Account Review and Recommendations
A plain look at everything run on the Alders Meta account since launch, what the numbers say about the targeting and the creative, and where the budget can go from here.
The product shapes how the rest of the numbers should be read, so it is worth setting out plainly. The Alders is a brand new home in Pemberton, three bedrooms, starting at $799,000, about twenty-five minutes up the road from Whistler. Sales have moved quickly: phase one has sold out and phase two is close behind, with around thirty homes across the project.
Set that price against the market around it. The average house in Pemberton is over a million dollars, Whistler is closer to two and a half, and the nearest new-build competitor up the hill starts north of $1.6M. A new home under $800K in the Sea to Sky is a rare thing, and it is one of the most distinctive messages the account has to work with.
The clearest buyer is the person who works in and around Whistler, earns a solid dual income, and has largely given up on owning a house there. This puts one twenty-five minutes away and back within reach. Close behind are Pemberton and Squamish families who want a new place with a yard and a garage, and Lower Mainland buyers whose Vancouver equity stretches a long way here. In short, people in their thirties and forties starting or growing a family.
One practical point for targeting: unlike much of the housing in the corridor, these homes carry no residency or employment restrictions. That means the ads are not limited to locals and can reach right across the Sea to Sky and into the Lower Mainland, which matches the goal of widening the pool now that the homes are on MLS.
The account has been busy and, on the whole, run efficiently. Six separate campaigns, just under three thousand dollars spent, and a 2.5% click rate on cold audiences, which is a healthy number for property. Here is the whole picture in one line.
Reading top to bottom, this is the account learning as it went. The early posts proved the audience was there, the render post found the image that travels, and the April lead form was the first time we asked for something back and got it.
| Campaign | Goal | Spend | Reach | Click rate | Cost / click | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Alders October 23Nov 2025 · first test | Traffic | $299.85 | 10,883 | 2.59% | $0.71 | 303 views |
| Jan 11–31 Dark AdJan 2026 · garage message | Traffic | $499.90 | 32,042 | 0.97% | $0.76 | 593 views |
| Jan 11–31 Garage PostJan 2026 · garage message | Traffic | $499.98 | 31,872 | 2.34% | $0.58 | 1,084 views |
| F22 GarageFeb–Mar 2026 · garage message | Traffic | $499.89 | 26,662 | 2.19% | $0.49 | 805 views |
| Render Post LIVE ★Feb–Mar 2026 · mountain living | Traffic | $500.00 | 57,424 | 4.60% | $0.28 | 1,537 views |
| April Lead Form ★Apr–May 2026 · sign-ups | Leads | $499.80 | 16,640 | 2.35% | $0.86 | 50 leads |
Each of these ran as its own short burst, usually a flat $500 over two to four weeks, then stopped. That is a reasonable way to test, and it is where the current read on the audience comes from. It is not built for scale, though. Every time a new campaign starts, Meta begins its learning from zero, so the account has not yet been left running long enough to settle into its stride. That points to one of the larger opportunities, covered further down.
Two looks did most of the work. A render of the homes themselves, and an illustrated cut-away leaning into the oversized garages. The render performed better in the data, though both had a role. Here they are side by side so it is clear which is which.
★ Best performerThe render
Render Post & the April lead form · 4.60% click rate · $0.28 a click
A clean render of the homes, with the starting price on the image. Showing the actual product, price included, is likely what carried it to the best numbers on the account.
The other angleThe garage
The January and February garage campaigns · 2.2% to 2.6% click rate
An illustrated cut-away of the oversized garages, "room for all your gear." In a place as active and outdoorsy as Pemberton that is a genuinely relevant angle, and it pulled steady, low-cost clicks, just behind the render.
The gear and garage angle is a sound one for this area, where the outdoor lifestyle is a big part of the draw, and the numbers back that it worked. Worth noting alongside it: the render of the homes edged it out, and the strongest version of that ad already carries the $799,000 on the image, which is a smart touch. The main room to grow is ordering: the price and the twenty-five-minutes-to-Whistler angle sit quietly at the bottom rather than leading, even though they are the most distinctive things on offer. The homes are not built yet, so renders are the right tool for now. The opportunity is to make those renders carry the price and the location up top, and to line up real photography for when the first homes complete.
The render post
Same budget as the garage posts, but a clean render of the homes with the price on it.
- Click rate
- 4.60%
- Cost / click
- $0.28
- People reached
- 57,424
- Cost / page view
- $0.33
Roughly double the reach and twice the click rate of the garage posts, at the lowest cost per click on the account. Showing the homes themselves, with the price on the image, is a strong base to build on with a sharper headline behind it.
The April lead form
The one campaign that asked people to hand over their details, rather than just click through.
- Leads captured
- 50
- Cost / lead
- $10.00
- Spend
- $499.80
- Click rate
- 2.35%
For a business selling homes, a name and an email is worth far more than a click that bounces off the site. Fifty real leads at ten dollars each is a strong number for property, and it is proof this account can bring in buyers, not just traffic.
Spend is spread fairly evenly by age, but the click rates tell the real story, and they line up almost exactly with the buyer above. Everyone from 25 up engaged well, the 45-and-over crowd actually clicked the most, and the only group that did not pull its weight was 18 to 24. That fits families and settled earners, not students.
This is one of the clearer signals in the account. Just over half the spend has gone through the Facebook feed, and it has been the cheapest and best-converting spot by a wide margin. Instagram costs about double per click, and stories and reels have been the weakest of the lot.
None of this is a reset. The account already shows who the buyer is, which image travels, and that leads come in at ten dollars. It has been dark since the spring, though, so the first order of business is simply getting the stronger approach live again and rebuilding momentum. Everything below builds from there.
Bring the price and the Whistler distance to the front
The most distinctive thing on offer, the sub-$800K price and the twenty-five minutes to Whistler, has so far sat at the bottom of the creative rather than leading it. Moving it up is the biggest single opportunity. "Brand new home, from $799,000, twenty-five minutes from Whistler" works as a headline because it reframes the whole thing for someone who assumed owning near Whistler was out of reach. The garage and gear space, the net-zero low bills, the family layout all still earn their place as the reasons to believe, just behind that opening line.
Focus the audience on the most likely buyers
The click data already points the way. The core audience is best built around Whistler and Sea-to-Sky workers plus Pemberton and Squamish families, roughly 28 to 55, with a Lower Mainland layer for the equity-and-remote-work angle. The 18 to 24s were the only group that did not perform and can come out. And with 50 leads and a pile of site visitors now on record, there is finally enough of a seed to build a lookalike off real interest, which was not possible at the start.
Make leads the goal, fund one campaign, and let it run
Five of six campaigns chased clicks. The one campaign built to collect contact details brought back 50 leads at $10 each, which for property is strong, and the lead-form-with-phone-confirmation setup feeding into HubSpot is a sensible way to filter for genuine intent, so that is worth carrying forward. The next round is better led by a lead campaign than by traffic. The other thing worth flagging is consistency. Spend has averaged around $400 a month and has been stop-start, with nothing at all for the last couple of months. The bigger lever here is not the amount, it is keeping one campaign running rather than launching a fresh burst every few weeks, since each restart sends Meta's learning back to the beginning.
Put the sales momentum to work
Phase one is sold out and phase two is close behind. That momentum is real, and it is currently going unused in the ads. A line like "phase one is gone, final homes now selling" gives a warm audience a reason to act rather than bookmark it, and it quietly reinforces the value story: phases that sell out this fast are proof the pricing lands.
Make the renders work harder now, and plan a shoot for completion
The homes are not built yet, so renders are the right tool for the moment. The quickest win is to make them carry the message: the price and the Whistler distance up top as the headline, a clear look at the interiors and floor plans, rather than the number tucked at the bottom. This is the sort of thing the in-house designer can turn around at a Canva level to start. Then, once the first homes complete, real photography and a short walkthrough video will give the account a genuine lift, since actual product tends to outperform a render on a purchase this size.
Put the pixel and its audience to work, right after relaunch
On tracking, the picture is clearer than expected. The pixel has been live and firing since January, with activity logged as recently as 12 July, so the site data is there. The gap is what has been done with it: there is not a single retargeting audience built on the account, so everyone who has visited the site and not enquired is sitting unused. Sequence matters here. The first step is getting the stronger ads live again and rebuilding momentum; retargeting that visitor pool is the natural next move, and it is usually the cheapest lead source going. It is also worth confirming the pixel logs a proper lead event on the site itself, since the leads so far have come through Meta's own form rather than the website. And whatever runs should be built for the Facebook feed first, which has carried the account at about half the cost of Instagram.
Google is the obvious channel to add next, and it came up on the call. It has never run for The Alders. The two platforms do different jobs. Meta creates demand, putting the homes in front of people who were not looking for them. Google Search captures it, catching people who are already typing things like "homes for sale Pemberton" or "new homes near Whistler" into Google. For a purchase this considered, that warm, self-directed searcher is exactly the MLS and Realtor.ca researcher the project wants to reach. The sensible order is to get Meta performing again first, then bring Google in as the second engine.
Own the brand, and run a "priced out of Whistler" search campaign. Bid on the project name plus searches like "homes for sale Whistler" and "new homes Sea to Sky", and send them to a page that reframes the value: a brand new home twenty-five minutes from Whistler, from $799,000. Phrase and exact keywords to start, with a negative list so budget does not leak to rentals, hotels and job searches.
Search first, hold off on the automated campaigns. Search gives clean control and higher-intent leads. Performance Max tends to chase cheap form fills unless the lead tracking is set up properly, so it is a later move, once we can see which leads are turning into real enquiries.
Add a light retargeting layer. The homes are not built and the decision is a slow one, so quietly showing the renders and the price again to past site visitors is cheap and keeps The Alders front of mind.
One note on cost. Google leads for a home purchase come in higher than social, because they arrive already looking, so the aim is not to match the Meta cost per lead but to judge Google on the quality of what it brings in. The sensible way in is a small test budget first, proving the keywords and the landing page before putting any real weight behind it.