TL;DR
- Integrated two acquisitions: Rita (AI lead gen with 2-way SMS, significant growth in users and revenue) and Plezzel (digital advertising, substantial market share growth)
- Built give-to-get lead generation funnels from zero, creating a new product category
- Grew OnTheHouse consumer portal organic traffic by 25%, establishing it as one of Australia's highest-traffic property portals through SEO and CRO strategy
The Problem
Cotality's revenue was overwhelmingly concentrated in RP Data, the flagship platform for real estate agents and valuers. The broader portfolio had accumulated through acquisition and organic growth but lacked coherent product strategy. OnTheHouse had consumer traffic but no monetisation path. Two acquisitions (Rita and Plezzel) brought new capabilities but sat as standalone products with no integration into the core ecosystem.
The underlying problem was structural: Cotality had the data, the distribution and the customer relationships to build a full growth stack (consumer property research through to agent lead generation and digital advertising) but the products weren't connected, the disciplines weren't established, and nobody was thinking about the portfolio as a funnel.
The Approach
I treated the growth portfolio as a connected system rather than a collection of standalone products. Consumer traffic (OnTheHouse) feeds lead generation (give-to-get funnels). Leads feed agent workflows (Rita). Agent marketing budgets feed digital advertising (Plezzel). Each product strengthens the others.
This required establishing GTM, SEO and CRO as portfolio-wide disciplines rather than product-specific activities, an approach I've since formalised in the GTM launch and growth playbook. A property consumer searching on OnTheHouse, an agent running a digital ad campaign on Plezzel, and a lead gen funnel converting visitors into vendor leads. These are different products but the same growth engine.
Key Decisions
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Full ownership of Rita following a leadership transition. Rita was acquired as an AI-powered lead generation platform with 2-way SMS prospecting. Following a leadership transition, I took full ownership rather than letting it drift. This meant understanding the AI models, the SMS orchestration, the agent workflows and the unit economics well enough to make product decisions directly. The result was significant growth in users and revenue, plus a GenAI product strategy that connected Rita's capabilities to the broader Cotality ecosystem.
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Replatform Plezzel, don't iterate. Plezzel was acquired as a digital advertising platform for real estate agents. The legacy architecture couldn't scale. Rather than incremental improvements, I made the call to replatform: rebuilding the product on modern infrastructure while preserving the agent-facing experience. The result was substantial market share growth.
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Give-to-get lead generation as a new product category. Cotality had consumer traffic and agent customers, but no product connecting the two. I built give-to-get lead generation funnels from zero: consumers get property insights, agents get qualified leads. This created a product category that didn't exist in the company's portfolio and gave agents a reason to engage with Cotality beyond RP Data.
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SEO and CRO as portfolio disciplines, not afterthoughts. OnTheHouse was one of Australia's highest-traffic property portals but treated SEO as a technical checkbox. I established SEO and CRO as strategic disciplines: technical SEO foundations, content strategy aligned to search intent, conversion optimisation on lead capture flows. Organic traffic grew 25%. More importantly, the traffic became commercially useful through the lead gen funnels.
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Portfolio-as-funnel thinking. The individual product metrics mattered, but the real value was in the connections. OnTheHouse traffic converted through lead gen funnels into Rita-powered agent prospecting, supported by Plezzel advertising. I structured product strategy around these connections rather than treating each product as independent.
Results
- Rita: significant growth in users and revenue following a leadership transition
- Plezzel: substantial market share growth through replatforming
- OnTheHouse: 25% organic traffic growth, one of Australia's highest-traffic property portals
- Lead gen funnels: new product category created from zero
- GTM, SEO and CRO established as portfolio-wide disciplines
- Connected growth engine spanning consumer research, lead generation and agent advertising
What I'd Do Differently
- Stand up a dedicated growth team earlier. The growth disciplines were initially distributed across product squads, which meant SEO and CRO competed with feature work for attention. A small, focused team would have accelerated the flywheel.
- Instrument the full-funnel metrics from day one. We tracked each product's metrics independently for too long before connecting them into a portfolio-level view. The funnel narrative was clear in strategy but took longer than it should have to materialise in dashboards.
Tech Stack
This was portfolio product leadership, not a solo build. The relevant context was organisational:
Products: Rita (AI lead gen, 2-way SMS), Plezzel (digital advertising), OnTheHouse (consumer portal), give-to-get lead gen funnels
Disciplines: GTM strategy, SEO, CRO, M&A product integration, portfolio strategy
Scope: Growth portfolio within enterprise-scale P&L, serving real estate agents, brokers, consumers and advertisers