Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 20.01.2026 It is with great excitement that Mindshare and NAB’s Home Loans project “Helping Australians Find Home,” has been officially shortlisted for the prestigious APAC Search Awards in the ‘Best Use of Search – Finance (SEO)’ category.
The Power of Partnership
This achievement is a real highlight for our team and for Mindshare as a whole to see our collaborative effort, strategic thinking and dedication to performance recognised in such a prominent programme. For me, the collective driving force you can create and the magic it creates, is why I love what I do and this nomination truly highlights Mindshare’s commitment to delivering Good Growth for NAB and our other wonderful clients.
As Mindshare’s Group Experience Director, my role helps connect search, content, user experience and website insights to drive search and owned media growth brands. But the secret truly lies, in how you work with each other as partners and drive a vision together. Our strength really does come from our people. Our primary goal is always to drive outcomes that actively exceed our clients’ expectations in today’s fragmenting media landscape. Mindshare thrives on an environment where challenging conventional thinking is encouraged and celebrated. For us in search, this means consistency in pushing for more to transform a client’s ability to be discovered, into a powerful engine for growth. And that’s exactly what we did for our long-standing client NAB.
Navigating the Tides for First Home Buyers
The Australian financial sector presented challenges for prospective homeowners. Demand from first home buyers (FHBs) had plateaued since 2022, largely due to the combination of rising cost-of-living pressures and a gradual increase in interest rates. It was a tough landscape, fraught with uncertainty.
However, the introduction of the expanded First Home Guarantee scheme in 2025 created a new wave of opportunity. A fresh cohort of buyers emerged, many eager but with limited experience navigating the complex housing market. This was a critical moment for NAB, a bank committed to being “More Than Money.” It allowed us to collaboratively position them as a trusted resource for these aspiring homeowners – a source of clarity and guidance.
Our project “Meeting the Moment: Helping Australians Find Home,” aimed to connect with over 2 million Australians contemplating their first home purchase. Our goal was clear: capture a significant portion of the estimated 123,000 new FHB households projected for 2025. We understood that these buyers needed clarity, trusted guidance and reassurance. Our strategy focused on emerging financial avenues in search where NAB could demonstrate leadership and expertise for those struggling to start their journey on the property ladder.
Anchoring Ambition
Our core ambition was to achieve a +5% Year-on-Year (YoY) growth in SEO traffic for Home Loans and secure a +2% YoY increase in SEO Share of Voice. To achieve this, our SEO strategy was built on three dimensions designed for growth in search:
- Content Excellence: Identify priority topics, such as “Co-borrowing” and “Buying with Super” and craft content to address both traditional SEO and AI query modalities; six opportunities we identified across the financial year with NAB to focus on.
- Proactive Optimisation for AI Overviews: We enhanced page structures and collaborated with the content strategy team to improve discoverability, ensuring both existing and emerging search behaviours were satisfied across the outputs.
- Timely Engagement and Distribution: We anticipated growing search trends and developed content ahead of key peaks, to ensure NAB had a prominent voice during expected spikes in interest. This also included collaborate with the NAB corporate comms team to further ensure consistent messaging, through enhancements through NAB News.
To bring this strategy to life, we leveraged human-centric insights, gathered through close collaboration with NAB’s product and sales stakeholders. We optimised nine existing pages with AI search enhancements and developed six entirely new advice pages. These pages strategically addressed common anxieties and critical decision points throughout the home buying journey. This collaborative effort, involving Mindshare and NAB’s content, product, legal, and website teams, delivered timely, empowering information. It significantly differentiated NAB in a market witnessing volatile recovery, solidifying their position as a trusted advisor.
Achieving Strong Results
The impact of our partnership and strategic execution was significant. We exceeded our ambitions, generating significant un-forecasted value for NAB and successfully forging connections with first-time home buyers. NAB’s positioning as a reliable partner was strengthened:
- +18% YoY Traffic Growth for Home Loans: This was a significant outcome, exceeding our growth objectives. Both the newly created and optimised pages contributed to these uplifts in FY25, demonstrating the effectiveness of a targeted content and SEO strategy.
- +10% SEO Share of Voice (SoV) Achieved by Q3: We saw a substantial increase in share. This increase outperformed major competitors like ANZ and Westpac, contributing to NAB’s authority in the home lending search space.
- A High Volume of Bookings with NAB’s Home Loan Experts: Our efforts translated directly into action, demonstrating the campaign’s impact on conversion and customer engagement.
- Strong Commercial Return on Investment (ROI) for Appointment Bookings: This project delivered strong results for a content strategy of its nature, underscoring the commercial value generated by our collaborative approach.
This investment underscored our collective commitment to assisting Australians with one of life’s most significant financial decisions. Simultaneously, it reinforced NAB’s authority and leading position as a trusted advisor in the home lending market.
As Ben Murphy, Manager of Digital Sales (Home Lending) at NAB stated, “With dedicated resourcing and focus, we were able to respond and maintain SEO Share of Voice and relevance in an extremely competitive market. Thanks to the collaboration and strength of our partnership with Mindshare, we supported new home buyers with extensive and insightful content.” We didn’t just deliver results together – we empowered Australians. This perspective is accurate. Together, we delivered significant results and empowered Australians with the knowledge and confidence to pursue their first home.
Looking Ahead, Together
As we await the final results from the APAC Search Awards, we extend our gratitude to NAB for their trust and partnership, especially to Nhu Nguyen and Ben Murphy. Our appreciation also goes to the Mindshare Experience team – Keith Kilcourse and Esh Yogaraj – whose consistent effort and strategic contributions drove this achievement.
This nomination is a validation that together, we are contributing to the future of search for NAB. We are proud of what we have accomplished. This project stands as a representation of what “Good Growth” means to us at Mindshare and the impact a strong partnership with NAB can achieve.
Written by Elly Russell, Group Experience Director at Mindshare, a WPP Media Brand.
