All Forum Posts by: Josh McRay

@Adah N. Budget really can depend on a lot of factors, like keyword matches, competition, and the demand for service in your market. If you're looking to target a large metro area like ATL then I'd start out with no less than $5K/month as Tim stated in his response. Good luck!

Hey @Adah N.!

I don't think there is a specific number of phrases that works best, as long as they are producing for you. I work with some investors where we started with 100+ keywords and have narrowed things down to the top 8-10 performing keywords all time. There are others that I work with where we're running around 80 keywords that all perform well. 

One of the big "do's" that I would suggest is that during keyword research, put yourself in the mindset of the type of customer that you want to click on your ads, and focus on those keyword searches. For example, "sell house" doesn't show any type of concrete motivation. It only informs you that somebody wants to sell their house, and doesn't tell you at what stage of the process they're in. Something like "cash offer for my home" is way more specific, and shows way more of a motivation to work out a deal and sell. 

A big "don't" would be getting started without adequate budget. If you plan on spending $10/day to try and attract motivated sellers leads, it probably isn't going to happen (at least not that often). Know that 1 single click can cost anywhere from $10 to $100, depending on the market. Give yourself the best possible chance at success by having an adequate runway saved up, so that you can be as competitive as possible. 

Hope this helps!

Hey @Aaron Froggatt!

So far I haven't found a workaround, but radius targeting has worked just fine for investors that I work with directly. Losing out on zip code targeting definitely sucks, but I just went through and plopped radii in the places where those zip codes were. I saw an initial drop in traffic, but recovered most of it within a week. The demographic info I'm less worried about. I primarily run ads on the Search Network because thats where all the motivation is. 

A few other things that Google Ads changed were the ability to see 66% of the search terms that people use to find your ads (super useful for me), and the ability to exclude areas. 

My recommendation would be focusing on running ads on the search network, and doing a cost-benefits analysis on the display network (your image based ands and YouTube ads) and seeing what the performance change has been like all time, and since October. It might end up being more beneficial to cut those out.

It's also worth it to make sure that you're spending some time on SEO. If you can get a #1 ranking and continue to run ads at the top of the page you'll have 2 different ways to continue to generate leads online when bigger algorithm changes effect organic and paid results. Hope this helps! 

Hey @Derrick Gordon!

I think how much sense it makes depends on whether you are seeing a profitable return or not. Did any of those 5-9 leads turn into deals, and did those deals end up being profitable for your business? I know some investors that run direct mail and get a 1-2% response rate, but their cost per deal gets  out of hand because of the number of mailers sent and the cost of mailers and lists.

Definitely consider looking at your numbers from the profit side instead of focusing on the response rate. If the channel isn't profitable, then I'd look at more inbound marketing. The problem with outbound marketing is exactly what you mentioned above; paying for addresses and numbers that don't respond.

Most of the investors that I work with directly have inbound marketing setup as their primary source, and are doing outbound marketing as a small supplemental source of leads. Why pay to call/mail people that aren't interested in selling? Instead, maybe look at setting up a funnel that allows people who actually WANT you to buy their house to find you. Getting a website, starting on SEO, and running Google Ads are great tactics to get in front of people who actually want to work with you. It makes you the hero in their home selling situation.

TLDR: If your outbound marketing isn't profitable, check out inbound.

Hope this helps!

Hey @Daniel Casey!

I second @Greg Dickerson on this one. Online lead generation is a great way to get your business in front of motivated sellers with distressed properties. Instead of you having to look for them, they are actively looking for you and the service that you provide. You can use the website as a "sales person" to direct all kinds of marketing channels through like Google Ads, FB Ads, and even direct mail pieces. 

Many of the investors that I work with start with a motivated seller site, run Google Ads to start generating leads ASAP, and then get started on an SEO strategy to get themselves onto page 1 organically. It's a solid 1-2 punch for passively generating leads for distressed properties. Hope this helps! 

Hey @Matt Rayn! Have you looked into ranking organically with a website or using Google Ads? If you're going to be doing this long term, and virtually, I'd highly recommend getting a site and starting to get it ranked. Ranking normally takes some time to start generating leads, so looking into Google Ads as a marketing source would be a great way to start generating leads quickly. This is a great 1-2 punch for long term and short term lead gen.

Hey @James McGovern!

You definitely have to put yourself in the mind of your motivated sellers and think about what somebody who is truly motivated would type into a search box. For example, it might not be worth it for you to target a keyword like "sell house" because you could show up for any number fo keyword searches like "what paint color will sell my house fast" or "sell things in my house for cash". 

Targeting keywords that fit more specific motivations like "sell my house for cash" or "cash offer for my house" means that you're cutting down on the number of non specific searches. So focus on using keywords that have some kind of motivational modifier, like fast, cash, and need, and build your keyword list from there.

You should also look into different match types, like phrase and exact, to get even more specific with the searches that you show up for.

Hope this helps!

@Ricardo Baker Anytime!

@Richie Choy I've been doing Google Ads for about 6 years now. Personally, I see roughly a 1/3 lead to deal rate. I started out at about 1/10 to 1/12, but the more that you dial a campaign in over time, the lower you can get your lead to deal rate (and costs).

Hey @Richie Choy!

Very solid experiment! You can also use the advanced location settings section at the campaign level to show ads only in your target area to continue to narrow down your results. In campaigns that I manage and run I also add every state and state abbreviation to my running negative keywords list. I just leave off the ones that I'm targeting inside of. You could probably check your "searched terms" section of your campaign to see if something like that would help (see how much of your traffic is using out of state terms in their searches). Hope this helps!