Using Roy Morgan Helix Personas and WorkSpace™ Simonds Homes generates 2.3x more conversions and 40% cheaper leads

Roy Morgan’s Helix Personas and WorkSpace™ gave Simonds Homes and their digital agency Sonar Group the precision they needed to transform their acquisition strategy into a powerful “right people, right message, right suburb” engine for growth. By moving beyond broad demographics and activating Helix Personas Pixel data, CRM-linked Persona profiles and Roy Morgan Live Mapping, they precisely identified the highest-value Helix Personas and postcode hotspots for Simonds home buyers. This powered a high-intent “ideal Simonds customer” seed audience, enriched with Helix Persona-informed copy aligned to the values and life stages that matter most in the home-building journey, and motivation-led creative designed to increase response and drive down cost.

The outcome: a hard-hitting, psychographic-led strategy that slashed wasted impressions and delivered more than twice the conversions at almost half the cost.

The Challenge

As AI reshapes digital advertising, Simonds Homes wanted to move beyond broad “home buyer” targeting and answer a sharper growth question: “Who are our best customers – and how can we find more people like them?”

They set out to:

• Understand what truly drives their best customers’ decisions
• Reach those customers earlier in the home-buying journey
• Serve more relevant, emotionally resonant messages instead of generic home-buyer ads

The Hypothesis

Simonds, together with their digital agency Sonar Group, believed that combining Helix Personas with AI-driven creative could outperform their BAU campaigns.

They hypothesised that:

1. AI-selected postcodes would reduce wasted impressions
2. Persona-informed copy would better match values, motivations and life stage
3. Motivation-led creative would improve CTR and reduce CPL

In short: the right people, with the right message, in the right suburbs should deliver stronger and more efficient leads.

The Solution: Building a Persona-led Foundation

To build this foundation, Simonds and Sonar first identified their highest-value Helix Personas using three inputs:

1. Helix Personas Pixel data from the Simonds website
2. Persona profiles from CRM, tagged against past leads and customers
3. Geographical hotspots identified with Roy Morgan’s Live Mapping tool

These priority Personas formed a seed audience of “ideal Simonds customers”.

Configuring Roy Morgan WorkSpace™

Roy Morgan’s AI-driven WorkSpace™ engine was then configured with:

• A Simonds company overview and brand context
• Brand tone of voice and messaging guidelines
• The Helix Personas seed audience
• Campaign details for Wizard Quiz – Simonds’ lifestyle-based home finder used to generate leads

From this, WorkSpace™ automatically produced:

• Targeting recommendations: high-value postcode clusters, interests, lifestyle affinities
• Persona-aligned ad copy for Meta and Google, tuned to each channel’s best practices

This shifted Simonds from demographics-based campaigns (“home buyers in Victoria”) to psychographic, motivation-led campaigns (e.g. “family-first buyers seeking design flexibility”).

Activating the Campaign

The month-long campaign centred on Simonds’ Wizard Quiz and used WorkSpace™ outputs to guide both who to target and how to speak to them.

The messaging leaned into:

• Emotional benefits: “unlock your dream home”
• Personalisation: “personalised design options based on your lifestyle”
• Confidence and guidance: “we’ll match your lifestyle to the right home design”

Google Ads

• Launched a new campaign using WorkSpace™-generated targeting and copy
• Applied AI-identified postcode clusters to focus on high-propensity areas
• Ran with a lower budget than the existing “Always-On” activity to minimise risk
• Success was measured on efficiency metrics: CPC, CTR, CPL, CVR

Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram)

A structured A/B test was set up:

• BAU ad set
  – Targeting: Victoria-wide, broad home-buyer messaging
  – Standard creative and copy

• WorkSpace™ ad set
  – Targeting: top 100 WorkSpace™-recommended postcodes
  – Creative: top 5 Persona-aligned copy variants generated by WorkSpace™

• Benchmarks: Lead volume, CPL & CTR

The Results

Headline Outcomes

• 2.3× higher conversion rate on Google Ads (WorkSpace™ vs Always-On)
• 40% cheaper cost per lead overall (Meta + Google combined)

On Google Ads, conversion rate was the standout metric:

• WorkSpace™ CVR: 15.43% vs. Always-On CVR: 6.81%

Despite running on a lower budget, the WorkSpace™-led campaign delivered substantially more efficient performance.

On Meta, CTR and CPM were similar between BAU and WorkSpace™ campaigns, but the WorkSpace™ variant:

• Converted more users
• Delivered leads at a lower CPL

This showed the impact of:

• Better-qualified, higher-intent audiences via Helix Persona targeting
• Persona-aligned, motivation-led messaging rather than generic homebuyer copy

The campaign also broadened reach into under-served segments – audiences that fit Simonds’ best-customer profile but were not strongly reached by previous broad targeting.

What the Client Said

Jade Catanese, Brand Marketing Manager, Simonds Homes
“Roy Morgan WorkSpace™ has enabled us to build far more accurate and relevant campaigns, which has noticeably improved both our conversion rates and lead quality. In a landscape where social media advertising is increasingly saturated, having this level of precision is essential. It helps us stay ahead of the game, stand out, and remain competitive.”

Scott Heron, Managing Director, Sonar Group
“The real breakthrough for Sonar was the hyper-local targeting capability. By focusing on postcode clusters where Helix Personas were strongest, we saw significantly higher conversion rates using the WorkSpace™ Copy Engine to deliver the campaign messaging.”

Why It Matters

This collaboration between Simonds Homes, Sonar Group and Roy Morgan shows how:

• AI + rich audience insight can meaningfully outperform “broad but safe” targeting
• Psychographic and motivation-led campaigns can lift performance even in saturated channels
• Hyper-local, Persona-driven targeting can deliver both better and cheaper leads

For brands in competitive, considered-purchase categories like home building, this case study illustrates a practical path to:

• Cut wasted spend
• Improve lead quality
• Build a sustainable, data-driven growth engine anchored in who your best customers really are.

If you would like more information or a demonstration on Helix Personas or WorkSpace™, please contact askroymorgan@roymorgan.com.

About Sonar Group
Sonar is a leading Australian digital marketing consultancy, working with clients to create tailored roadmaps and deliver measurable growth.
Visit the Sonar Group website here: https://sonargroup.com.au

About Simonds Homes
Simonds Homes is one of the leading and largest homebuilders in Australia.
Visit the Simonds Homes website here: https://www.simonds.com.au