About Pacaso
Co-founded by Austin Allison and Spencer Rascoff in 2020, Pacaso® is a technology-enabled marketplace that modernizes real estate co-ownership, enabling families to effortlessly own a luxury vacation home and travel with confidence. Pacaso curates private residences in premier destinations across the U.S. and internationally, with exceptional amenities, luxury interiors and expert design. After purchase, Pacaso professionally manages the home, provides white-glove scheduling and personalized service, and ensures seamless resale.
Ellie's Bio
Ellie Henningsgaard is the Senior Manager of Lifecycle Marketing at Pacaso, where she designs data-driven campaigns that guide prospective buyers and owners through every stage of their vacation home journey. With a focus on automation, personalization, and multi-channel engagement, she works to ensure each interaction adds real value—whether it’s introducing new buyers to Pacaso’s co-ownership model or keeping owners connected to their home.
With nine years of experience across multiple marketing disciplines—primarily in the real estate tech space—Ellie thrives on collaboration, innovation, and finding new ways to enhance the customer experience. A proud Seattle local, she spends most of her time outside of work exploring the outdoors and chasing after her two mini Aussies.
Fun Facts
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Featured Quote
We chose Iterable because it truly empowers the marketing team to move quickly—testing, personalizing, and optimizing campaigns without needing constant engineering support.
Interview
When and how did you get your start in marketing?
I got my start in marketing somewhat by accident, through event planning. I landed a role as a corporate event coordinator and quickly realized I was most drawn to the strategic aspects—things like planning for impact and measuring results. Over time, that interest led me to transition internally into an integrated marketing role, and eventually into lifecycle marketing.
What brings you joy in your role?
What brings me joy in my role is how cross-functional lifecycle marketing is. One day I might be fine-tuning the perfect on-brand CTA, the next I’m partnering with engineers to create a seamless product-to-marketing experience, or gathering feedback from sales on what’s resonating with different audiences. I get to collaborate with nearly every team at Pacaso, which keeps things dynamic and interesting.
What tips, tricks, or pieces of advice would give a new Iterable user?
Iterable has so many features and capabilities that it can feel overwhelming at first. My advice is to focus on understanding and optimizing your core programs before trying to do everything at once. For us, that’s been email—we started there and have gradually expanded into other channels.
What led you to choose Iterable over others in the market?
We chose Iterable because it truly empowers the marketing team to move quickly—testing, personalizing, and optimizing campaigns without needing constant engineering support. That level of independence was a big factor for us. It allows us to be more agile and responsive, which is essential for a start-up.
Besides Iterable, what are the other tools in your marketing toolkit that you can’t live without?
Canva has been a game changer for us. As a start-up, having the ability to quickly create on-brand assets for multiple channels has been a huge time-saver and helps us move fast without sacrificing quality.
What do you think will be the next big thing in the marketing industry (AI, automation, new channels?)
Multi-channel campaigns are only going to get more complex as consumer behavior continues to shift. Younger generations, in particular, don’t engage with email the same way older ones do, so lifecycle marketing will need to adapt to continue to drive impact. That means meeting audiences where they already are—whether it’s WhatsApp, SMS, push notifications, or whatever the next big platform turns out to be. The real challenge (and opportunity) will be creating cohesive, personalized experiences across all of these touchpoints, without overwhelming the user.
What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?
My dogs. I’ve got two mini aussies and the term “velcro dog” was invented for them. They spend most of the day napping in my office.
If you weren’t a marketer, what would you be?
I originally planned to be a farmer so if this doesn’t work out, you’ll find me wearing overalls, chasing some goats.
Campaign Portfolio
How Pacaso Personalizes Home Recommendations
Objective
Pacaso aimed to optimize its home recommendation email campaign by leveraging dynamic personalization, ensuring that property listings align with users’ location and budget preferences to drive higher engagement.
Summary
One of Pacaso's core programs is an email campaign where they share new or updated homes with their audience. They've tested nearly every aspect of this program, including frequency, how they recommend specific homes, proximity of the home to the user’s preferred destination, and messaging. Currently, personalization is based on both inferred and explicitly provided location and budget preferences. This level of personalization is made possible through Iterable’s Catalog, which enables precise matching of user data with Pacaso’s property inventory.
Results
One key test focused on the proximity of recommended homes to a user’s preferred location. Emails featuring properties within a 25-mile radius resulted in a 2.41% higher open rate and a 2.45% higher click rate compared to a 75-mile radius. While the 25-mile version reached 15% fewer users, the improved engagement rate demonstrated that a more targeted approach was worth the tradeoff.
Personalized Property Alerts: Matching Buyers with Their Dream Homes
Pacaso’s New Arrivals email campaign dynamically personalizes home listings based on a user’s location and preferences. By leveraging Iterable’s Catalog, Pacaso ensures that each recipient sees properties tailored to their interests, whether explicitly provided or inferred from engagement behavior.
In cases where preference data is unavailable, high-intent users still engage with a broader selection of listings. A/B testing on proximity has shown that narrowing the radius of recommended homes leads to higher open and click rates, demonstrating the value of hyper-targeted personalization.
This campaign helps Pacaso increase engagement and connect potential buyers with luxury co-ownership opportunities that match their needs.
