Do Facebook Ads Work for Real Estate?
The answer is yes! As a realtor, you’re quite familiar with having to advertise on a tight budget. Besides using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in your real estate marketing strategy, facebook for real estate agents is a fast and cost-effective way to get more leads and ultimately more clients. Let’s get into exactly what advertising on this popular platform entails.
Table of contents:
- Facebook Ads Explained
- Real Estate Facebook Ads
- How do I advertise my real estate agency?
- Facebook business management
- What should I post on Facebook real estate?
- How to create a Facebook ad for real estate?
- How to target Facebook ads for real estate?
- What you should NOT do
Facebook Ads Explained
Facebook lead generation is an ideal way to connect with the best real estate leads. The micro-targeting features can enable you to reach your exact target audience and get your message in front of people likely to want your services.
That’s great for your marketing budget, lead conversion rate, and return on investment. With this platform, you only pay to reach the most valuable potential customers.
There are many options too, such as image ads, video, carousel, slideshows, and so much more.
Learn how to get seller leads with our home valuation landing pages
Real Estate Facebook Ads
Facebook marketing for real estate agents helps reach prospective clients. As LeadsBridge reports, the average person spends 35 minutes per day on Facebook.
This gives you enough time to show your promotions to the right audience. HomeValueLeads.com offer feature products to create real estate landing pages for higher conversions.
They are an effective way for you to generate leads cheaply and quickly, and also to convert them.
How Do I Advertise My Real Estate on Facebook?
Advertising your real estate business on Facebook is quite easy. To begin with, you must have a Facebook Business Page.
If you don’t, there are step-by-step ways you can create a Facebook Business Account.
After your account is up and running, you will be able to reach potential buyers and home seller leads.
Choose the objective of your Ad Campaign
Log in to Ad Manager and then click on the Campaign tab. After this, proceed to click on Create so that you can get started on a new campaign.
Facebook offers you several marketing objectives based on what you’d like your ad to accomplish. Some of these include Brand Awareness, Reach, Traffic, Engagement, Lead Generation, and Conversions.
As a real estate agent, you should choose an objective based on the goals for your particular ad.
Name your Campaign
After choosing the objective, you should scroll down and provide a name for your Facebook ad campaign. You can also decide whether to turn on budget optimization.
This option is useful if you’re using multiple ad sets. For now, however, you can leave it turned off.
Set up a Facebook Ad Account
If you already have a Facebook ad account set up, you can move on to the next step. If you are new to Facebook advertising, you’ll see a button that says ‘Set Up Ad Account’. Click on this, and enter the required details to create your ad account.
Fill in your country, preferred currency, and time zone. After this, click on ‘Continue’.
You should choose these options wisely because you’ll have to create a separate ad account if you want to change them later.
Set a Target Audience
In this step, a screen will appear. Pick a name for your Facebook ad campaign and choose which Facebook Page to promote. Scroll down to begin building the target audience for your ad.
You can start by selecting the target location, age, gender, and language. On the right side of the screen, you will notice an audience size indicator.
Keep a close eye on this. It gives you a sense of your potential ad reach.
Use Facebook’s geo-targeting, demographic-targeting, behavioral-targeting, and interest-targeting to better target potential clients.
This will make your Facebook real estate lead generation efforts more effective.
Choose your Facebook Ad Placements
Proceed to scroll down so that you can choose where your promos will appear. If you are new to the forum, then it’s best to select ‘Automatic Placements’.
This option allows Facebook to place your advertisements across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.
Once you gain more experience, you may want your ad to appear in specific locations. In this case, you have the following options: device type, platform, placements, Specific mobile devices, and OS.
Set your Budget and Schedule
Next, you need to decide how much money you want to invest in your campaign. You have the option of a daily or lifetime budget.
You can then set the start and end dates if you’d like to schedule your ad for the future or choose to make it live right away.
You can also get into finer details about how you want to spend your money using the advanced budget options.
An efficient way of spending your budget is running your ad on a schedule. This way, your ad is most likely to be displayed to your target audience when they are on the forum.
After making the selections, click on ‘Continue’.
Create your Ad
Select your ad format and then enter the text and media components of your ad. The available formats are: image ads, video ads, carousel ads & collection ads. One ad format you can use is Video to promote a property using virtual home staging.
Monitor your Ad’s Performance
Once your ad is running, you’ll want to keep an eye on its performance. According to this popular social media platform, some of the key metrics to look out for are:
- Performance – This includes results, reach, frequency, and impressions.
- Engagement – You can customize to include page likes, page engagement, and post engagement.
- Videos – These can be customized to include video views and average % of video viewed.
- Website – Includes all website actions, payment details, purchases, and add to cart.
- Clicks – You’re able to include click-through rate and cost per click.
The data can be found in the Ads Manager.
Facebook Business Management
The platform’s Business Manager gives you a central location to keep track of all your adverts and their performance. This makes it easier to organize your advertising efforts.
You can also build a variety of custom audiences for different ad campaigns. This allows you to put up the best real estate ads on Facebook. You can have a look at this video to learn more.
What Should I Post on Facebook Real Estate?
At this moment, you are probably wondering what a successful real estate ad looks like. Well, you need not worry. Below, we will outline Facebook real estate ad examples that can help you outperform your competitors!
Real Estate Facebook Ads Examples
Aspirational Appeal
One realtor selling real estate on Facebook focused on the theme “We help people build the life they deserve.”
This led to a gain of 68,000 new social media followers in a down market and made almost 54 million social impressions. This is because their campaign focused on consumer aspirations rather than on their services.
They targeted customers looking for a better life and who believed they deserve more than they have.
They appealed to people’s emotions with a message that relayed: “The feelings you have are right-we can help you achieve your dreams”.
This created a greater chance of converting than showing photos of a beautiful home.
Insider Knowledge
Another realtor ran a campaign that promised they had insider knowledge, which was how to find the lowest-priced homes in one of the priciest places in the country.
Their target market was budget-minded shoppers, and they were promoting just what the target clients were after.
The campaign resulted in a 4% conversion rate, more than 0.4%- 1.2% that is typical for realtors.
Numbers Game
Using numbers is a practical approach to capture and engage your target audience. Buying a home can be expensive, but this doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
As Keyana Lawson pointed out in one advert:
“Previous debt such as student loans shouldn’t be the reason a potential buyer can’t purchase their first home”.
She broke down ‘100% financing’ in a clear post. By providing this useful information to potential customers, she obtained their business.
So if you want your Facebook real estate ads in 2021 to succeed, you should play the numbers game.
Let the potential leads know how good of a grasp you have on numbers and how you can help them finance their next homes.
Customer’s pain points
An example of using a customer’s pain point is when one ad text read: “Keep your whole family together.” This is a pain point for prospective leads looking for a big house that can contain their whole family.
By understanding the pain points and problems prospective leads face and adding value propositions that sell, you appeal to them more. Having a solution to their problems and pains will pique their interest in your service.
Using the customer’s pain points when creating a campaign will help your audience relate to your adverts on a personal level.
Satisfied Customer Testimonials
One famous realtor compiled testimonials from their customers to create adverts. Since the most effective method of persuasion is telling people how good your services are, letting past customers do the talking for you is great.
Incorporating Customer Testimonials in will help prospective leads trust your agency more, which leads to easier conversions.
Get inspired by studying 42 great examples of real estate advertising on Facebook. These can help you curate extremely effective ads.
How To Create a Facebook Ad for Real Estate?
There are numerous effective tips for a marketer to get Facebook leads for realtors.
10 Tips on Facebook Ads for Agents
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Build a convincing Facebook page
A carefully curated and convincing page can help you convert real estate leads. Even the best real estate ads on Facebook will not do you any good if your page isn’t appealing. Remember to have a follow up plan to nurture your leads.
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Target the right audience
The trick to effective real estate advertising is to target your audience. Use the platform’s geo-targeting, demographic-targeting, behavioral-targeting, and interest-targeting to effectively achieve this.
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Include a clear and compelling call to action
You can use several CTAs, including “Contact Us”, “Learn More”, “Call Now”, or “Send Message”. These are highly effective in converting real estate leads.
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Allow reviews and testimonials on your Page
Reviews build trust with potential clients, so you should include them on your page.
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Track performance
You should check your analytics since your real estate Facebook lead generation ad strategy will only be effective if you can track its performance. This will show you what is working and what isn’t.
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Share helpful content
Buying or selling a home is stressful. This is why you should post informative information about buying and selling houses on your Facebook Page.
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Use photos and videos
Visuals can help you create engaging adverts that attract clients and get them curious about your service.
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Keep it short and concise
Get straight to the point in your ad copy to create a compelling impact on your potential customers.
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Expand your reach
You can set up an engagement ad by opting for the “Engagement” marketing objective so that you can reach more potential real estate leads.
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Focus on mobile-friendly messages
Most people nowadays use smartphones, so it only makes sense that you should make your messaging mobile-friendly to increase conversions.
Facebook Ad Copy Tips
Focus on being recognizable
Facebook marketing for real estate agents is no different from those of other industries. It’s important to use the same tone across all your channels so that your audience can recognize your message no matter where they read it.
Keep it short and concise
Decide on the message you’d like to convey and stick to it.
Include a specific call to action
CTAs like “Shop now”, “Learn more”, and “Connect here” are excellent additions to your ad copy. Only use one CTA.
Include a timeframe
Using phrases and words like “now”, “today”, “this week”, and “more’ can help add a sense of urgency to your ad copy.
Tie your text to your visual
Your copy and your image should tell individual stories. They should also complement each other. We also recommend using Virtual Staging technique in your pictures in order to make your listing more appealing to buyers.
Speak directly to your audience
Decide on your audience’s general character and write your ad copy like you are speaking to them.
Use Numbers
Using numbers in your ad copy is an excellent way to grab people’s attention.
5 Actionable Tips on Facebook Video Ads
1. Create videos that work without sound
According to Facebook, 80% of users react negatively to videos auto-playing with sound. Make sure that your video ads get your message across with visuals only. We highly recommend to take advantage of implementing in your strategy drone videos and photographies to promote your listings.
2. Aim to engage within the first three seconds
The first 3 seconds of your video promotion are the most important. Intriguing the audience during this period increases the chances of them watching the rest of the video.
3. Pay attention to your video advertisements and learn from them
How many people are watching your videos? How many are clicking on your promotions? How many visit your website after watching? Understanding these will help you improve your video advertising strategy.
4. Keep it short
People tune out quickly, so you should have the appropriate video length and tell your story quickly. As Falcon.IO reports, the social media platform recommends a length of 5-15 seconds.
5. Optimize the ad title and description
If you’d like prospective real estate leads to watch your video promotions, your title should be engaging, and the description should tell people what to expect from you.
As mention by Facebook: “You can use the video format in the Facebook News Feed to show off your product” (this works for ads too!):
Design recommendations
- File type: MP4, MOV or GIF
- Ratio: 4:5
- Video settings: H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan and stereo AAC audio compression at 128 kbps+
- Resolution: At least 1080 x 1080 pixels
- Video captions: Optional, but recommended
- Video sound: Optional, but recommended
- Videos should not contain edit lists or special boxes in file containers.
Text recommendations
- Primary text: 125 characters
- Headline: 40 characters
- Description: 30 characters
- Technical requirements
- Video duration: 1 second to 241 minutes
- Maximum file size: 4 GB
- Minimum width: 120 pixels
- Minimum height: 120 pixels
360 videos
With some objectives, you can use a 360 video. When people see this type of ad, they can turn their device or drag their finger to move around within the video and explore every angle.
How To Target Facebook Ads for Real Estate?
Facebook Real Estate Target Audience
What makes this social media juggernaut the perfect advertising platform is the detailed level of targeting that you can achieve with it.
Here are a couple of ideas for targeting options that may really enhance your real estate Facebook lead generation strategy:
Location Targeting using Zipcode
You should set some location targeting based on the region you are selling your properties in.
Demographic targeting
There are 2 ways of doing this:
- Targeting by income level – This allows you to target your audience based on how much they earn.
- Targeting by homeownership status – There are 3 options here which include first-time homebuyers, homeowners, and renters. This will help find the right individuals based on the types of properties you are selling.
Targeting by behavior – Target those “Likely to Move”
For this one, navigate to Detailed Targeting> Behaviors>Residential profiles. You’ll find the option for individuals who are “likely to move”.
Targeting by custom audiences – Lookalike audiences
You most probably have a list of people who recently purchased homes. With Custom Audiences, you can upload the list to your campaign, and then the platform will find similar individuals (lookalike audiences) who are likely to invest in the properties you are selling.
Facebook Ads Targeting Tips
Target your audience’s interests
The real estate target audience for Facebook should not only be based on demographics like age and gender isn’t going to cut it. You need to narrow down your audience by defining the interests of an ideal customer.
Watch the audience meter
When selecting your target audience, observe the audience meter to see if your audience is too specific or broad. An ideal situation would be a balance between the two.
Build loyalty with Facebook Custom Audiences
Custom Audiences enable you to connect with your existing contacts. This reinforces your brand and gives you the opportunity to increase lifetime customer value, order frequency, and loyalty. You can create Custom Audiences by uploading your customer’s phone list or subscriber email list.
Expand to Lookalike Audiences
Using Custom Audiences, you can mirror your fan base. Lookalike Audiences will help you expand beyond your reach while targeting people with highly specific profiles. This will allow you to reach new audiences that look like your existing customers.
Use Audience Insights
Audience Insights is a useful tool for narrowing down your target audience. This will nail down your target demographic, allowing you to reach them.
Set exclusions
You can also specify who you want to target. You can exclude a particular segment of people from receiving the ad and save on your advertising budget.
What You Should NOT Do
- Use stock photos: Using an ad with a real photo of a landmark in your area or a home you’ve recently sold is more representative and compelling. Just make sure you obtain permission to use it.
- Use words on your ad photo: This could get it rejected for looking too spammy. The platform actually has a useful tool that can help you test to see if you have too many words.
- Use photos that show an area instead of an actual home: Unless you have a photo that is compelling and truly representative of your area, you might not get people to understand at first glance what it is you do or are offering.
- Alienate your audience: Try to always include inclusive language that different elements of your target audience can relate to.
- Mislead your audience: Ensure that the information you provide is factual and will provide accurate information. Remember, building trust as a real estate agent is essential from the get-go!
Facebook real estate ads in 2021 will require an effective strategy. You will then be well on your way to driving your target audience to your website.
As an added advantage, our seller lead capture pages will help cement these leads through the journey of lead nurturing until they actually convert.
After all, conversions are the ultimate aim for any real estate agent.
