months and that someone at that address got a divorce. Then what do you do with it?

Direct mail is ridiculously expensive with no trackable ROI, and you are not going to knock on someone’s door and say “You don’t know me but I heard you got a divorce. Do you want to sell your house?”

Remine has done great by making email and phone information available, but you are still essentially cold calling/emailing. Smartzip is awesome at offering a comprehensive ecosystem but only supplies direct mail, the traditional CPM model, and email nurture once someone has engaged with the ad. 

Chalk Digital would allow you to serve ads on the mobile devices that live at that parcel (even when they are not home) and tailor the ad unit to fit the specific analytics that one of the tools mentioned above gave you.

Example:

The 17% chance to list and just got divorced parcel gets an ad when they are in bed reading the news saying, “Comps have recently closed in your neighbourhood and the value of your house just went up $X”. Then later in the day while eating lunch at the local deli, the same device sees an ad while checking the days weather saying, “Is it time for you to downsize? It is a great time to sell.”

These capabilities are not new, but until Chalk Digital came along, it was reserved for Fortune 500’s. It would cost GM $25k to run a 3-hour campaign. What I just described above, Chalk Digital can do for couple hundred bucks. We never even talked about using it brand a neighborhood, just listed, price changes, in escrow, and another property sold by Jill Smith. 

What an add-on to some of the great tools already out there!

At SDAR, we have used it to advertise our Expo, inform on new member benefits, distribute important news, and made a pile of money by offering the channel to our affiliates to advertise on.