Google Ads for Real Estate
Google Ads is the most powerful tool for real estate professionals who want to connect with the increasing number of home buyers and sellers turning to the internet for their property needs. Yesterday’s real estate agents spent most of their time using antiquated marketing methods like cold-calling or postcard mailing. Today, Google Ads offers a more scalable and affordable tactic that can put your real estate business directly in front of potential clients who are searching for your services online.
In this step-by-step guide, we’re going to walk you through the entire process of setting up a Google Ads campaign so you can boost your real estate business’s exposure and connect with more home buyers and sellers.
Table of contents
The basics of Google Ads and PPC advertising
What is PPC advertising??
Put simply, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a model where an advertiser’s ad is displayed, but they only pay for each time their ad is clicked. Since it’s cost-effective, easy to control, and can garner fast results, PPC advertising has developed into one of the most popular ways to drive traffic to websites.
How does Google Ads work?
Google Ads operates on an auction system, which can be a little confusing. When a user on Google enters a search query, Google Runs an auction to determine which ads will appear in the search results. Advertisers bid on keywords relevant to their business.
An ad’s placement is determined by a combination of bid amount and ad quality, which is calculated based on factors like expected click-through rate (CTR), ad relevance, and landing page experience.
Benefits of Google Ads for real estate professionals
When there are so many marketing platforms out there, why do Google Ads stand out? The key advantage of Google Ads for real estate pros lies in search intent. Users who see your ads are proactively searching for exactly what your business offers. For example, someone searching “homes for sale in Miami” is likely at some point in a home buying or selling journey. Compare Google Ads to Facebook Ads, where your ads can be targeted but are displayed to a relatively passive audience who is busy looking at cat pictures or posting about their weekend. Google Ads enables you to target possible clients in similar ways, but to a crowd that is actively searching for real estate-related keywords, making them more likely to convert into future clients.
How to successfully set up your real estate Google Ads campaign
Step 1: Create your Google Ads account
Before we hit the ground running, make sure you have a Google Ads account set up. You can go to ads.google.com to sign up. Your Google Ads account is where you maintain high-level items like billing, admin permissions, and your campaigns. Campaigns house your ad groups, where you’ll set your budget and targeting. Each ad group will have a different set of keywords that focuses on a
segment of your business. Within those ad groups, you’ll have ads that will display when users search for the keywords you specify.
Step 2: Conduct research and start planning
Once your Google Ads account is created, it’s time to think about the areas of your business services and who your ideal customer is. Is your ideal customer looking for investment properties? Waterfront homes? Searching in a specific city or neighborhood? Put together a list of five to seven cities, neighborhood's, or niches that you’d like to go after. These will eventually make up our ad groups. You may also want to include some categorical groups like farms and ranches or oceanfront condos depending on what is popular in your region. Once you have your locations identified, it’s time for keyword research. To narrow it down, use applications like the Free Keyword Tool or Google’s Keyword Planner. This will give you ideas of the search volume, competition, and potential cost for the keywords within various segments you might want to pursue.
You may get more ideas in keyword tools that you didn’t previously consider. Getting these keyword ideas helps us discover the high-volume search terms that potential clients use to find properties and services like yours.
Step 3: Start your campaign
When you’re in your Google Ads account, click the blue plus sign to start creating a campaign.
Choose the right campaign objective and type
The first thing you’ll do is choose a campaign objective that aligns with your goals. For real estate purposes, we typically recommend the website traffic objective, as you’re usually trying to drive visitors to your website.
Here’s a quick summary of the different campaign objectives:
These objectives essentially tell Google what we want to accomplish with our campaigns, giving real estate businesses the ability to continually measure and optimise their ads for the best possible results.
Choose your campaign type Next, you’re going to choose a campaign type, which determines where your ads appear. We're going to use a Search campaign type because we want our ads to show up in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) when they are showing the intent of buying or selling real estate.
Name your campaign
Finally, choose a campaign name, but don’t overthink it. For organizational purposes, a good rule of thumb is to have your campaign name speak to your campaign objective. Something like “South Florida – Search” would be a good name going off our previous examples. Google is going to ask you about your bidding preferences, but we’ll cover that later. For now, leave it on “maximize clicks.”
Select search networks
The first campaign setting to draw your attention to is the networks. By default, your ads also show on Google Search and Display networks. We recommend checking the box off for the Display Network because we only want our ads showing up within SERPs.
Choose (and exclude) locations
Now we take a look at location targeting, where you will want to enter the cities you are going to be concentrating on, as well as the areas around them. An important note is that by default, Google shows your ads to “people in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations.”
This means that your ads will show up to anyone searching your keywords, regardless of their location. However, these locations provide data about where people are clicking your ads, so it’s useful down the line.
You’ll also want to add some negative locations, which blacklist your ads from showing up within those boundaries. Start by excluding countries that have a reputation for click farms and have a very low chance of delivering relevant traffic.
Create audience segments to improve campaign efficiency
Lastly, we’re going to address audience segments, which will allow us to hyper-focus on Google’s in-market audiences. These are consumers who are actively researching products or services and considering buying something. Look up “real estate” and select in-market audiences that have a “For Sale” label. If it’s relevant to your business, you can also target “Commercial,” “Homeowner,” or “For Rent” categories.
Step 4: Set up ad groups
Ad groups are held within your campaign and organize your ads and keywords. Using the selections we chose earlier, we’re going to create five to seven ad groups.
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Determine your keywords
You’re then going to list out the keywords that you want your ads showing up for. Based on our keyword research, we’re going to go with the following keywords:
Understand keyword match types
One thing to take note of about keywords is that Google will display your ads to search terms that are similar to the keywords you list. However, there are different match types that tell Google how strict they need to be when determining which search terms relate to your keywords:
Select negative keywords to blacklist search terms
Use negative keywords as a list of search terms that you want Google to avoid showing your ads to. These adverse terms will vary with each market, but in general, you want to consider searches that will not be made by your ideal client, or Avatar. For example, we’re going to list these negative keywords in our real estate campaign:
Step 5: Build your ads
Now it’s time to get into the core of our campaign by crafting our ads. These are responsive ads, which means that Google combines different variations of the headlines and descriptions we provide to make a final ad.
Then you’ll want to choose a display path, which allows us to simplify the final URL to look more appealing in our ad. You can get creative here, but we usually advise using straightforward and clean display paths.
Create powerful headlines and descriptions for your ad
This brings us to our headlines, where we will be the main text in our ad. To create great ad headlines, you want to keep some vital tips in mind:
After that, we’re going to conjure up four descriptions, which will show up underneath the headlines. Writing winning Google Ad descriptions starts with keeping your points short and relevant and including numbers and calls to action.
Use assets to improve interaction with your ad
Now that our ads are looking sharp, we’re going to address some of the assets that are available. These are extra pieces of information, previously called extensions, that can help your ad stand out and generate conversions.
The initial asset we’ll set up is sitelinks, and these are additional links that show underneath your ad take visitors to relevant sub-niches that are under the umbrella of what you’re offering.
Choose a suitable landing page
Remember the final URL we talked about? Well, let’s go over picking relevant real estate landing pages that potential clients are sent to when they click our ad. First and foremost, the landing page you send visitors to should give them exactly what they are looking for.
If your ad group is focused on Miami, and your ad promotes “Miami Homes for Sale,” then your final URL should be active real estate listings. An ad that has headlines about “Free Home Valuations” should take the user to a page where they can easily get just that. It’s critical in real estate lead generation to be very consistent with this rule. A big mistake many will make is sending all visitors of every ad to some static page of their website. Then the potential customer has to dig around to find the information they really wanted in the first place. You also want to have one clear and apparent call to action so the visitor knows what they need to do to get the piece of value you are providing them.
Give your target audience what they are seeking, and they will be more likely to convert and see you as the authority in the real estate space.
Step 5: Set your campaign budget
At the end of the campaign setup, you’re going to set a daily budget for Google to use. This can be changed depending on your needs or industry seasonality, so set it at whatever is comfortable for your business.
Google Ads also provides an array of bidding strategies, but we really only need to hone in on the main options:
Step 6: Set up conversion tracking
As I said before, most real estate professionals starting out with Google Ads will begin maximizing clicks, but you are definitely going to want to set up conversion tracking since we ultimately want to optimize for leads and sales.
Under “Tools and Settings,” go to “Conversions” to set up a new conversion action. This will often be measured when a visitor fills out a contact form or signs up on your website, but you can also measure calls.
Follow the steps that Google provides to set up the conversion tracking on your website, and you’ll be able to accurately measure how your real estate campaigns are performing.
Keys to success with Google Ads for real estate
Now that your real estate Google Ads campaign is set up, here are some best practices to keep in mind.
1. Continually monitor key metrics
As your campaign runs, keep a close eye on critical metrics to gauge your campaign’s performance. Monitor important metrics like cost per conversion, click-through rate (CTR), cost per click (CPC), and conversion rate to assess which ads and ad groups are most effective. We can evaluate the effectiveness of our ads by going to a Google Ads Performance Grader or a similar tool that will analyze a campaign’s performance and give us some actionable steps to improve it.
?2. Review your campaign’s search terms
Regularly review the search terms that trigger your ads to show up. This insight helps you refine your keyword and negative keyword lists so that your ads only appear for relevant queries.
3. A/B test your ads
Test different ad variations and strategies to identify what resonates best with your potential clients. Create multiple ads with different headlines, descriptions, and calls to action to gauge which are giving you the most bang for your buck.
4. Build relationships
Don’t focus solely on getting leads. Real estate is all about building relationships and Google Ads are just an avenue to grow your database. Provide value and come from a place of contribution and you’ll have long-term success.
5. Commit to a follow-up plan
Effective follow-up is crucial in the real estate business, and it’s even more pressing in the digital sphere. Nurture leads through email campaigns, phone calls, and personal touches to keep your services top of mind.
6. Leverage technology and people
Use a strong Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to manage leads, interactions, appointments, and sales efficiently.
Leveraging Google Ads can really elevate your real estate business to new heights! ?? Henry Ford once said - Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. Stay positive and innovative in your strategy! ???