AIM

Introduction

AIM is a social media advertising automation tool for the Real Estate industry in Australia and New Zealand. It was brought into our portfolio as part of a merger with Campaigntrack. Our focus was to overhaul the underlying technology and ensure a smooth integration into our existing tech stack, ultimately making it a core part of our parent company Domain’s product suite. AIM Digital provides data-driven marketing solutions that empower businesses to optimize their digital presence, improve lead acquisition, and drive measurable sales results improvements. The platform is tailored to deliver facebook and google ad placements, that are easy to create and designed for operational efficiency.

Background

The acquisition of AIM Digital under the Campaigntrack merger presented an opportunity to overhaul a high revenue but high operationally complex and expensive product to run. The platform, though successful in its own right, lacked the technical efficiency and scalability needed to operate long term under Realbase and eventually into Domain’s broader product suite. Our primary mission was to revitalize AIM Digital’s technology, simplify administrative processes, and make the platform a more robust and flexible solution for digital marketing management.

The challenge was not just to enhance the product itself but also to position it within a larger ecosystem, ultimately contributing to significant financial growth. We embarked on a journey to modernize AIM Digital, enabling it to drive a huge increase in Domain’s EBITDA, amounting to an approximately $30 million increase in earnings.

Challenges

1. Outdated Technology and Scalability Issues: The original technology underpinning AIM Digital was outdated and inefficient, it could only receive orders from one of our two main products and was a nightmare to manage, troubleshoot and scale. Preventing smooth integration into our tech stack and causing operational bottlenecks. A complete technical overhaul, new admin interfaces and a brand new way of managing clients and operations was necessary to align the product with our future vision and support growth.

2. Complex Operational Management: - The administration and operations teams faced difficulties in managing processes due to cumbersome workflows within the application. Streamlining the platform to make it more user-friendly and efficient for internal teams was a key focus. Our goal was to simplify the interface and provide better management tools for operations teams.

3. Integration into Domain’s Product Suite: - Initially the project was to consolidate our operations into and make accessible to Realhub and Campaigntrack products, however after acquisition by Domain the project had to be taken further. The challenge was not just technical but also strategic, as we needed to align the product with the company’s long-term goals. And the initial rebuilding and re-architecting of the product enabled this new requirement.

Solutions

Complete Technology Overhaul

We undertook a full re-engineering of AIM Digital’s underlying technology, bringing it up to modern standards and ensuring it could scale efficiently within our tech stack. This included refactoring code, optimizing infrastructure, and implementing robust security and performance features that would support long-term growth.

Redesigned Administration and Process Management

The number of jobs and complexity of the campaign breakdowns meant an advanced and deeply customisable/configurable system was required. Accomodating products, pricelists, ad channels, ad-set configurations and more. The end result was a customer saw nothing but a simple line item to order in their market, the underpinnings of which were a massively networked and complex layered system of settings and configurations, that had to be adaptable and unique to changing business initiatives.

Seamless Integration with Domain

AIM Digital was fully integrated into Domain’s product suite, allowing for cross-platform data sharing, better user experiences, and a more unified customer journey. This strategic move enabled Domain to offer AIM Digital as part of its digital marketing services, boosting the overall value proposition and profitability of the business.

Impact & Experience

• Significant Financial Impact: The technological and operational improvements we made to AIM Digital contributed to huge increases in Domain’s EBITDA. This financial growth underscored the success of the integration and the value of our work in transforming the platform.

• Operational Efficiency and Team Empowerment: The redesigned administration interface enabled internal teams to manage their workflows more effectively, reducing operational overhead and empowering staff to focus on higher-value tasks. These process improvements translated into faster campaign execution and a better overall experience for AIM Digital’s clients.

• Scalability and Future-Proofing: The technical overhaul ensured that AIM Digital is now a scalable, future-proof platform. With a modern tech stack and more robust infrastructure, the platform is well-equipped to handle the demands of a growing client base and evolving market trends.

• Alignment with Strategic Goals: Almost by chance, correctly anticipating the value of the product and the restrictions the original architecture was causing, our work enabled AIM Digital to become a core component of Domain’s digital marketing strategy, their eventual implementation and use of the product was a testament to this.