Where do you see the best ROI with Internet buyer/seller leads?

Question

I have recently formed a team with 2 agents.  We've invested $$ into several sites like zillow/Realtor.com and we have used sites like OPcity and Homelight for buyer and seller leads.  We have also gone through the NINJA training and practice a Sphere of Influence based business with Client Events, Autoflow, Direct mail, Hand written letters.  We have also spent $ on social media platforms.   We are in the process of trimming the fat and I would love to hear from some experienced agents that have had great success with capturing quality buyer/seller leads through spending Marketing $ to websites.

Joseph Cacciapaglia · Answer

Sign up for a premium account on BiggerPockets. Stay active on the forums and provide real value to people whenever you can. You'll have more investor inquiries than you can handle in no time, assuming you're in a great real estate market for investors. If not, then Facebook ads. I average $2+-/lead on FB. They take a lot of follow up and cultivation, but you can generate a virtually unlimited number of them, based on your budget.

Matt Bonestroo · Answer

Do you have a website? I am a huge fan of Investor Carrot websites & they even have them for real estate agents (feel free to reach out if you have questions)... I would recommend becoming the "authority" in your market with a combination of SEO, PPC/Facebook Ads & social media marketing. The Carrot philosophy " there are a lot real estate experts that know their stuff, but authorities are experts that are found online."

Once you have a functioning website, you can start directing traffic to your website with PPC/Facebook Ads until your website is organically ranking in Google. Best of luck!

Nicholas Smith · Answer

We utlize Realtor.com and PPC campaigns as the vehicles for online leads. Both have varying ROI with the PPC advertising being the most lucrative. The con for the PPC is that it took years of steady building to get it to great generator it is today. We have one dedicated agent that's primary job is running the PPC and following up on leads. Realtor.com is relatively new for us but is showing really good promise.

For social media, we use it more of a branding area and not necessarily lead generation as we drop those campaigns within our farming area.

We used Zillow for awhile and drop some serious cash on it but we did not appreciate how they handled the business and allocation so dropped them. They have since changed their operation but out of principal have stayed away from them.

More then anything, I would focus on one or two of your chosen generators and working on getting them dialed in. If you have to many plates spinning at once it will be hard to properly leverage the leads and track them to verify ROI.

Jonathan Greene · Answer

ROI for internet leads is hard to determine because most people want metrics within a month or two on how well the leads are working. With internet leads, especially Zillow and even more on FB ads, their buy cycle is often 12-24 months out and by then, no one is tracking the back ROI of the original contact. Any lead source, even ones that we all hate like Zillow, work if you have the systems to respond and convert over time. I prefer to focus on all-in-one solutions instead of having 10 different systems so for that I would use something like Curaytor which takes away a lot of other stuff, but also costs a nice penny. As agent on-market, your use of BP can come in handy, but it's for the investor niche of course.

Lien Vuong · Answer

I personally dont like the Zillow/Realtor.com/Fb leads because they require a lot of follow up and are more cold leads than warm. If you do select that route I would make sure you have the right follow up infrastructure to nurture those leads so they dont die - they're 3% ROI typically.

Going with BP leads returns some serious hours on the forums and engaging with a lot of people.

Have you considered creating a personal referral/SOI lead or other agents? I refer out at least a deal a month to other agents and make strong side income from that.

Greg Ryan · Answer

Thank you all for the great advice.  I'm currently looking into each of the different platforms that you've posted on here.  Thanks!

Where do you see the best ROI with Internet buyer/seller leads?

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