Marketplace case study

Buyer signups up 3.1×, at about a third the cost

HLRBO. How we found the channels that actually fed a two-sided marketplace, and made the unit economics work.

Why it mattersMarketplaces stall when a user costs more than they're worth. We grew buyer signups 3.1× while cutting cost per signup to about a third, so liquidity could finally build.

The resultsMarketplace
Buyer signups3.1× in two quarters
Cost per signupDown 64%
Supplier activationUp 47%
Match rate38% to 61%
PaybackUnder 60 days
The situation

Where they started.

HLRBO runs a two-sided rental marketplace, property owners on one side and renters on the other, and when we plugged in it had supply but not nearly enough demand. Paid was spending against the wrong intent, the content didn't speak to either side, and nobody could say which channel actually produced a match rather than just a signup. The goal was blunt: feed the demand side at a cost the unit economics could carry, and measure everything against matches, not signups.

From the founder

“We'd been pouring money into the wrong side of the market. Once that flipped, the matches started compounding on their own.”

Founder, HLRBO

Every engagement is different; results shown are not a guarantee. How we present results

What we ran

What we did about it.

The 30-Day Plug-In audit's biggest finding was that the marketplace's two sides needed two different machines, and it had been running one. The plan split acquisition by side, rebuilt tracking around the match, and went hunting for the search and social pockets where renter intent was already concentrated. It is the kind of work we run for founder-led startups.

01Split acquisition by side, with separate channels and messaging for buyers and suppliers
02Rebuilt tracking around the match, not the raw signup
03Found the high-intent search and social pockets that fed demand
04Added lifecycle work that pulled new buyers to a first match faster
KilledSupplier-side paid. Supply was never the constraint, so the budget moved to demand.
Day 1Plug-In: audit, access, baseline
Day 30Buyer-side campaigns live
WeeklyCadence: working session, Friday update
Day 90Rebuild: spend re-weighted to matches

Buyer signups grew 3.1× over two quarters at roughly a third of the old cost per signup, and because tracking was rebuilt around the match, supplier activation and match rate climbed with it. Payback came in under 60 days, the number that finally let HLRBO scale spend with confidence.

More of the work: Scispot and Benchmark Insurance Group

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