Byron Bay boutique agency, Kim Jones & Co, faced a choice: spend $10,000 on portal listings or try something different for a prestige property.
They chose different – and generated 22 hard inquiries on their website plus 21 additional on their Facebook page for just $2,500 with 95% being completely new to their database.
“It didn’t just bring in new eyes,” said Kim Jones, Director of Kim Jones & Co. “It also re-engaged people who’d seen the listing earlier and then dropped off. We saw past buyers come back into the conversation — which was gold for that type of property.”
It was the result of understanding how smart agencies can leverage vendor-paid advertising to build the brand equity that wins listings.
As portal costs rise and agents face increasing pressure to justify every dollar of VPA spend, a new strategy is emerging among Australia’s most successful agencies.
Instead of treating vendor-paid advertising as a necessary expense that disappears into portal pockets, leading agents are turning VPA into their most powerful listing-generation tool.
Trent Casson, Managing Director – Residential at View Media Group, has been watching this transformation accelerate.
His assessment is clear: “We’re seeing a fundamental shift from ‘take the two portals and whatever scraps you can get’ to ‘Acquire is must-have, and the vendor chooses between portals to complement it.'”
Jones echoed this sentiment, noting that her agency hasn’t abandoned portals entirely — but they’ve rebalanced priorities.
“We haven’t ‘ditched’ REA and Domain altogether, but we’re certainly reconsidering how and when we use them,” she said.
“For a recent $10 million listing in the Byron Bay hinterland, we decided not to go to portals at all initially. The vendor was open-minded because they’d previously built a business using social media. They were excited to try something smarter and more targeted.”
The Brand Reality
VMG’s recent path-to-purchase research revealed that almost half of vendors select their agent based on brand and reputation alone.
For large franchise networks with massive marketing budgets, this might seem like validation of their spend.
But for independent agencies and smaller players, it presents both a challenge and an opportunity.
“Everyone looks the same on REA. Everyone looks the same on Domain,” Casson explained.
“Where you can stand out in your core listing area is to have a sophisticated off-portal product, highly branded, hitting every eyeball that opens a device in your core listing area with your listings and your success.”
Jones agrees, saying that standing out in a new region was essential after leaving Sydney to start afresh in Byron.
“I didn’t know anyone when I arrived in Byron Bay,” she said.
“I used to dominate my patch in Sydney through repeat referral. But up here, it was about reintroducing myself and doing it with impact. Using Acquire has helped me become visible very quickly — I’ve now listed two $30 million-plus properties because of the brand awareness we’ve built.”
The traditional approach of hoping portal prominence translates to brand recognition becomes less effective as competition intensifies and costs rise.
Smart agents realise that true brand building happens when your name and face are consistently visible across multiple channels – not just when someone happens to search for properties in your area.
The White-Label Advantage
This is where view.resi’s Acquire platform fundamentally differs from traditional portal products.
Rather than building another company’s brand, Acquire operates as a white-label solution that puts the agent’s brand front and centre.
“You’ll only ever see Buxton Connect or Hodges Reach or Stone Digital,” Casson said, describing how major networks brand their Acquire programs.
“There’s a reason for that – to make sure we’re always pushing the agent brand forward and ensuring each agency feels they have a point of difference in the loungeroom pitch.”
When every agency uses the same portal boost products, no one has a competitive advantage.
But when an agency and agent can demonstrate their own branded campaign system, they can position themselves as more advanced and more committed to maximising exposure than competitors still relying purely on portal presence.
The VPA Transformation Strategy
The most sophisticated aspect of a modern VPA strategy isn’t just what it buys – it’s what it builds.
Casson describes Acquire as “a first-party data strategy underpinned by performance media, funded by vendors.”
When a vendor agrees to VPA spend, instead of that money disappearing into portal promotion with minimal brand benefit, it funds a comprehensive multi-channel campaign.
Every piece of creative features the agent’s branding.
Every click drives traffic back to the listing on the agency’s website, not to a portal.
Every inquiry goes directly into the agent’s CRM with full permissions for future contact.
“In six months’ time, Acquire could make up 80% of your web traffic,” Casson explained.
“That’s 80% of your web traffic now funded by your customers. In any other vertical, you’d have to pay for those eyeballs coming into your ecosystem.”
Jones says this is already happening for her business.
“We’re seeing traffic land straight on our website, not portals.
“It’s not just a visibility win — it’s about owning that traffic. These buyers enter our CRM with full permissions, so we can nurture them over time. And they’re not recycled leads. Many are completely fresh.”
This creates a compounding effect.
As the agency’s website traffic increases, powered by vendor funding, the site becomes more effective at generating organic inquiries, appraisal requests, and seller leads.
What starts as marketing for individual listings evolves into a powerful listing-generation engine.
The Independence Path
Beyond immediate listing generation, this strategy serves a longer-term strategic purpose: reducing dangerous dependence on portal leads.
Casson highlights the power of leverage, “When you can confidently tell the portals that your reliance on them has decreased from 90% to 60%, with 40% of inquiries now sourced from your own website via Acquire and other tools, you’re in a much stronger position to negotiate, especially regarding price increases.”‘
This isn’t anti-portal positioning – it’s about creating options.
When agencies can demonstrate multiple traffic sources, they can negotiate from strength rather than desperation.
The data supports this approach: agencies using Acquire report that their websites begin generating appraisal requests – something that previously only came from external sources.
Real-World Results
The Kim Jones & Co example demonstrates what’s possible when this strategy is executed well.
Rather than spend around $10,000 on portal listings and audience extension products for a challenging property in Byron Bay’s hinterland, the two-person agency invested $2,500 in an Acquire Pro campaign.
The campaign achieved 22 hard inquiries, 21 requests for pricing information, and 95% of prospects were completely new to their database.
Most importantly, they achieved this without any portal spend – proving that sophisticated off-portal marketing can find buyers that traditional channels miss.
“They’ve now got another 20 – 40 hot buyers on a $10 million home sitting in their database, every single one of those buyers now has a relationship with Kim Jones and are being nurtured up for their next property,” Casson said.
The Competitive Window
The window for gaining advantage through this approach may be limited.
As Casson notes, “We’ve been dragging people to this thinking, but the market’s starting to get it.”
“Some networks are moving towards making Acquire mandatory while allowing vendors to choose between portals – a fundamental inversion of traditional marketing spend.”
For independent agencies and smaller networks, this represents both urgency and opportunity.
Those who master vendor-funded brand building now will be positioned as sophisticated marketing partners when this approach becomes standard.
“There’s this perfect storm now of education, access, proof of concept, ease of execution and a pushback of trying to take back some control,” Casson observed.
Three Actions You Can Take This Week
Audit Your Marketing Strategy: Calculate what percentage of marketing spend builds your brand versus someone else’s. If you cannot clearly articulate how your current approach differs from that of your competitors, neither can your vendors.
Map Your Traffic Sources: Determine what percentage of your inquiries come from your own website versus portals. If it’s less than 30%, you’re dangerously dependent on rented audiences that you can’t control or remarket to.
Develop Your Sophistication Story: Create a clear narrative about your marketing approach that goes beyond portal placement. Vendors who understand the strategic value of multi-channel, brand-building campaigns will invest in larger budgets.
The Future of Vendor Attraction
The agents who recognise this shift early will build sustainable competitive advantages that transcend individual listings.
By turning vendor-paid advertising into a systematic brand-building and lead-generation engine, they create assets that appreciate over time rather than expenses that disappear into portal pockets.
“We’re trying to future-proof these businesses by getting them robust off the back of vendor-paid advertising – no brainer – through a platform that works amazingly for vendors,” Casson said.
For Australia’s real estate agents, the choice is becoming clear: continue renting audiences and hoping for portal prominence, or start building owned assets that generate listings independently.
The agents who act now will own their markets.
Those who wait will continue renting access to theirs.
“My mum, (real estate titan Di Jones) who taught me real estate, always said: you’ve got to have a point of difference. This is ours — for now. And when everyone catches up, we’ll find the next one.”
Ready to transform your VPA strategy? VMG’s view.resi solutions – including the Acquire platform – help agencies turn vendor-paid advertising into powerful listing-generation engines. Discover more at: https://view.com.au/viewresi/
