The Problem
Generic PPC Was Bleeding Budget on the Wrong Buyers
Brenton Hitchcock is not a general buyer's agent. He is the owner of Hitchcock Properties, a team building its name as the go-to vacation rental specialists in Panama City Beach, Florida.
But his marketing did not reflect that.
Through Sierra Interactive's PPC platform, Brenton was paying over $75 per lead and those leads were generic. First-time homebuyers. Relocators. People searching broadly for property, not specifically for income-producing vacation rentals they could rent out and cash flow from day one.
Every lead that was not a vacation rental buyer was wasted money and wasted time on his team.
Brenton knew he needed to fix it, but like most agents, budget was a real concern. He was not sure a change was financially viable. He felt stuck in a system that was not built for his niche, with no clear path out.
The Turning Point
Niche Search + Remarketing Built for Vacation Rental Intent
When Brenton connected with DMR Media, the problem was immediately clear: he was not running niche marketing. He was running generic real estate PPC and hoping the right buyer would show up.
Instead of broad search terms pointing to a generic landing page, we built a Google Search Ads campaign specifically targeting buyers searching for vacation rental properties in Panama City Beach: people actively researching buying a property they could rent out and generate income from.
Then we layered on a Performance Max remarketing campaign with conversion tracking built to teach Google exactly what a vacation rental buyer looks like, not just anyone who clicked an ad.
This is the difference between buying traffic and buying intent.
How We Did It
Three Weeks from Launch to Consistent Lead Flow
Account structure, conversion tracking, vacation-rental-specific landing paths, and initial Search + P-Max campaigns live with QA from click to CRM.
Search term reviews, audience signals, and creative tests tuned toward buyers researching rental income and Panama City Beach vacation markets.
Consistent weekly lead flow at $10.46 average CPL with 30%+ lead-to-conversation rate and pipeline full of vacation rental intent.
The Results
88% Lower CPL. 28+ Niche Leads Per Week.
Three weeks after launch, the campaign reached consistent lead flow. Average cost-per-lead dropped from $86.36 to $10.46, an 88% reduction. Brenton now sees 28+ high-intent vacation rental leads per week, with a lead-to-conversation rate above 30% and an estimated return on ad spend of 1,323%.
Before: Sierra Interactive PPC at $75+ for basic Google Search leads. After: DMR delivering niche vacation rental leads at $10.46 with more information and higher intent.
These are not buyers who stumbled onto Brenton's site. They are people actively searching for a vacation rental investment: the exact client Brenton built his business to serve. Buyers who want a property they can enjoy personally, rent through a management company, and generate cash flow from the backend.
That is Brenton's wheelhouse. And now his pipeline is full of people who need exactly what he offers.
The Bottom Line
Better Leads, Not Just More Leads
Brenton did not need more leads. He needed better ones.
DMR Media built a campaign that spoke directly to vacation rental buyers at the exact moment they were searching and used data to continuously sharpen who Google was targeting.
The result: a pipeline that matches Brenton's niche, a cost-per-lead that makes the economics undeniable, and a clear path to becoming the dominant vacation rental agent in Panama City Beach.