I have a lot of experience with FB/IG ads, however, not in the real estate investing world. With that said, I’ve found that whatever the product or service that human behavior doesn’t change that dramatically. So for a beginner into social media advertising, just like in real estate, you should educate yourself on the best practices. The internet is FULL of good advice (and some bad) on how best to reach and engage your target demo.
The first advise I would give about any marketing in general is give it the proper amount of time and investment. There is no magic equation to this as it will vary great depending on demo, market, product, etc. However, if you spend $250 for one month and don’t get the results then give up then you haven’t given it a proper attempt. You’ll need time for the ads to resonate and for you to optimize on what ads, data sets and campaigns are working best.
Here are some easy to implement best practices.
-Take advantage of the ability to target geographically. You can draw multiple radius's as small as 1 mile under the same campaign.
-Though not as robust as it used to be take a close look at FB’s demographic selections. Know your demo. You can still target by age, education, income etc…
-Do A/B testing. Before launching have a couple of ads “in the can” and run them under 2 different campaigns. See which on performs best and scrap the other. Do the same thing for geo’s and demographic selections.
-Keep it simple. Don’t try to be something your not or overwhelm with info. Less is more with the ads itself. I’m getting a much higher engagement rates with short videos right now so think about that route. Focus on the visual but make sure the copy is clear, concise, engaging, and has a clear call to action.
-Think carefully about how you aggregate the clicks or leads. To a landing page, to your site or through lead forms. I’ve had success with all 3 however, it can really make or break a campaign if done incorrectly. You could have the perfect ad and reaching all the right people but if they can’t get a hold of you or get led to a place that is terrible they won’t call. Lead Ads through FB can be a very effective tool. In order to make this tool work properly though you have to be able to quickly follow up. Also, because it’s so easy to submit a lead form in FB you may get some unqualified leads. The form auto-populates the users info and all they have to hit is submit.
-Clean your house before inviting people over. Meaning if you have a website make sure it’s decent and clear before driving humans to it. It doesn’t have to be super fancy or expensive just functional and not a hot mess. Get your FB page filled out with pictures and post every so often. This seems simple but if you are paying for ads people will likely look at your site or FB page. If it’s a mess they are less likely to call you.
I could go on and on but between this and the other posts it should give you a good idea what to do.
