You’re reading this because you want to know: Does Facebook real estate lead generation actually work? That’s a valid question.
You’ve probably wondered if Facebook advertising for realtors is worth it. Maybe you’ve even dabbled in setting up some Facebook ads already.
Clearly, you need more information (otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this).
As a real estate agent, setting up your first Facebook Ad campaign can seem daunting. Many people will be tempted to copy the same ads from other agents (a huge no-no).
Most real estate agents who want to generate leads from Facebook ads encounter the same problems:
- They don’t think they’re good at making videos or visual ads.
- They don’t understand the BAD effects of time delay in following up leads.
- They don’t leave clear CTA on their Facebook Ads.
The Internet isn’t the same as it used to be 4-5 years ago. It has become crowded and noisy, so to stand out, your real estate Facebook ads must grab the prospects’ attention.
This in-depth guide covers all you need to know to make great Facebook Ads for Real Estate leads. You’ll learn how to generate high-quality real estate leads from Facebook Ads and steer clear of common mistakes.
We’ll also show you the exact ad copy and the workflow we use for our clients at Scaling With Systems. Let’s begin!
Importance Of Facebook Marketing For Real Estate
There are three types of real estate agents:
- those who harness the power of Facebook
- those who spend money on Facebook advertising but have no idea what they’re doing
- those who don’t use Facebook Advertising at all.
Which type you’re going to be?
Here are some statistics that’ll further drive home the point that Facebook advertising for realtors is hugely valuable.
Why Use The Facebook Platform For Advertising?
Over 36% of the world’s population is on Facebook.
The global community of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, continues to grow rapidly. 77% of people on the Internet use at least one Meta platform, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, or Instagram.
Here’s one more interesting fact: Since Facebook has been researching artificial intelligence for over ten years, you can imagine how their algorithm has been made to provide powerful granular targeting options on their ads.
Basically, Facebook is sitting on a goldmine of data that can be helpful for you. It’s a no brainer that Facebook Ads for Real Estate Agents can skyrocket your business to success.
The Potential For Real Estate Business On Facebook
Here are some staggering facts taken from Statista:
- 2.91 billion people actively use Facebook each month.
- More than 18% of men and 12% of women aged 25-34 use Facebook regularly.
- Further, over 10% of men and 7% of women aged 35-44 use this platform frequently.
Now, as a real estate agent, you understand that these age groups are most likely to buy a new home. With an active real estate campaign on Facebook, you can reach this untapped user base.
Why Should Real Estate Agents Advertise On Facebook?
Because more than 75% of homebuyers in the United States use the Internet to find their next home, this research mostly happens on a mobile device.
You can show these potential homebuyers and sellers your realtor Facebook Ad. Additionally, ensure you make the efforts minimal; filling out the lead generation form should be convenient.
Here are 5 SOLID reasons you should advertise on Facebook:
- Facebook has a massive chunk of potential buyers and sellers of real estate properties,
- Thanks to AI and a huge database, it provides precise targeting and retargeting. It means you can target the people based on the locality you serve in.
- Most people use at least one Meta platform daily.
- You can show your property using visuals, which makes conversion more probable.
- Potential ROI is great.
Why Is It Your Fault, Not The Leads’?
You’re doing everything right – you create stunning visuals, have a clear target audience persona mapped out, and set up great real estate Facebook ads. Eventually, leads come pouring in. You call them, but the leads don’t convert.
You blame the lead quality, and Facebook like most Internet marketers do. But in reality, it’s your fault and not the leads’!
In most cases, it’s not the lead quality or Facebook that’s the culprit but your follow-up. More precisely, the time you take to follow up.
Many businesses still aren’t using well-timed calls to follow up on their leads. You need to be consistent and focus on following up strategically by reducing the amount of time between the touchpoint and the follow-up. It could mean that just by improving your follow-up, you’d have an unfair advantage over your competitors who don’t recognize the importance of it.
Statistics About The Real Estate Business And Lead Generation
On average, only 2% of sales are made during the first contact point. If you’re not following up at all, you could miss out on 98% of your sales leads.
And when leads are contracted within one hour of the business receiving the query, these leads are 7X more likely to have valuable conversations with decision-makers than those who wait longer to be contacted (even an hour later). It gets more serious – if you wait more than 24 hours to contact the new lead, businesses were 60X less likely to have a meaningful conversation with that lead.
Setup A System To Handle New Leads
It’s not that you don’t want leads or sell/buy property. But it’s more of a management issue. In other words, you get unorganized and overwhelmed by the leads coming in, and you’re unable to have that past response time. We get it.
Look at this example (pic below):
A man is pouring water out from his drowning boat while a hole is letting more water into the boat. Now imagine the bucket to be your money, and the water from the hole is the new leads pouring in. By the time you contact your new leads (throw them out of the boat), they become too old.
And sometimes the worst happens: they’ve gone to your competitors!
How do you solve this problem and make your Facebook real estate lead generation campaign streamlined and effective?
Two easy steps:
- Set up a system to handle new leads
- Use virtual assistants to pre-qualify leads so they go directly to your CRM. They can book appointments in your calendar and handle other admin paperwork.
You can outsource all this time-consuming work to an Inside Sales Agency (ISA). Or maybe you can ask your niece to do it for you.
Look at the following pic. It demonstrated the prospects’ journey from filling up the lead generation form to the booking/meeting phase.
You should only come in at the booking/meeting phase as a realtor. The rest of the steps should be in the system that doesn’t require interference. That way, you don’t get overwhelmed, and those leads don’t get lost.
For example: When one of your Facebook real estate lead generation ads receives input in the form, your ISA team or virtual assistant (VA) should immediately do a follow-up via call or email. Facebook retargeting will show your ads on its other platforms in case they clicked and didn’t fill out the form.
Once your VA confirms everything with the lead and books the appointment on your calendar, you must appear for the meeting with the new lead. And convert them!
The point is: don’t waste your time on tasks that can be automated, delegated, or eliminated.
Setup Your First Campaign
Before setting up your real estate lead generation Facebook ads, you need to have a business page on Facebook. If you’re reading this post, you probably have a business page.
If you don’t have one, you can quickly create a Facebook business page in a few minutes. You’ll require the following things to optimize your new page:
- Your business name and description
- Your profile photo (logo) and cover photo
- A CTA button will take your page visitor to a landing page or your website.
To start setting up your first campaign, visit your page and find the “Ad Center” option on the left sidebar. It’ll take you to the ad manager on Facebook.
When you first click to create the campaign on Facebook, it’ll ask you to choose the objective of your campaign. Here are a few ad objectives that you’ll see based on which stage your audience is in:
- Brand Awareness
- Traffic
- Leads
- Engagement
- App Promotion
- Sales
Of course, since you aim to capture leads, go with the “Lead Generation” option under the Consideration header. Click continue and move forward.
On the next page, you’ll see settings for your ad. Find the option to choose “Special Categories” and select “Housing.” It is required to select this category because of the US government’s Fair Housing Act.
There are a bunch of more settings, such as A/B testing, which you can configure according to your needs.
Go to the next page, and set up your contact and budget for your real estate ad.
Facebook Targeting For Real Estate Business Leads
Now you’ll get targeting options. Ensure you put extra effort into this step, as Facebook has a goldmine of data. You’re going to laser target the ones you need.
Under the “Audience” tab, click “Create a new audience.”
At Scaling With Systems, we recommend wide-open targeting; don’t overcomplicate things. Since you’re a real estate agent or broker, you can target based on two metrics: area and age.
Area: If you live and serve a particular city, say Florida City, don’t target the entire United States. You can also use zip code to niche down even further.
Age: An 18-year-old wouldn’t buy a luxury house. Likewise, a 60-year-old would buy a new house. It’s necessary to target people most likely to buy the type of houses or properties you sell.
Facebook Lead Form
After setting up the targeting, continue to the next step, where you can choose your placements.
Placements mean where you want Facebook to show your ads. You can choose to show your Ad on Instagram and Facebook or leave the default “automatic” option to let Facebook decide what’s best for you.
Moving further, you can choose how you will capture the leads.
Since you have to make the real estate Facebook lead generation as easy as possible, you’ll need to make it convenient for the people who’ll see your ads too.
Facebook dislikes when people leave the platform to wander off to another site. It decreases the chances of showing them more and more Ads (which creates revenue for them).
You can create a win-win situation by using Facebook Lead Forms, otherwise known as “Instant Forms.”
These are the forms that your leads will fill out to get in touch with you without ever leaving Facebook. Alternatively, if you have a website with a landing page ready to capture leads, you can skip this step (highly not recommended).
Creating the Facebook Lead form is intuitive. One piece of advice: keep it simple. Don’t ask questions that are not required.
We have seen that the most simple forms have the best conversions. If you complicate this, you only make it inconvenient for the lead. And the worst will happen: they’ll click away for good.
Example Offers For Real Estate Leads
Before seeing some example offers, understand why a good offer can make or break your campaign.
Contrary to popular belief, Facebook Ads for real estate leads do work. The foremost important thing is your offer.
If your offer isn’t good enough, no matter how many systems you put in place, people won’t be interested. It’s necessary to create an offer so good and valuable that your prospects find it hard to say no.
Here are a few critical aspects of your offer (Ad) that you should be mindful about:
- Your Ad copy should do magic. It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it that matters the most.
- Good offers have a strong CTA. Ask yourself: What do I want my prospects to do after seeing my offer?
- Be clear and precise. Don’t add fluff in your words or write history in your ad copy.
- Your offer should be delivering value. And offer a guarantee.
Here are some of the best example offers for real estate Ads on Facebook.
Getting Booked Appointments On Auto-Pilot
Besides delegating the task booking meetings to your VA, you can also automate this entire process using an automation software we use, Zapier.
Zapier is an if-then software, a business automation tool basically that you can use to integrate other business tools to improve your entire workflow.
For example, suppose someone fills out the lead form. You’d use automation known as Zaps, set up with Zapier. It takes that contact info into an email drip in your email marketing software. Over the next few days or weeks, the prospects get nurtured with email and eventually get an option to book a meeting with you.
Furthermore, you can also use both VA and Zapier to create a smoother workflow and get booked appointments on autopilot.
So, you have two scenarios after a prospect fills out the form through your real estate ad:
- Fills the form > VA prequalifies them > Appointment booked > Final conversion > Cash in your pocket
- Fills the form > Goes into email drip and gets nurtured (using Zaps) > Appointment booked > Final conversion > Cash in your pocket.
Real Estate Facebook Lead Generation FAQ
How do you generate leads in real estate?
Some of the best ways to generate leads in Real Estate include leveraging online advertising through social media (like Facebook and LinkedIn), building collaborative partnerships, past client referrals, traditional marketing, cold calling, and more.
What is generating leads in real estate?
Generating leads in real estate essentially means gathering interested people together to then reach out to, and, hopefully, sign up for your services. You can generate leads through opt-in forms through Facebook advertising by offering high-value content, freebies, and more. The point is that those leads will hopefully turn into paying clients.
Does Facebook work for real estate?
When it comes to the real estate business, Facebook can be an extremely valuable platform to leverage. With so many users and intelligent advertising systems, Facebook can give realtors a great opportunity to access new prospects. All you need to do is learn about how to optimize Facebook lead generation for real estate by reading this article.
The Bottom Line: Facebook Real Estate Lead Generation
So that was it — one of the most comprehensive guides on Facebook lead generation for Real Estate.
Today you learned that Facebook marketing is important for real estate agents, how to set up a Facebook Ads campaign, targeting tricks, follow-up tips for leads, and more.
You clearly care about your business and are serious about success if you read through this detailed guide. If you know that acquiring clients is where your pain focus needs to be at this stage of your business, we can help. At Scaling With Systems, we build profitable client acquisition systems that are guaranteed to give you new clients consistently.
If you’re ready to find a winning solution for your business, book a free consultation call, and one of our advisors will get in touch.