The short answer
Custom audience targeting finds people by what they search for and read
You describe who this home is for, or who you want to know you. We find those people by what they search for and the sites they read, and everything stays anonymous. On listing ads it's called custom buyer targeting, and it comes with Showcase and Luxury. On brand ads it's called custom audience targeting.
Watch it in two minutes
How it works
It starts with a conversation. On Showcase you describe the buyer in your 15-min buyer profile session, and on Luxury we go deeper in your 30-min strategy session. Bring what you already know: who toured, who asked questions, where they live now and what they do for work.
We turn that into a buyer profile. Then we look for people whose online habits fit it: the topics they search for, the sites they read and the apps they use. A downsizing couple and a growing family read different things, so every home gets its own profile.
Your ads then reach those people inside your geographic targets. We work with groups of people who fit the profile, and every person in those groups stays anonymous. The profile is set before launch, and your Traffic Report shows the results every day, ready to forward to your seller.
For brand ads, the same idea works for your business instead of one home. You tell us who you want more of, like downsizers in your farm or first-time buyers moving to town, and we build an audience around them that keeps your name in front of those people every month.
Custom targeting works hand in hand with your other choices. Your geographic targets decide where the ads run, and the buyer profile decides who sees them. That's how a $3.5M building and a $795,000 house in the same city can reach two completely different groups of people.
How Compass agents use it
- A Compass agent in Rancho Mirage built the buyer profile around doctors at the hospital three minutes from a midcentury home, people ready to own near work instead of renting.
- A Compass agent near Chapel Hill aimed a $795,000 listing at physicians, researchers and professors tied to the University of North Carolina and its hospitals, people who wanted privacy and space close to campus.
- A Compass agent on Capitol Hill marketed a $3.5M building to trade associations and lobbying firms looking to own a headquarters near Congress. The listing passed 81,000 ad appearances.
- A Compass agent in East Garrison, near Monterey, aimed one listing at two groups: Silicon Valley workers on a hybrid schedule, and officers at the nearby Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute.
- A Compass agent's brand ads reach people in Seattle, Austin, Denver and six more cities who are shopping for a home and follow tech, finance and investing.
How to explain it to your seller
Turn the buyer profile into one plain sentence your seller can picture.
"We described the kind of person most likely to love your home, and the ads go to people who read and search like that person. For your home, that's the doctors who work at the hospital down the road. Everyone stays anonymous. We're simply making sure the right kind of person sees it."
- Ask your seller who they think will buy the house. Sellers often know exactly who bought on the street, and their answer belongs in the profile.
- Lead your weekly update with that one sentence, like "we're reaching doctors near the hospital," then share the numbers.
Which packages include it
Listing ads: Custom buyer targeting comes with Showcase at $600, with a 15-min buyer profile session, and Luxury at $1,200, with a 30-min strategy session. Each runs for 30 days per listing.
Brand ads: Custom audience targeting is part of brand ads. Plans start at $600 a month.