$8.50 CPM
$20 Appraisal Lead
11% Retargeted CTR
15% CTR
The Northern Gold Coast branch of the Professionals Real Estate franchise has been the leading agency in their area for over 40 years.
They cover a broad range of properties from humble coastal apartments through to some impressive luxury waterfront properties. With 13 agents running over two office locations, this agency is a busy hub of activity.
Being at the top of their game for over 40 years meant that it was no surprise to us they were proactive in looking to capitalise on the value that was available to them through Facebook advertising. But given these agents already had enough on their plate, they entrusted BidPixel to manage their campaigns and listings through the Facebook platform.
The Problem – How to make your Real Estate advertising 3 x more effective?
The issue for Real Estate agencies is that there so many digital advertising options out there, some would say too many options, offering all sorts of promises, but do they really deliver.
We all know the two main players in the Real Estate advertising world. They both offer a similar style of platform. You pay so much and people will see your listing so many times.
If you pay extra you get bigger pictures or your listing gets put to the top of the page. They offer to get your ads in front of people who are looking in your area within a similar price range.
These by themselves aren’t bad features by any means, but the benefits are limited. How then does Facebook advertising offer any better value? On top of that, we know as Real Estate agents, a lot of the time these platforms as well as Facebook and Instagram are completed in house.
Not only does this take a lot of time, but there is also often the assumption from advertising platforms that you have the time to learn how to use them effectively. We know this just isn’t the case.
The Goal
To start with, Facebook isn’t just limited to running listings.
Although it does that very effectively, there are other opportunities. These can be running campaigns on properties that have been SOLD and running lead generation for appraisals. You can also run hyper-targeted ads right back at anyone who has viewed a particular listing, or any listing on your website.
One of the biggest advantages of Facebook advertising is using the agencies own data to build audiences and then anyone who engages with your advertising continues to refine the audience that will get you the best results.
The big players in the real estate advertising biz do offer to target audiences who are suitable to view your listing, but they keep that data, and unless a potential buyer contacts you from one of those ads, there is little way you can capitalise on their initial interest.
For The Professionals on the Northern Gold Coast, we not only set out to get good value on their listings advertising budget, we wanted them to get more listings and keep their brand at the forefront of the minds of potential buyers and sellers in their area.
The Plan
For the listings, we create individual campaigns and target them to potential buyers.
With Facebook’s targeting options, we are able to target individuals who are actively searching property, they may be local, relocating or investment buyers from out of town.
The user may have even just have used an online mortgage calculator. The ads link directly to the listing on the agency website to ensure the ability to retarget those who click through.
We also send traffic to our custom messenger bots which engage with the user like a virtual assistant through the Facebook Messenger system, offering more information on the property as well as the opportunity for the user to leave their details for the agent to call back.
These listings are then put through a retargeting campaign that gets the listings and other available properties back in front of anyone who clicked through to a listing. We know that one of the major Real Estate platforms were offering 20,000 impressions over just one week for a whopping $600, so the underlying plan was to get better value for the agent.
As for the appraisals, we use a mixture of Sold video and property appraisal campaigns again using our custom messenger bot system to allow potential sellers to leave their details for a free appraisal on their property. And for targeting, Facebook allows targeting to those in the local area who may have previously been looking at property values or may even be looking to relocate.
The numbers are consistently showing that Facebook advertising, when handled by the right people can give a real estate agency significant value through hyper-targeted advertising and can add to the success of any property campaign.
The Results
As mentioned, other platforms are offering 20,000 impressions for $600. The average listing for Professionals costs just $270 to reach 20,000 impressions. Some of the listings were only costing $170 to reach the 20,000 impressions. That’s more than 3 times the value of the other platform. The click-through rates average out at 6.5%, some over 15%, and all of that traffic goes straight to the Professionals website listing. From there the listing visitors to all listings were able to be retargeted with ads showing the same listing they looked at, as well as other properties from the same agency. These retargeting ads showed an 11% click-through rate grabbing those buyers with a higher intent.
On top of the listings, the appraisal ads were able to reach their local through the messenger bot campaign at a rate of $20 to reach 1000 people. The cost to get a person through the messenger bot sequence came through at an average of $10 each. The Professionals found that out of those people, around half were serious about getting an appraisal on their property. That would mean it would cost $20 to reach around 1000 people, and out of those people, they would get one sign up for an appraisal. To put that in context, within the first month running their appraisal campaign, one of the users that came through the messenger bot was followed up by an agent, they booked in an appraisal, listed their property for auction and the property sold within weeks before the property even got to auction. An amazing result for an outlay of just $20!
The Wrap-Up
It wouldn’t be accurate for us to say that agents are using Facebook advertising and ditching the big players in real estate advertising completely. The numbers are consistently showing that Facebook advertising, when handled by the right people (this is where we come in) can give a real estate agency significant value through hyper-targeted advertising and can add to the success of any property campaign. We are seeing more and more agents looking to get more from their advertising budget and the value in Facebook Advertising is a great place to start. Not only that, with the ads running under the banner of the agents Facebook and Instagram profiles, it is at the same time assisting in building the social profile of the agency.
Does this sound like your business?
Are you a Real Estate agency and are you wanting to capitalise on the power and value of Facebook advertising?
Do you want to save time with your Digital Advertising whilst ensuring it is effective and you are getting value for your money?
Have a chat with the team at BidPixel today and let’s start getting more value out of your advertising budget!
