How to best use pay-per-click advertising for off-market leads

[Daniel Claroni]

I recently set up a campaign using Google Ads to generate more off-market leads, but quite frankly I'm new to this and I don't really know what I am doing. I figure if I spend a couple of grand a year (say $5k-6k) and in result get a handful of off-market leads per year that will be well worth it because I can hopefully save money on those deals or I could sell the lead/wholesale the deal. I would really appreciate any feedback, tips, or answers to my questions at the bottom of the post.

Here are some stats on my advertising so far (started on 04/08 and today is 04/10):

- I setup a 3 page website with a home page, about page, and contact page that lets users fill out info about themselves and the home. When they submit a form, it sends an email to me with all the details they filled out. This is what I am calling a "lead".

- 355 impressions on the ad

- 11 clicks on the add

- $43 spent so far (seems high to me, but I'm going to see how it goes)

- 0 leads thus far

- My top search result is "buy houses" - 265 impressions, 10 clicks. This seems weird to me since its not something like "we buy houses" or "buy my house". Wouldn't you search that if you are looking to buy not sell?

- Second best search result is "buy my house as is" - 40 impressions, 1 click.

Questions:

1. For advertising in RE investing in general, what is a good price per lead? For PPC advertising, what is a good price per lead?

2. What should I be looking for in terms of number of clicks for 1 lead?

3. When I get a lead, is it OK for me to set up a time to look at the home? I feel like doing that might lose me the lead, but how else will I know what the renovation costs will be

4. Is it common/easy to sell a lead to another investor? If so, how do you do that without giving away the lead for free (e.g. getting taken advantage of)? I am thinking I can charge a small "finder's fee", maybe something in the range of $500-$2k. I'm guessing that has to be done after they purchase the property though. I think I would rather do that than try to get into wholesaling, but I don't know if I will get taken advantage of.

5. What are your tips/best practices for pay-per-click advertising and online marketing for RE investing?

[Jerryll Noorden]

I am not sure about PPC, because I have never done that.

I do not do paid marketing for my REI business (I do SEO myself), however I do pay for marketing for my SEO business. Now check this out.

I used to spend about $30K/month for a profit of about $120K/month

Then I hired an expert and my facebook marketing now cost me about $10K/month for a profit of $150K/month.

As you can see, paid marketing is not trivial. See with SEO it is all about knowing your audience and apply logic.

For paid marketing, you need to know your audience AND you need to fully understand the tools of the system/platform you use for marketing.

Either learn it and become the best at it, like I did SEO, or hire an expert. I prefer learning this stuff and not hiring an expert because this is the most important thing there is to learn as this is DIRECTLY what will make you filthy rich and successful.

Many people will blindly tell you that you need to hire out things you are not good at. Yes I agree for the most part but NOT with marketing! You are marketing, your business IS marketing. If it is one thing you need to be good at is, marketing!

My best practices for online marketing for RE is to NEVER follow the masses. It is unbelievable to see that once I cracked the SEO code, to hear and see all these big shot SEO experts all COMPLETELY teaching people utter crap. COMPLETELY wrong!!

NEVER follow the masses! Yes in the case of marketing, absolutely reinvent the wheel!