SEO is great, but it takes a lot of time and effort to rank for valuable keywords. If you want to know how to get real estate leads without waiting for your website to reach the first page of search results (if it ever does), then here’s the secret. You’re going to need to run some ads.

But what kind of ads? I’ll share one option with you here.

I recommend a two-pronged approach to get real estate leads. It’s a full-funnel strategy that uses paid search and paid social to generate real estate leads quickly.

Get Real Estate Leads with Facebook Ads and AdWords

In this article I’m going to show you how to get real estate leads by implementing this two-pronged approach through a full-funnel real estate lead generation system. The two prongs consist of the following campaigns:

  1. A Facebook ad campaign using the Traffic objective
  2. An AdWords campaign to snag low hanging fruit

The Facebook campaign will have an ad set for each of the following groups:

Potential buyers:

  • in the Awareness stage
  • in the Consideration stage
  • in the Decision stage

Potential sellers:

  • in the Awareness stage
  • in the Consideration stage
  • in the Decision stage

The AdWords campaign will have two ad groups to get real estate leads in both areas, one ad group for potential buyers and one for potential sellers.

Real Estate Lead Generation Marketing Funnel

How it Works

This strategy brings in real estate leads by:

  • filling the top of the funnel
  • nurturing your leads with targeted ads
  • making sure you’re there when they’re ready to take the next step

Lead Nurturing on Autopilot

The top of your funnel is filled by targeting people who fit your ideal customer profile on Facebook through the Awareness ad sets. Then your Facebook ads do most of the nurturing for you thanks to the magic of remarketing.

And you’ll use email marketing and AdWords ads to make sure that you’re there when they’re ready to buy (or sell).

How to Get Listings

Two things to remember:

1. First, you need to select the Traffic campaign objective for this approach because it relies on remarketing and you can’t remarket if they don’t land on your website first.
2. Second, you need to setup your Facebook pixel first so that your campaigns (and other traffic) are building up your remarketing lists.

Each Facebook ad group will use the same campaign and the same pixel, so you’ll only have to worry about that part once.

Facebook

You’re going to create one Facebook campaign for all of your ad groups. The campaign will target six or seven audiences (depending on whether or not you have to create a separate Awareness ad group for interest targeting). There’s an ad group for each stage of the buyer’s journey and one for each stage each stage of the seller’s journey.

Awareness Ad Group

This is the first stage of the sellers journey, they’re just starting to think about selling their property.

Audience

You’ll create a Custom Audience made up of anyone who has ever visited your website. Depending on how much traffic your website gets, you may also need to create a Saved Audience of everyone in your ZIP codes who matches your target profile. (Unfortunately, Facebook is removing Partner Categories which means there’s no more “Likely to move” option.)

By the way, if you do need to use a Saved Audience for your Awareness ad group, you’ll have to create two separate ad groups. If you try to combine a Saved Audience and a Custom Audience in one ad group, Facebook will only serve your ad to users that are in both groups. So remember to create a separate ad group.

Offer

The ad will lead to a landing page with a market analysis report for the neighborhood/area you’re targeting

Consideration Ad Group

This ad group is targeting people who starting to research what it would take to sell their house (and how much they can get for it).

Audience

For this ad group, you’ll create a Custom Audience that targets anyone who has been to pages on your website that indicate they’re getting serious about selling. Add everyone who has downloaded any of your content for sellers to this list.

Offer

Home valuations are out. They used to be a great way to get real estate leads, but now, for better or (probably) worse, home sellers are going to Zillow and Trulia to find out how much their home is worth (they think).

On the other hand, a home seller’s guide will fly off your digital shelf.

So you’ll serve your Consideration stage audience an ad that leads to a landing page with a Seller’s Guide.

Decision Ad Group

The Decision stage ad group is for people who are ready to sell and they’re looking for someone to help them.

Audience

Your Decision Custom Audience will target people who are ready to sell and are looking for a real estate agent to help them. Add people who have visited your About Us, Contact Us, and have downloaded any of your content for sellers to this list.

Offer

This ad group will contain an ad that leads to a page offering a free consultation.

AdWords

Your AdWords ad group for listings will target people at the bottom of the funnel who you have a pretty good idea are trying to sell their house (based on the intent suggested by the keywords you bid on).

Targeting

For this campaign, you’ll want to set up geo-targeting to make sure your ads only show up for people in the area you’re looking for listings in. You don’t want to get real estate leads that you can’t do anything with. You’ll also want to check the following options in the campaign settings:

  • Target “People in, searching for, or who show interest in my targeted location (recommended)”
  • Exclude “People in, searching for, or who show interest in my excluded location”

This way you won’t have people who are interested in your area, probably because they want to buy a house there, getting your ads meant for people who are looking to sell.

Keywords

You’ll bid on keywords like “sell my house.” You’ll also want to add terms like “dog house”, “bird house”, etc. as negative keywords.

Offer

This ad will lead to your free consultation offer.

How to Get Buyer Leads

Facebook

You’ll create three ad groups for this funnel. The ad groups are:

Awareness Ad Group

This list will target everyone who has been to your website, and you will probably use it in combination with a Saved Audience of people in your ZIP code who match your likely buyer profile (unless you get a ton of traffic).

This ad group will include an ad that leads to a landing page that lets visitors conduct IDX search that collects some basic information before displaying the results.

Consideration Ad Group

This list targets anyone who has been to pages on your website that indicate they’re getting serious about buying. Add everyone who has downloaded any of your content for buyers to this list.

This will include an ad that leads to a landing page with a Buying Guide.

Decision Ad Group

This list will target people who are ready to buy and are looking for a real estate agent to help them. Add people who have visited your About Us, Contact Us, and have downloaded any of your content for buyers to this list.

Just like you did with your seller ad groups, you’ll create three ad groups with at least one ad each.

The ad will lead to a page offering a free consultation.

AdWords

Your AdWords ad group for buyers will target people at the bottom of the funnel who you have a pretty good idea are trying to buy a new house (based on the intent suggested by the keywords you bid on).

Targeting

Again, you’ll want to set up geo-targeting to make sure your ads only show up for people in the area you’re looking for listings in. But this time you’ll check the following option in the campaign settings:

  • Target “People in, searching for, or who show interest in my excluded location”

That’s because people who aren’t in the area may still be interested in buying a home there.

Keywords

You’ll bid on keywords like “sell my house.” You’ll also want to add terms like “dog house”, “bird house”, etc. as negative keywords.

Offer

This ad will lead to your free consultation offer.

Boom

There you have it. That’s how you create two ad campaigns that will help you get real estate leads fast. If you do it right, these campaigns will fill the top of your funnel and put your lead nurturing on autopilot. Of course, this is just the start. You should create multiple ads leading to multiple offers and blog posts for each ad set so that users don’t get tired of seeing the same ad over and over again.

And don’t be afraid to get creative with the types of content you promote. Fill up each Facebook ad set with ads leading to content relevant to the ad set’s target buyer’s journey stage and see what works best.

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