The short answer
Geographic targets are the places your listing ads reach
A geographic target is a ZIP code, town or neighborhood we point your ads at. Starter covers 4, Showcase covers 6 and Luxury covers unlimited markets. Your listing reaches the people who live near the home and the places your buyers are moving from. You pick your targets when you set up your listing ads.
How it works
When you set up your listing ads, you list the places you want them to reach. A target can be a ZIP code, a town, a neighborhood or a whole metro area, like the New York City area. Your display ads, and your YouTube video ads on Showcase and Luxury, then appear for people whose phones and computers are in those places.
Starter covers 4 targets, Showcase covers 6 and Luxury covers unlimited markets. On Starter you type your targets in when you order, and the listing goes live within two business days. On Showcase we settle them with you in your 15-min buyer profile session, and on Luxury we map them out together in your 30-min strategy session.
The best lists mix two kinds of places. The first is the home's own area, where neighbors, renters and move-up buyers already live. The second is feeder markets, the places your buyers are moving from: a pricier city a few hours away, a big employer's hometown or the cities your last few buyers came from. A family moving up often comes from a smaller home a few towns over, so those towns belong on the list too.
The people your ads reach stay anonymous. Your Traffic Report shows how many times the home appeared and where the ads ran, every day, ready to forward to your seller.
How Compass agents use it
- A Compass agent in Salem used all four Starter targets on the North Shore: Salem, Lynn, Peabody and Danvers. The $825,000 listing passed 61,000 ad appearances in its 30 days.
- A Compass agent in Pittsboro, North Carolina listed a home in a 55+ community and pointed it at Cary, Apex, Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Durham. We added the New York metro, including Long Island and northern New Jersey, as a feeder market.
- A Compass agent in Great Falls, Virginia filled all six Showcase targets around Embassy Row, McLean and the DC area. The agent also named California relocations as a buyer source and left them off to stay within six, which is the exact trade Luxury's unlimited markets remove.
- A Compass agent selling a $4.7M home in Hana, on Maui, ran Luxury with markets far from the island: Seattle, Aspen, Telluride, Boulder, Los Angeles County, Houston, San Francisco, San Diego and Vancouver.
- A Compass agent in Madison, Wisconsin runs brand ads across 28 named neighborhoods in Madison, Middleton, Verona and Fitchburg, so the agent's name shows up block by block.
How to explain it to your seller
Sellers love hearing the actual town names. Use them.
"Your ads reach people near the house, and also people in the places your buyer is most likely moving from. We picked these towns because that's where buyers for homes like yours have been coming from. The report shows how many times your home appeared and where."
- Say the places out loud. A seller remembers Chapel Hill and Long Island far better than six markets.
- When a seller suggests a city, take it seriously. On Showcase it can replace one of your six, and on Luxury you simply add it.
Which packages include it
Listing ads: Starter covers 4 geographic targets for $400, Showcase covers 6 for $600 and Luxury covers unlimited markets for $1,200, each per listing for 30 days.
Brand ads: Each audience in your plan gets its own areas, which we choose together in the 30 minutes we spend building your plan. Plans start at $600 a month.