Paid Social Media Ads (for SELLING Real Estate): Do They Work?

Question

Hey all. I'm curious to get everyone's take on whether or not paid social media (SoMe) ads are an effective way to sell real estate? I'm fully aware this is a super difficult question to answer as there are a lot of factors to consider here: What type of real estate (e.g. luxury, foreign)? What type of seller (realtor, wholesaler, FSBO)? What specific SoMe platform (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc)? All of these questions and more can drastically impact the target audience and therefore one's success rate (and therefore opinion) with using paid SoMe ads for selling real estate.

Having said all that, *IN GENERAL* do you believe paid SoMe ads work or not, and why? Feel free to touch upon your own experiences or what you've heard from others. I'm sure many of us will be coming from many different areas of real estate as well as geographic regions so it'll be interesting to hear everyone's opinions.

Also, if you're a believer in using paid SoMe ads, what's been the reason for your success? Too many times I've heard from people who say "If done right, SoMe ads can be very effective." Ok. But what does that mean? What does "if done right" look like?

Looking forward to getting this conversation going!

Mark Sewell · Answer

@Ahmed K. man, good post.

• You can integrate your marketing funnels into paid social media. I've heard folks express concern that the leads that they get from social media aren't necessarily qualified. That's only because the people running the ads aren't optimizing the funnel for re-targeting and conversions.

And here is the trick in my opinion.  Many ways to do this, and a lot of testing is required.

I also think that having good content makes a world of difference.

JT Rose · Answer

Account Closed Facebook can definitely be successful for generating the leads for both motivated sellers and cash buyers quickly in the investor space. I've seen it generate a lot of interest in the traditional side but takes more time to optimize and produce concrete results.

You'll always want to make sure you have your basics down before you jump into starting a campaign. Generally the first thing I see when people said they did not have a successful campaign is that they did not add Facebook's tracking pixel to their website. If you don't add this code to your website you basically can't communicate with Facebook's algorithm and it's just assuming that you haven't had any results from your marketing because it has nothing to track. If it assumes you have no results it will not push your ads to those that are most likely to convert on your website & will cause a whole string of miscommunication issues.

Second most important thing to do is create good targeting. There are a few ways to do this. If you have csv data that you can upload to Facebook preferably data on motivated sellers that are skip traced and contain phone numbers and emails you will be able to use that as a starting point. Facebook allows you to create Look-a-like (LAL) audiences that are centered on the website traffic and characteristics of the people matched from the data you uploaded. I'd recommend having at least 2000 people on the list you upload but the more the better because it will increase the number of actual matches you have which increases the effectiveness of your LAL audience. Basically, after matching the data you uploaded Facebook will find more people within a 1% similarity in your area.

If you don't have data you can upload you can still create your own audiences of motivated sellers by running a video views campaign to start and tracking how long people watch your video. I suggest a minute-long video for this type of strategy and tracking those who watch 50% in a separate audience. You'll want to create a LAL audience once you hit about 1200-1500 50% views. That will help Facebook find people who are interested in watching your content. From there you can drive people to your page and track them, retarget them and set up a bunch more LAL audiences to help fill out the middle of your funnel.

Finding content that performs is definitely necessary but the hardest part is just starting. You don't need a professional filming you, it can be as simple as filming yourself with your cell phone. Honestly, I've seen these work better because they are more personal. The face to face interaction will stop more people in the scroll because it looks less like the traditional ads they are seeing every 3 posts which gives you a few extra seconds to win them over with some copy and see how long you can keep them engaged.

The reason why I see campaigns on Facebook so great for Real Estate Investors is because of the Reach factor & the Retargeting. Reach wise you are paying so little to get in front of thousands of people while getting them to engage with your ads. Retargeting is so great on Facebook because it's so cheap and it helps bring all your marketing channels together. Not only can you upload your direct mail, cold calling, texting & past leads to Facebook to stay in front of them and improve your interaction rate but you can track anyone that might be going to your website from SEO, PPC or word of mouth. On top of that you can keep your brand top of mind that will help your other campaigns perform better as well as convert leads that you find a long the way.

If you have any more questions or want details on certain campaigns and strategies I use feel free to let me know.

Ahmed K. · Answer

Account Closed - Yes, paid social media is one of the best ways to sell real estate. First, I'll highlight the *why* and then I'll explain the *how*

- Social media marketing allows sellers to find their target audience by exploring Facebook Audience Insights or by uploading our own database of clients and telling Facebook to find users in the Facebook universe that are most similar to our most loyal clients. This beats cold calling any time.

- Because we are reaching out to target audiences, we are saving time and money. There's too much time lost in chasing leads that never pan out and too much money on traditional methods that generate low returns.

- The data is there. Paid social media lets you jump into reports to accurately see your conversions. Facebook even has a reporting tool that lets you compare it to TV campaigns.

- Customization. You can integrate your marketing funnels into paid social media. I've heard folks express concern that the leads that they get from social media aren't necessarily qualified. That's only because the people running the ads aren't optimizing the funnel for re-targeting and conversions.

That's the why. Now here's the how.

First, set up a Facebook page. Then install a Facebook Pixel on your website. Now you are ready to build custom audiences in Facebook Ads. If you have an excel file of your most loyal clients, you can upload that, as well.

The Facebook Page will let you engage with prospective buyers and will let you (1) build brand awareness (2) drive engagement and (3) lead to conversions. The Facebook Pixel is an analytics tool that can be the engine of your paid social media. Here's how you do that:

If your objective is to attract buyers, writing an ad that says BUY THIS HOME is a terrible way to waste money. You'd need to use your funnel. That means drafting content that is relevant to your buyers and adds value to them. For example, draft posts about what buyers should watch out for when searching for a home, or what questions they should ask about an open house. You can even make it more time bound and make it a post about Summer 2020 trends for home buyers.

After you do research into your audience, craft an ad promoting your content. The ad directs users to your content. Now your Facebook pixel has tagged potential buyers. Your re-targeting efforts will more precisely target prospective buyers. The type of re-targeting ad depends on your objective.

It gets a bit more detailed: A/B testing, image ads vs link ads, how to build better funnels etc. I hope this is helpful and adds value.

Send me a message if you want to chat more. I'm a geek for this stuff.

Paid Social Media Ads (for SELLING Real Estate): Do They Work?

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