All Forum Posts by: Tim Oppelt

Google Ads is a great way to scale because the operational burden is low. Leads are high quality so your salesperson doesnt have to spend a lot of time sifting through tire kickers. A lot of full time teachers/engineers/parents/workers use PPC to grow their part-time REI hustle, because they have limited time during each day.

PPC marketing is the lowest time burden when it comes to managing leads. The leads are expensive, but they are higher quality and can be managed while working a job, unlike maybe cold calling for hours a day. If you work so much, you should have some disposal income to use for marketing, no other choice. You can call back leads during your 3 hour commute. 

Source: I've spent over $5mil on google ppc for motivated selelrs across the US for lots of investors. 

I worked at Carrot for 4 years, most of my clients use Carrot sites. I've been wholesaling myself for 10 years. Company is Wholesaling PPC, we might be a good fit for you. Omaha is a good market for PPC, not too competitive. 

I run Wholesaling PPC and have a youtube channel too under my name Tim Oppelt. So im obviously biased. Other specialized REI agencies in this space are Adwords Nerds, Bateman Collective, Motivated Leads, and a ton of smaller one man shows. There are over 10,000 agencies in the us, most are bad and none of them will understand our industry, I would stick with somebody who knows REI. Most REI marketing agencies range from $1500/mo-$5k/mo in fees alone. So often its people with big budgets working with them, otherwise your whole budget is eaten up in fees. You can work with us for $833/mo, we keep things streamlined, no frills and dont overcharge. I built our service for the average investor vs the big corporate types ones.

Anyways, questions you should ask all agencies you are vetting

1. what % of clients are real estate investors? (should be 90-100%)
2. case studies of clients that have been with them for over 2 years. (long term results not "just got my first deal")
3. whats their strategy?
4. how long will it take to get results? (anything less than 3-5 months is BS)
5. are you an investor yourself? (ideal, Ive been wholesaling 10 years)
6. why do clients leave? (honesty here!)

Yea google reps are evil imo. Their advice always comes down to spend more money and give Google more control..dont listen to them! get an REI-specific agency and have them teach you or learn yourself. I run google ads for like 30 real estate investors targeting motivated sellers exclusively. Google Reps call me like 2X a day I have to block all their rotating numbers...So annoying. Google Ads for agents is a bit more challenging for motivated house seller keywords because you are competing with investors who typically can make more per deal. So they can spend more per keyword and price out agents. Focusing on "best agents near me" or "listing agents in [area]" or "buyers agents in [area]".

Clays advice is solid, but make sure you do more in-depth training before spending a bunch of $$$ yourself. Theres a lot to learn for google ads early on. I would consider using phrase/exact match keywords to start vs broad. And if the volume is too low, then add broad. 
Best of luck!

hey Tim with Carrot here!

Excited that you've joined the Carrot Fam!

Carrot has a solid marketplace that has recommended vendors you can check out. Motivated-Leads is on there, Silverstreet and Adwords Nerds are on there too. Keith Sant with SEO Meets REI is my friend and I know they can rank high in multiple markets, I see it. I'm also on there I run Wholesaling PPC, happy to chat too!

Regardless of who you choose, here are good questions to ask to determine the best fit for you. 

1. What % of clients are real estate investors?
You are looking for 100% here. This will determine if they understand REI or
are generic digital marketing agencies that dont understand our industry.

2. Do you have an active investing business?
IF they do, get their website (mine is webuyhomesde.com). This means
they understand the other functions of the business that affect PPC like the entire
website, online presence, lead management, lead quality, and sales process so they can
provide additional support in those areas which are crucial for success.

3. Do you have current clients I can speak with?
Look for clients that have been with them at least 6 months. If they can’t procure
that, it’s a red flag that they can’t provide long term results for investors.

4. Do you subcontract out any of your services?
This is especially important if they offer multiple services. Often agencies will
have an in house team for one service and just upcharge services of another
company that secretly does the work for them for the rest. Understand what you
are paying for.

5. What is the average monthly budget of your clients?
It will either be in the $2k--$4k range or $8k+. Make sure your budget is near what
they tell you. If your budget is $2k and they mainly work with $10k budgets, their
strategy (and fees) may not be suitable for your business.

6. What are the main reasons that clients leave?
Look for data-backed answers around expectations, investor’s ability to close, and
site conversion rate. Good answers would be “they quit after X months/spend
when we recommend Y”, “we generate X amount of leads and on average they
should convert to Y deals, but those investors didn’t convert.” “Conversion rate on
their site was X, and they didn’t put in the work in their competitive market to
bring it up to Y.”

7. Do you have case studies of clients with you at least
one year? (see example screenshot)
This is proof that they can provide consistent long
term results for their clients. If all of their reviews are only investors who closed a deal within 60 days or closed their first deal , that’s a red flag. Case studies > reviews as it’s easy to fudge reviews these days as well. Many people can get lucky and get a deal in 30 days with PPC then their campaign bombs...but the agency still got a review out of it. 

8. What kind of results should I expect?
The typical ROI for a well targeted PPC campaign for investors is 3-5X your spend.
If they don’t set these expectations or promise you they will 10X your money, it’s a red flag they don’t understand our business and/or are just lying to you.

9. How long will it take to get results?
If they promise a deal within 30 days, they are misleading you. PPC can produce
deals within 30 days or less, but it often takes 3-6 months for good results.
Anything less means the agency isn’t honest or they don’t understand PPC or our
business.

10. How can I understand what is happening in my
campaign?
Have them send you sample metric reports. Look to see if you can understand
them and how they explain the data. It should be easy to understand and not
filled with tons of tech jargon.

There are agencies that are jack-of-all-trades that do FB/PPC/SEO/everything...A lot of investors like them because its convenient. I only focus on Google Ads because i believe you should be an expert in 1 thing vs just decent at everything. So just take that into account when deciding who to go with. 

Best of luck!

@Chris Trupiano Tim from Carrot here!

Couple thoughts to consider when analyzing your marketing

Typical cash conversion cycle for most marketing is 6-9 months. This means its 6+months on average from when you spend the money to when you actually close the deal. PPC I believe is closer to 3-4 months. 

It sounds like you are cold calling and have been at it 3 months, so it's not quite long enough to REALLY know what your long-term ROI will be.

I've seen average lead to deal ratio for cold calling/SMS at like 1-in-60 in competitive markets like Phoenix. KCMO isn't as competitive, but its is still more competitive than you may expect. You may actually be in the expected returns for your marketing and just need to have a longer-term view on it. 

If you want to make improvements its 2 things: 1) sales and 2) lead quality

Lead quality can be fixed with better marketing like more targeted niche lists, SEO like Jerryll states, or PPC. 

For Sales, ideally: Less than 10min speed to lead.  3X contact on day 1, daily for the first week, then weekly for first 3 months. No VAs handling the leads unless they are COLD follow ups. for PPC this is a requirement because the leads are HOT. 

PPC can be generate leads much faster than SEO, but over 5 years won't as good an ROI: 1-in-15 per deal in today's market ROUGHLY. But lead cost can be $200-$400/each. 

All channels work, the lead costs, lead conversion rates and cash conversion cycles are just different. 

Happy to chat more about this, best of luck!

For google ads, the main keywords I would use are "homes for sale in", "best agent in", "best realtor in", "listing my house in", "best agents near me", "top agents near me". Things like that. You have to be careful with keywords like "cash for my house" or "sell my house fast" because investors and flippers target those keywords and bid them up very high because they can make a huge profit on those leads. 

Organic SEO is a long-term game and takes AT LEAST 6-12 months before you start generating consistent lead flow. Ranking for your own brand is a quick win you can do (and also do with ppc). 

PPC you can start to generate leads within a couple days, but is more $$$$. 

Best of luck!

You should look into the hybrid agent model. It's an agent who is an investor or partners with investors. You advertise to find investment properties, but you also have the ability to list their house traditionally if thats the best solution for the homeowner. It's becoming pretty populat these days. The website company Carrot has a lot of content around this topic. There's also "The Investor Agent" FB Group. Try googling "hybrid real estate carrot" and you should find something. Online marketing like SEO and PPC have a pretty low volume for multifamily properties, though its possible. You might have better success direct mailing some specific property lists you find on propstream. 

 Thanks for sharing this John! I work at Carrot and we especially love connecting with members who are doing hybrid! Love the smooth intro video on your YEG carrot site! Make sure to include some reviews on your home page (text is fine, but ideally video) to boost your credibility even further and warm those leads up! We have some great resources on best ways to gather and format reviews, hit me up if you want any guidance