Gen-X, Millennial Opps: Guild Mortgage hires first-ever CMO (Score 59)

Sales lead: GM signals it is more committed to marketing by creating this position. 

• Guild Mortgage (GM) hired Adam O'Daniel as its first-ever CMO in November 2023.
• O'Daniel most recently served as marketing SVP of Open Mortgage.
• He is responsible for marketing, communications, and increasing brand awareness.

Target demographic: Gen-Xers & millennials

The company will likely:

• Return to 2022 spend levels
• Diversify digital ad placement
• Outsource some marketing duties to agency partners

Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: GM spent about $4.9k on digital display ads YTD, a huge decrease from $167.2k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• YTD data: 734.7k impressions via Facebook ads. 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend jumped from $5.6k in 2021 to $167.3k in 2022. 
• Ad location: It placed 100% of these ads directly onto facebook.com. 

Agency analysis:

• Opportunity: CMO hires are the number one sign of upcoming agency appointments.
  • We have not confirmed any current agency relationships for Guild.

Insight Sources: Digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics.