The Best Facebook Ads for Real Estate Agent Buyer & Seller Lead Generation
May 4, 2021
April’s Keeping It Real LIVE with Frank Klesitz of Vyral Marketing, Greg Harrelson of C21 The Harrelson Group, and Lindsey Jackson of Real Geeks examined Facebook lead-generation ads and what makes each work!
“I went through the top 100 real estate agents,” Klesitz reported, “looked at what they were running and took note of themes.” In doing so he was able to see a clear picture of what works and doesn’t work in today’s market. Accessing the Facebook Ads Library as a tool is a game changer. It can be accessed at: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/
This episode details current ads, targeting methods, and landing pages that are generating leads right now, and explains why they worked so well. ROI and actual cost per lead type are discussed, allowing agents to have the info they need to plan and run successful Facebook marketing campaigns.
Discussing ways to retarget audiences, Harrelson also explained the basics of the advertising he runs. “For the best conversion,” he said, “I’ve been running seller leads ads. Harrelson does this by creating specialty community Facebook pages, rather than using the main company page. Jackson explained that ads can be very market dependent and that it’s best to have 20K people in each audience, if possible. She also shared that more expensive homes meant more expensive ads in most cases, due to increased competition.
Harrelson agreed about the competition and the need to adapt advertising to the market. He urged agents to not be complacent and said that even he didn’t have “magic ads,” which means his team is always testing to see what works best in a given market. Harrelson suggested paying attention and accumulating an audience of people who didn’t fill in the form (known in retail as cart abandonment) to retarget.
Generally speaking the group agreed that it was better to have the lead taken to a lead capture page with a sign up form rather than a general website page. Jackson shared that funneling leads in through a property detail page where a lead signs in through a Facebook login, results in a highly effective campaign, “especially when you’re on your phone,” she said. These ads create a pattern which has the lead returning to the site on a daily basis. When A/B testing, Jackson said that the aggressiveness of the copy is a key area for testing. Klesitz introduced the idea of dynamic creative, where the ad or ad image is chosen based on performance.
Jackson said ad fatigue is real and that you have to constantly be testing new ideas for ads. Homes with pools work really well, she explained, “but just make sure that it matches.” For instance, if you’re advertising pool homes, don’t share a picture with snow, show a home with a pool.
Klesitz shared his view on the 4 tiers of advertising.
- Tier 1 – Uploading existing past clients and databases and using a pixel to retarget your warm audiences. Harrelson uses ExactDial to find out client contact information. Klesitz suggests a budget of $5/day and unique messaging since they’ve had contact already.
- Tier 2 – Send to Facebook cold audiences all throughout the city, within the restrictions Facebook places on housing ads.
- Tier 3 – The Greg Harrelson level which targets a cold audience in a specific community.
- Tier 4 – Next is cold leads. This is radius based (15 miles), age and gender are set to broad. Look at interests that are in the home owning process. “Broad is better,” explained Klezitz and Jackson. The algorithm creates the audience based on look-alikes. “In smaller towns you can get away with a small audience,“ said Jackson.
In discussing the metrics, Harrelson knew that it cost him $2.40 for each seller lead in his custom audiences. “When you’re capturing seller leads online, you’re capturing them very early in the funnel,” he said. Adding that most people give up too soon on seller leads because they are trying to speed the process too quickly. Using a non custom audience results in a high cost per lead, between $3.50-4 per lead. More competitive areas will have more expensive leads. Currently Jackson said the least expensive cost per lead is Florida and the most expensive is in San Clemente, California.
Harrelson believes 1-3% is normal for agent ad conversion though his reporting shows that 14% is possibly convertible from all of the ads. Real Geeks clients can use the Facebook tool or reach out to RealLeads@RealGeeks.com to have advertising set up for you.
Klesitz shared his favorite 3 seller lead ad calls to action:
- Get a cash offer on your home, click here.
- Or offer a seller workshop and ask: When was the last time you sold your home?
- Find out what your home is worth?
As the segment concluded, Harrelson reminded agents to take notes and choose one action to take and do consistently. He believes doing this each week could make a huge difference in an agent’s production for 2021, even if the changes are small.