CRE Daily

CRE Daily delivers commercial real estate news to over 65,000+ subscribers, including investors, developers, brokers, and business leaders. Their flagship newsletter gives busy professionals the most critical industry news in five minutes every morning. The newsletter was thriving, but as subscriber numbers grew and advertisers took notice, Jordan Berger and his team recognized they were outgrowing their existing platform.

CRE Daily faced a problem familiar to successful media companies: their growth had outpaced their infrastructure.

The existing website couldn’t deliver the reading experience their audience deserved. Navigation was clunky. Finding archived content was frustrating. The design didn’t reflect CRE Daily’s position as an industry leader. Readers who loved the newsletter were underwhelmed when they visited the site.

But the bigger operational headache was advertising. CRE Daily’s business model depends on sponsored content and partnerships. They needed a way to manage, schedule, and display sponsored articles on their own terms. The existing setup required manual workarounds for every sponsorship. Each campaign meant extra hours of coordination, and there was no clean way to rotate sponsors or set expiration dates.

They also needed their brand to grow up. The visual identity that worked when they were scrappy and small didn’t communicate the authority they had earned. Advertisers were paying premium rates for access to their audience, but the website didn’t look premium.

When we started working with CRE Daily, we didn’t jump straight into wireframes and code. We started by understanding their business.

Media companies often come to agencies asking for a “new website.” But a website is just a container. The real questions are: How does your audience engage with your content? What makes your business model work? Where are the friction points that cost you time, money, or opportunities?

For CRE Daily, we identified three priorities that would drive every decision.

First, the reading experience needed to be effortless. Their audience is time-pressed executives who want to get in, get informed, and get out. We stripped away unnecessary complexity and focused the entire interface on content consumption. That meant fewer clicks to reach articles, cleaner typography, and a layout that puts the journalism front and center. We deprioritized features like complex filtering and social engagement tools that would have added development time without serving the core use case.

Second, the sponsorship system required deeper thinking. We mapped out exactly how their advertising relationships worked: different sponsors, different articles, different timeframes, different messaging. Most agencies would have built a simple ad placement system. But CRE Daily’s sponsors aren’t just advertisers. They are partners who deserve visibility without overwhelming the reader experience. We designed dedicated sponsor sections on article pages that feel integrated rather than intrusive. The key decision was building campaign logic directly into the CMS, so their team could assign sponsors to specific articles, set start and end dates, and let the system handle rotation automatically when deadlines pass.

Third, the brand needed to communicate credibility without feeling corporate. Commercial real estate is a relationship business. We worked with Jordan’s team to develop an identity that balances authority with approachability. The visual language needed to work across the website, newsletters, and podcast presence, creating a cohesive experience regardless of where readers encounter CRE Daily.

We also made a deliberate choice to build on WordPress rather than a custom CMS. CRE Daily’s team needed to publish content daily without relying on developers. WordPress gave them a familiar editing environment while allowing us to build custom functionality on top. This decision reduced development time and ensured the team could manage their platform independently from day one.

The project included a complete website redesign on WordPress, a new brand identity system, and custom development for the sponsorship management tools.

The site now features an intuitive interface optimized for content discovery. Readers can easily explore articles, podcasts, and the daily brief. The design prioritizes readability with clean typography and generous whitespace. On mobile, where much of their audience reads, the experience is fast and focused.

The custom sponsorship system lives within the WordPress admin. The team can create sponsor profiles, assign them to articles, schedule campaigns with start and end dates, and monitor active promotions. When a campaign ends, the sponsored content rotates out automatically.

CRE Daily’s digital presence now matches the quality of their journalism.

The team has complete autonomy over their advertising operations. Before, managing a sponsored article meant coordinating with developers, waiting for changes, and manually tracking expiration dates. Now, their team handles everything directly. They can set up a new sponsor campaign in minutes, adjust placements on the fly, and respond to advertiser requests the same day. No tickets. No waiting.

The reading experience has been transformed. Subscribers who click through from the newsletter land on a site that feels professional and easy to navigate. Content is organized logically. Pages load quickly. The interface stays out of the way and lets the journalism speak for itself.

The new brand identity positions CRE Daily as the industry leader they have become. When potential advertisers visit the site, they see a platform worth investing in. When readers arrive, they see a publication that takes their time seriously. The visual consistency across website, newsletter, and podcast reinforces their credibility at every touchpoint.

Most importantly, the infrastructure can now grow with them. As CRE Daily adds new content types, expands their podcast offerings, or develops new revenue streams, the platform is ready. They are not locked into a system that will need replacing in two years.

Our work with CRE Daily didn’t end at launch. We continue to partner with Jordan and his team as the publication grows, helping them respond to new opportunities and evolve their platform alongside their business. Whether it’s refining existing features, building new tools, or thinking through their next phase of growth, we remain invested in their success. It’s the kind of relationship we value most: a true partnership that compounds over time.