Case · House manufacturer
Eksjöhus is a family-owned house manufacturer in Småland that has built homes since 1944. We ran the advertising in Google and Microsoft for Sweden, Norway and Germany from February 2019 to April 2023, through the agency Spotlight.
Eksjöhus builds timber homes in its factory in Eksjö and sells them through its own sales offices in Sweden, Norway and Germany. The company is family-owned in the fourth generation and part of LindholmsGruppen, which also runs sawmills and transport.
The journey to a new home usually begins with the family ordering the house catalogue or asking for a price indication on the website. That is why catalogue orders and price requests were the measures of what the advertising delivered.
Year after year Eksjöhus ranks at the top when buyers of single-family homes rate their suppliers.
The engagement came to us through Spotlight and the agency's founder and CEO Tommy Perlhamre. Tommy was one of the first to back DigitalMassa and trusted us with the advertising for the agency's clients.
Spotlight held Eksjöhus's marketing together and we ran the advertising in Google and Microsoft. Throughout the engagement we also had direct contact with the marketing manager at Eksjöhus.
Eksjöhus is a family business that has built homes since 1944 and measures itself on how satisfied its customers are. Building a house is a big decision that takes time, and Eksjöhus looks at its marketing the same way: long term and with the figures on the table. That suited us. We could show what the advertising delivered in catalogues and price requests, and the trust was there within the first weeks.
We are grateful to have been part of four years of the Eksjöhus journey.
The assignment began in February 2019 with Google Ads for Sweden. Eksjöhus wanted more people to order the house catalogue and ask for a price indication on the website, because that is how the journey to a new home usually begins. We rebuilt the account from the ground up with a new structure and new ads.
Within a few months the assignment grew to Norway and Germany. The advertising also expanded to Microsoft Ads and later to display, Gmail ads and YouTube. The budget per country was followed up every month and the advertising was steered throughout towards the two goals: catalogues ordered and price requests.
2019
In February 2019 we took over Google Ads for Sweden and built a new account structure with dedicated campaigns for the searches that lead to catalogue orders and price requests. In February the account went live.
The accounts for Norway and Germany were activated in March with the same structure as in Sweden.
In April we started advertising in Microsoft Ads, so that people who search in Bing also found Eksjöhus.
In spring 2019, 142% more house catalogues were ordered and 378% more price requests came in through the ads than during the same weeks in 2018, for the same cost.
Together with Eksjöhus and the agency we went through the sales offices in Google My Business, so that they were gathered under Eksjöhus's own ownership.
In September 2019 a house catalogue ordered through Google Ads cost less than in any month since the account was opened in 2008.
In December 2019 the ads delivered 4% more requests than in the same weeks the year before, at a 58% lower cost. Eksjöhus wanted to keep the level up and the budget went to display and YouTube instead.
Just before Christmas display ads and Gmail ads went live. They were shown to people who had visited the website without ordering the catalogue and to people who had shown they were about to build a house but had not yet found Eksjöhus.
2020
In March we started video ads on YouTube aimed at people with an interest in houses and gardens and at people facing a move. In April the campaigns were split between earlier visitors and new audiences.
In spring 2020 Eksjöhus cancelled the open viewings of its houses and received one family at a time by appointment. The sales team noticed the phones going quieter, but catalogue orders and price requests on the website kept coming at the same pace. We kept the advertising running and followed the inflow week by week together with Eksjöhus.
Google's own ad tag was added to the website, so that even people who had seen an ad and ordered the catalogue a few days later were counted.
We identified which house types are searched for most, such as functionalist houses, stone houses and New England houses, as a basis for the website's category pages and for ads aimed at each house type.
During 2020 Baden-Württemberg got a campaign of its own with its own budget alongside the main German campaign, and in spring 2021 Bavaria got the same setup.
2021
Eksjöhus's own summary of 2020 showed 47% more house catalogues ordered through Google Ads than in 2019, at a 25% higher cost.
As a whole Google Ads performs very well and better than in 2019. We got 47% more catalogue orders at a 25% higher cost.
Anders Olsson
Marketing Manager at Eksjöhus
The new account structure from Google Ads was imported into Microsoft Ads, so that both accounts had the same division.
2022
During 2022 the work on keywords, ads and the budget per country continued in Sweden, Norway and Germany.
In 2022 Eksjöhus delivered 467 homes, more than in any other year with us, and revenue was the highest in the company's history up to then.
2023
In April 2023 Spotlight hired its own Google Ads specialist and took the engagement in house. We handed over the accounts in Google and Microsoft during the spring.
+142%
Catalogue orders from the ads
+378%
Price requests from the ads
−66%
Cost per request
−63%
Cost per click
Already in the first months the ads brought more future home builders to Eksjöhus. In spring 2019, 142% more house catalogues were ordered and 378% more price requests came in through the ads than during the same weeks in spring 2018, before we took over the account. The cost was the same. The cost per request fell by 66% and the cost per click by 63%.
All of this was visible because every catalogue order and price request was counted as a goal in the advertising.
467
Homes delivered in 2022, Eksjöhus's strongest year
9.5%
Market share in 2023, up from 6.4%
According to Eksjöhus's own reports, 2022 was the company's strongest year, with 467 homes delivered and the highest revenue so far. In 2023 deliveries across the industry fell by 43%, but Eksjöhus grew its market share from 6.4% to 9.5% and had the most building permit applications in the industry.
Many of the homes delivered in 2023 were sold during our years together, when the advertising kept bringing in catalogue orders and price requests. The foundation we built was still in place when the market turned.
Eksjöhus followed up catalogue orders and price requests from all channels themselves. In spring 2020 they were around 20% above the year before, in the middle of the pandemic.
+20%Catalogue orders and price requests in spring 2020 compared with spring 2019, according to Eksjöhus
“We are still around 20% up on last year for both catalogue orders and price requests. Google Ads is clearly a strong contributing channel here. A great many catalogues go out that way at a low cost.”
Anders Olsson
Marketing Manager at Eksjöhus
We rebuilt the Google Ads account for Sweden from the ground up in February 2019, with dedicated campaigns for the searches that lead to a catalogue order or a price request. Searches that only resembled what Eksjöhus sells were excluded.
The Eksjöhus name got a campaign of its own. Several other house manufacturers advertised on the name, and the campaign made sure Eksjöhus owned its own search result at a low cost.
The accounts for Norway and Germany got the same structure as Sweden in March 2019.
In Germany we later built dedicated campaigns for Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria with their own budgets, and the German keywords were based on a mapping of how Germans search for Swedish timber houses.
From April 2019 Eksjöhus also advertised in Microsoft Ads, so that people who search in Bing instead of Google found Eksjöhus.
In spring 2021 the account got the same structure as Google Ads.
In December 2019 we added display ads and Gmail ads. They were shown to people who had visited the website without ordering the catalogue and to people who had shown they were about to build a house but had not yet found Eksjöhus.
The banners were produced together with Spotlight.
In March 2020 we started video ads on YouTube. The audiences were people with an interest in houses, homes and gardens and people showing signs of a move, a wedding, a renovation or a new job.
In April the campaigns were split between earlier visitors to the website and new audiences.
Catalogue orders and price requests were the two goals the advertising was steered towards. In spring 2020 Google's own ad tag was added to the website, so that even people who had seen an ad and ordered the catalogue a few days later were counted.
From then on the campaigns could be steered directly towards the two goals.
We had direct contact with the marketing manager at Eksjöhus and met together with the agency, which held Eksjöhus's marketing together. The meetings went through the results, the searches and the next steps, as in May 2020 when we showed which house types are searched for most.
Every month we followed up the budget against the cost for Sweden, Norway and Germany, so that each country got the advertising that had been decided.
We showed which house manufacturers competed for the same searches and how large a share of the impressions Eksjöhus took, so that Eksjöhus knew who they were up against in Google.
In January 2022 Eksjöhus received a report on 2021 that explained the figures and what is not visible in them, for example why the campaign on the Eksjöhus name matters when other house manufacturers advertise on it.
“Google Ads performs very well for us, with a low cost per request and a low cost per click. The work DigitalMassa does feels spot on, and I have full confidence in what they do.”
Anders Olsson
Marketing Manager at Eksjöhus
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