Mortgage marketing has been hooked on a single lever — rate — for far too long. In a category as cyclical and commoditized as ours, chasing a number that whipsaws with macro forces is a race to the bottom. The shift that matters now is from price-forward messages to people-first experiences: trust, guidance, and partnership across the life of the loan. That’s where durable value and differentiation live.
Over the past decade, borrowers moved from print ads and branch lobbies to search engines and social feeds. Like home search before it, lender discovery migrated online, with all the benefits and pitfalls of comparison culture. Yes, consumers can scan lender walls and aggregator lists in seconds. They can also be misled by oversimplified “best of” clickbait roundups. The lesson for marketers isn’t to fight the internet; it’s to pair digital discovery with human guidance and community presence, because the majority of our lending volume still originates from relationship-driven retail channels.
Here’s the hard truth: The daily fluctuation of rates rarely outweighs the value of a lender who invests in your success as a homeowner. Marketers should help consumers see beyond the spreadsheet to a lender who will still be there after closing, who services their loans, who makes real humans available when complexity hits. In our own work, we’ve doubled down on human touch even as AI and other technology reshapes research and creative development.
On creative, the pandemic cracked open the craft. Distributed agency teams, broader rosters of production partners, and lower barriers to high-quality execution mean great ideas can come from anywhere, and be produced more efficiently, without cutting the corners that actually make the work sing (casting, directing, editorial). That democratization has raised the floor, but cracking the ceiling still belongs to brands willing to sweat the details.
A well-positioned, well-understood brand matters, especially when rates, inventory, and headlines don’t cooperate. Performance marketing will always have a seat at the table, but a category built solely on cost-per-lead is fragile. Sustained brand investment lowers acquisition costs across channels over time and gives borrowers a reason to choose you when every list looks the same. It’s also why rate-only advertising struggles at scale: rates move but brand endures.
At New American Funding, we recently launched a campaign to celebrate the moment a buyer goes from “Can I?” to “I am.” It’s intentionally not rate advertising. It’s a commitment to empowerment and partnership across the journey. We designed it to flex with the market — from purchase to refi, cash-offer solutions, and beyond — because single-note platforms snap under cyclical pressure.
Looking ahead, AI will supercharge personalization. We are not far from dynamically rendered ads and on-site experiences tailored in milliseconds to an individual’s context. That power demands responsibility and a renewed emphasis on trust, transparency, and permission. Use AI to clarify, not to corner. Use data to serve, not to surveil.
If that’s the arc, what does it mean for the work on our desks right now — briefs, budgets, and brand decisions we’re making? Here are seven practical moves I’ve found useful for teams navigating today’s mortgage market:
- Stop competing on rate alone. Reframe value around guidance, servicing, and lifetime partnership. All the things that endure when the market doesn’t.
- Pair digital discovery with human presence. Let search and comparison tools do their job and meet them with retail, community, and loan officer relationships that close the trust gap.
- Invest in brand to strengthen performance. Treat awareness as a cost-reduction engine across every acquisition channel, not a “nice to have.” A well-funded, consistent brand investment protects against short term budget shifts.
- Build elastic creative platforms. Choose ideas that flex across product cycles including purchase, refi, and cash offers so you don’t go dark when volumes dip.
- Sweat the craft, even in a democratized era. Take advantage of broader production options without sacrificing the director, editor, and casting choices that make work distinctive.
- Let data guide frequency, not fear. Monitor reach and frequency rigorously. Most campaigns under-expose long before they fatigue.
- Adopt AI with a human-first ethos. Embrace personalization while holding the line on clarity, consent, and usefulness. That’s how technology earns trust in a high-stakes decision.
If there’s a single through-line in this evolution, it’s simple: we win on care and commitment. Not as a sentiment, but as a system. From brand storytelling to media choices, from first click to first payment, brands that help people feel seen, equipped, and supported will outlast every rate cycle and outpace every leaderboard. That’s the work.
Andrew Strickman is the Chief Marketing Officer, New American Funding.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: [email protected].
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