How To Scale Your Real Estate Business With Facebook Advertising

As a real estate agent, you know what it means to advertise on a slim budget. You’re out there networking, generating referrals and guerrilla to stretch that budget further. You hustle to generate more real estate leads. But have you added real estate Facebook ads into the mix?

Real estate Facebook ads are a cost-effective and fast way to get more clients. But in order to get results, you need to know how to get the most out of your social media budget.

Let’s explore a few proven techniques you can start using today to generate more clients.

Why Facebook Is the Best Platform for Real Estate

When you’re setting up real estate Facebook ads, those ads can display on Facebook, Instagram and Facebook’s partner websites. Facebook and Instagram are leading the way in terms of daily active users.

70% of people log into Facebook every day. And Instagram has quickly overtaken other social media leaders like Twitter and Pinterest. It’s found its place as the #2 social media site for daily engagement.

1. Target the Right Audience

You wouldn’t turn down a client who was serious about buying or selling. But when advertising or marketing, it’s essential that you target one type of person at a time. That’s the only way to connect on a deep level to earn a on your ad.

What type of person you start targeting depends on several factors:

• Who you’ve worked with well in the past
• What types of homes you know you can sell quickly in what areas
• What types of homes/areas you enjoy working with people buying/selling
• Where your core knowledge and skills are strongest
• What traits these people had (education level, interests, have children, etc)
• Are they currently renting? Or do they have a house and need to upsize/downsize?
• How are the markets changing? For example, 66% of first time home buyers are millennials according to the NAR.

2. Build An Ad Around the Right Audience

We’ve now figured out who to target. It’s time to build an ad around that target. People only Click ads that appear very relevant to them.

Connect on a Meaningful Level

Look back at who you’re targeting. Make a list of their challenges and goals. Consider which emotions you can tap into with that audience.

The language and images you might use for millennials who are buying their first will be different from what you might say to someone approaching retirement. And these will be different from someone who has a growing family.

3. Use a Captivating Graphic

We’ve already established that real estate is very visual. The highest performing ads convey a message through the image. Remember. You have about 2 seconds to get someone’s attention, maybe less. Then they scroll on by.

Captivating visuals make a target client stop and look a little closer.

Visuals can take many forms. Consider what would delight your target.

For targets looking for a loft in the city, something like this is very inviting.

4. Create a Clear, Compelling Call to Action

If we look back at the Keller Williams ad, we find a very compelling CTA.

It says, simply enter your address and click.

Nothing complicated about that. Your best real estate Facebook ads have a clear goal.

A person should almost instantly know exactly what you want them to do. It should be very easy to do so. There should never be any confusion like having more than one CTA. And don’t make it longer than it has to be.

Unbounce, a marketing research firm, found that 90% of people who read your ad headline also read your CTA.

Hubspot, a marketing company, found that a CTA that seems personalized earns 42% more clicks. Personalized doesn’t necessarily mean you’re calling someone by name. If a CTA appears to speak directly to a person’s needs, values, etc, that’s personal — at least as personal as we can get on Facebook.

So remember who your target is and build your CTA for that person in real estate Facebook ads.

Reducing any clutter that detracts from the CTA can increase clicks by 234%.

5. Create a Proper Landing Page

What is a Landing page? It’s the page that a person lands on when they click your ad. It’s most often on your own . It’s not your about page, services page, listing pages or a home page.

A landing page is a specific page created for the specific purpose of converting prospects who click real estate Facebook ads into clients. We do this by offering them something of value in exchange for an email and/or other content info.

That something may be:

• Offering an estimate of their . You can do this manually or sign up for a service.
• Offering a buyer’s or seller’s guide to something the target will find valuable
• Listings customized to their preferences

To do this it needs to be conversion rate optimized. That means there’s nothing that detracts from its purpose.

52% of companies who use landing pages test their landing pages to see what works best. That means they create two similar landing pages. They make a small but potentially impactful change to one. This could be putting a CTA button higher on the page. Or maybe changing the color of the page.

It costs you money when people and don’t . Testing helps you get the most out of your real estate Facebook ads budget.

Let’s look at some landing page best practices for real estate Facebook ads.

• Be ad-aligned. Some ads may share a landing page. But any misalignment between the ad and the landing it leads to will reduce conversions.
• Have a clear strategy to convert the person to a client. What action should they take on the landing page? Be specific and intentional.
• Use colors to evoke emotion. Data shows that orange and red buttons earn more clicks. But you probably wouldn’t make a whole page red. That may be hard to look at and annoying. Are you trying to convey a spa-like feeling on the landing page? Cool blues and greens may work well. Consider how the colors you’re using make a person feel.
• Make sure the page is user and mobile friendly. Over half of clicks will now come from a mobile device. If your page isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re throwing half of your money that you spent on Facebook ads for real estate away.
• Focus on value. The landing page isn’t the time to switch over to talking about you. Think about what they want and how you can uniquely deliver it.
• The image on the page should be linked to the same place your CTA is linked. Many people are so in awe of the image that they click it instead.
• Keep it simple. A typical landing page has a stunning image, a headline, a subhead and a short paragraph. then you have the CTA. But what about a menu?
• Remove the menu. 85% of landing pages include a menu. But studies show that they reduce your chances of converting someone to a client. People start clicking around. They get distracted. Only show a menu after they share their contact info in your form. You might add the menu to the thank you page, for example.
• A video on the landing page can increase your chances of capturing that lead by 86%.

Real Estate Facebook Ads

Creating real estate Facebook ads is the easy part. Optimizing them to get the most leads can be challenging. Follow these 8 tips and you’re well on your way. Target narrowly. Geo-locate. Create a great landing page for each type of ad. Test everything to continually improve.

If you’re struggling to keep your ad costs low while generating viable leads, contact us today and we'd be happy to help!