How we did it.

BCO

Small Business
Research

The Blair and Co. proprietary segment catalogue is a library of 67 custom-built audience profiles developed to serve real estate developers, builders, rental operators, and retailers across Calgary and Western Canada. Each segment is built around a named persona with a distinct demographic profile, lifestyle narrative, product type mapping, interest and hobby categorization, and target gender and age range. The catalogue gives Blair and Co. clients the ability to move beyond broad geographic targeting and build campaigns that speak directly to the specific buyer type most likely to convert, with messaging tailored to their actual motivations, life stage, and purchase triggers

Most digital advertising in the Calgary real estate and new home market runs against a generic audience defined by age range, postal code, and household income. That approach generates traffic. It does not generate the right traffic. A 35-year-old professional woman living in the Beltline who is thinking about her first condo purchase has almost nothing in common with a 35-year-old tradesperson who just got his journeyman certificate and wants somewhere to park his truck. Both are in the same age bracket. Both live in Calgary. Both show up in a standard demographic targeting model as the same person. Blair and Co. built the proprietary segment catalogue to solve that problem, developing a library of named audience profiles that captured the real diversity of buyer motivations in the Calgary market, from the At Long Last empty nester finally doing what they want with their equity, to the Big Rig tradesperson looking for somewhere low maintenance between work rotations, to the Status Symbol couple who want their home to reflect everything they have worked for. The vision was a research asset that could be applied to any real estate or consumer marketing program to replace broad targeting with precise, motivation-led audience selection.

Methodology

Blair and Co. developed each segment in the catalogue from a combination of consumer behaviour data, digital advertising audience research, Calgary market demographic analysis, and the accumulated field intelligence from years of running targeted campaigns across real estate, new home, rental, and retail categories in the Calgary and Alberta market. Each segment was built to be directly actionable within Facebook, Instagram, Google Display, and Google Search advertising platforms, with interest and behaviour categories mapped to the specific targeting parameters available within each platform. Segments were organized around the life stage and purchase trigger most relevant to a real estate or consumer purchase decision, with product type mapping telling clients which home types each segment was most likely to be in the market for, spanning condos, rentals, townhomes, laned homes, single family attached, single family detached, estate homes, acreages, and resort properties. Two segments, Cheapskates and Getting Ready to Sell, were built specifically to be used as exclusion audiences, helping clients reduce wasted spend by suppressing ads to buyers unlikely to convert or likely to generate low-margin transactions.

Process

The segment catalogue was developed over multiple years and client engagements, with each new client research project contributing additional nuance and refinement to the profiles. Each segment begins with a first-person lifestyle narrative written from the buyer’s perspective, giving creative teams an immediate understanding of the tone, language, and emotional triggers relevant to that audience. The demographic profile covers target gender, age range, product type, and interest categories. The geographic targeting maps developed for individual client engagements showed where each segment was concentrated in Calgary and the surrounding communities of Airdrie, Cochrane, Chestermere, and Okotoks, giving media teams the geographic precision to concentrate spend where each segment was most densely populated. The full catalogue of 67 segments was assembled as a client-facing reference document used in new business presentations, client strategy sessions, and as the briefing foundation for segmented campaign builds across Facebook, Google, and programmatic display channels.

Outcome

The Blair and Co. proprietary segment catalogue gives clients a research and targeting asset that most agencies cannot replicate from a standing start. The depth and specificity of the profiles, built from real market intelligence rather than demographic assumptions, means that a developer, builder, or leasing team briefing Blair and Co. on a new project can move directly from product description to audience selection without the weeks of research that a generic agency would need to understand who the right buyer actually is. The catalogue has been applied across real estate, new home, rental, storage, lighting retail, and other consumer categories, demonstrating that the underlying logic of motivation-led segmentation transfers beyond the residential property market to any category where the buyer’s life stage and purchase trigger are more predictive of conversion than their age and postal code.

Skills Used

  • Custom Audience Segmentation
  • Proprietary Segment Development
  • Consumer Behaviour Research
  • Persona Development
  • Facebook Audience Targeting
  • Google Display Targeting
  • Google Search Targeting
  • Life Stage Mapping
  • Purchase Trigger Analysis
  • Product Type Mapping
  • Geographic Targeting
  • Exclusion Audience Development
  • Real Estate Market Research
  • Calgary Consumer Research
  • Campaign Targeting Strategy
  • Creative Brief Development

Same Day Quote

Time matters. Tell us what you need, we’ll book a quick call, and once the scope is clear, you’ll have a same-day quote.

More case studies

Real results for construction and trades businesses across Calgary and Western Canada. Our case studies show how SEO, Google Ads, and clear brand positioning work together to generate consistent inquiries, improve visibility, and bring in better projects. Each example breaks down how we build marketing systems that attract the right clients, reinforce credibility, and support steady, long-term growth for contractors and trades companies.
Research

//

Salesmatic
Research

//

Salesmatic
Brochures & Collaterals

//

Geib and Co

Take a look at more of our research work.

We create brand experiences that stay with people, not just pass in front of them.

It starts with understanding what actually makes your product valuable and where that intersects with what your customers care about. From there, we build messaging that lands clearly and consistently across every channel.

The outcome is simple. More qualified leads. More sales. And every once in a while, work that gets recognized for doing it right.

Research

//

Salesmatic
Research

//

Salesmatic
Research

//

Salesmatic
Research

//

Salesmatic
Research

//

BCO
Research

//

Cherish Storage Solutions
Research

//

Signature Lighting
Research

//

Competitive Report