Rocket Mortgage’s $68m/Month Marketing Strategy (and SEO Flaw)

Rocket Mortgage, a major player in the US mortgage market, has seen significant growth, reaching $5.1 billion in revenue last year. This impressive 34% year-over-year increase is fueled by a substantial digital marketing strategy. While their approach is largely successful, there’s a notable flaw that could be costing them millions.

Rocket’s Clear Value Proposition

Rocket Mortgage excels at clearly communicating the value they offer, not just for their business overall, but for each specific product and service. Instead of generic calls to action (CTAs), they highlight specific benefits. For example, a button might say "Save up to $10,000" rather than just "Looking for a mortgage." Similarly, their real estate arm offers "Get 0.5% back" instead of a simple "Sell your home."

This clarity extends to their website’s product explanations, which are simple, customer-focused, and concise. They understand that a clear value proposition is key to conversion.

Key Takeaways:

• Clarity is King: Clearly state the specific benefits of your products and services in your calls to action.
• Customer Focus: Ensure all website content is simple, easy to understand, and centered around the customer’s needs.
• Value Proposition Accelerator: If your value proposition isn’t clear, consider a structured process to define it, which can significantly improve conversion rates and lead quality.

Driving Traffic: Organic Search and Content

Rocket Mortgage drives traffic through several channels, with direct traffic being the largest, likely due to repeat customers and brand marketing efforts. However, the fastest-growing companies often gain speed by reaching new audiences.

Their non-direct traffic comes from organic search, referrals, and paid search. Organic search is a significant driver, bringing in about 2.3 million monthly visits, though this number is trending down. A large portion of this traffic, around 1.4 million visits, comes from their "Learn" section.

This section features informational content on various mortgage and home-related topics, such as loan types, home construction costs, and market conditions. These articles are well-researched, often attributed to staff, which is important for credibility in a regulated industry like finance. This content strategy is effective for attracting informational searches and can also perform well in new AI search formats.

The Commercial Keyword Gap

Despite their strong informational content, Rocket Mortgage has a significant weakness: they are not effectively ranking for crucial commercial keywords. These are terms that indicate a user is ready to make a purchase, such as "mortgage calculator" or "mortgage lenders."

While they might appear in "People Also Ask" sections for some commercial terms, they are missing from the main search results for many high-value queries. This is a costly mistake, as it forces them to spend heavily on paid search and affiliate commissions to reach customers they could potentially attract organically for free.

Why Commercial Keywords Matter:

• High Intent: Users searching for commercial terms are typically further along in the buying process.
• Revenue Generation: Ranking for these terms directly leads to more qualified leads and sales.
• AI Search Impact: Even with the rise of AI, users still turn to search engines for commercial intent queries.

Rocket’s "mortgage calculator" page, for instance, ranks poorly (position 40) and has a weak backlink profile compared to competitors like Nerd Wallet, which ranks highly for similar terms with a strong backlink profile.

Furthermore, Rocket lacks dedicated, optimized pages for core commercial terms like "mortgages." Their "buy a home" page is unfocused, trying to cover too many services, and their lead capture forms lack the necessary content to rank organically.

Paid Search and Referral Strategies

Rocket Mortgage spends around $4 million a month on paid search, a significant but reduced amount from previous periods. Much of this budget is used to defend their brand name due to competition.

Their paid search landing pages are often very basic, directing users straight to a form with minimal additional information or credibility builders. This is a bold strategy, especially when applied to informational queries, as it may lead to wasted ad spend.

The most frustrating aspect of their paid search strategy is that it’s largely a consequence of their organic search shortcomings. They are paying to reach users who they could be attracting organically if they targeted commercial keywords effectively.

However, Rocket also employs a strong referral strategy. They are featured prominently on other high-ranking sites, like Nerd Wallet, for commercial terms. This means that even if a user doesn’t click on Rocket’s own organic listing, they might still find Rocket through a recommendation on another site. This strategy is also being amplified by their acquisition of Redfin, which is expected to drive significant referral traffic.

Key Takeaways:

• Don’t Neglect Commercial Search: Focus on ranking for terms that indicate purchase intent, as this is where revenue is generated.
• Balance Informational and Commercial Content: While informational content builds authority, commercial content drives sales.
• Referral Traffic is Good, But Not a Replacement: Use third-party mentions and referrals to supplement your own organic rankings, not as a primary strategy.
• Optimize Landing Pages: Ensure your landing pages are tailored to the user’s search intent and provide necessary information and credibility.

Conclusion: Lessons Learned

Rocket Mortgage’s marketing strategy demonstrates that even with a massive budget, there are always areas for improvement. Their success in clear value proposition and informational content is commendable. However, their failure to dominate commercial search terms is a significant missed opportunity, forcing them to spend millions on paid channels.

The core lesson for businesses is the importance of targeting commercial keywords. While informational content is valuable, it’s the commercial searches that directly drive revenue. By focusing on creating optimized pages for these terms and building a strong backlink profile, companies can attract more qualified leads organically.

Even if you’re not executing perfectly, like Rocket Mortgage, significant growth is still possible. However, addressing these SEO gaps can lead to much more efficient and cost-effective customer acquisition. For businesses looking to improve their search marketing, understanding and implementing these strategies can make a substantial difference.