With over 2.6 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the best platforms that you can use to reach potential clients as a real estate agent.
Gone are the days when realtors relied on traditional advertising campaigns and word of mouth to sell or rent a house.
We are spending a lot of time online, especially on Facebook. Most times, we seek entertainment or to connect with friends, but every now and then, we click on ads that we find relevant.
The average U.S. adult spends 38 minutes a day on Facebook, and with 2.6 billion users, it makes sense to invest time and resources to reach potential customers that either looking to buy or rent a new home.
If you’re looking to attract more clients with your real estate Facebook ads, there are several strategies that you can employ. Creating effective Facebook ads is the key to drawing in potential customers. In this article, we’ll cover some of the most effective ways to create ads that will help you to stand out from the competition and capture the attention of your target audience.
1. Narrow Down Your Target Audience
Narrowing down your target audience can make or break real estate ads and campaigns. A lot of people are looking for new homes, and although you may have a broad group of people in mind when creating the audience targeting strategy, it’s best to keep things local. Try targeting ZIP codes instead of cities or states.
Other targeting methods are based on more complex criteria, such as the likelihood of moving, interest in home improvement, and real estate pages.
2. Nurture Strong Relationships
To attract potential clients, you have to be able to connect with them on a deeper level, instead of just being focused on selling. Try having an excellent rapport with your audience, and work towards building a strong community based on trust and empathy.
Most Facebook ads for realtors revolve around the idea of selling something. However, ads are also an excellent way for your audience to get to know you better. For this purpose, you can create non-promotional sponsored posts to start a conversation with potential clients.
Here’s a great example from Zillow:
Another good idea is to keep ads and sponsored posts personal. List the reasons why you like this property. Take a look at how realtor Cindy Ambuehl advertised a property via this post:
3. Plan Ahead
Planning your campaigns during the peak season is frequently counter-productive, hence you can end up with poor results. Put enough thought and time into your campaigns so that you can line up the entire strategy before it’s actually time for the real estate Facebook ads to hit the screens.
This will also help you stay within budget, as you’ll be able to monitor the finances and avoid wasting money.
4. Use High-Resolution Images
Facebook is a visually-oriented platform, so if the ultimate goal is to attract clients, your best bet is to use high-quality photos when creating posts and ads. Take a look at the following real estate Facebook ad examples:
Both posts look sophisticated, the images are high-quality, and the lighting is optimal. Aim for achieving this effect, as ads should make potential clients stop scrolling and start engaging with your post.
5. Video Works—Use It More Often
Real estate advertising on Facebook doesn’t have to be all photos. If you feel like there’s more to say and images are not enough, don’t shy away from using Facebook video ads. Many successful real estate pages use video to present a house or promote realtors. Plus, videos manage to carry information in a more transparent and straightforward way.
What’s more, is that the most recent Facebook video stats show that more than 60% of U.S. businesses acquired a new customer after they posted a video on their Facebook page.
Videos can be either live-streamed or pre-recorded and while pre-recordings give you the advantage of editing and highlighting the best parts, live-streamed videos are perceived as more trustworthy. However, regardless of which one you choose, they both translate into an excellent way of connecting with your audience.
Below you can see how Daft presents their brand new apartments.
Screenshot from Daft.ie Facebook page
6. Use Carousel Posts to Show More Listings
Some of the best real estate Facebook ads are carousels. They’re not only a great way to show more photos or videos of listings in a single post, but also a great outlet to get reactions to your campaigns.
Show photos of beautiful home interiors and prompt them to interact by choosing their favorite pic. This strategy can boost your reach considerably.
Take a look at this post from Zillow.
7. Track the Performance of Your Ads
Use Facebook analytics to figure out what works and what doesn’t. There are many metrics that you can check and track to see what needs to be improved, including:
- Engagement – the number of times someone interacted with your ad by either sharing, clicking, reacting, or commenting.
- Impressions – the number of times that people saw your post, regardless if the same user viewed it multiple times.
- Reach – the number of people that saw your real estate Facebook ad.
- Click-through rate (CTR) – the percentage of people who interacted with your ad after seeing it.
- Cost per action (CPA) – the cost based on a particular action that a person took after interacting with your ad.
- Ad frequency – the number of times that your ad was seen by your target audience.
- Conversion rate – the number of leads the ad generated divided by the number of clicks it received.
8. Write Outstanding Copy
Facebook ads for real estate buyers need to be captivating, and here’s where the subject of copy comes up.
There are two ways you can go about this, either adding the copy within the post or place it on the image. If you go for the latter, make sure not to cover more than 20% of the picture.
Also, good copy is concise, simple, and straight to the point. Don’t write long, abundant in adjectives and pretentious words sentences, as readers will most likely lose their interest very fast.
Include essential information, such as square footage, number of rooms, location, availability, and amenities. One trick is to leave the address or price out of the text to intrigue and drive action.
It’s also highly recommended to place links within the post and to use URL shorteners to save up space for the copy.
9. Create the Perfect Call to Action
Facebook marketing for real estate agents usually comes down to just presenting a property for the scope of selling or renting. Still, the reality is that there’s a need for more when it comes to attracting clients, and text plays an essential role in this. Call to action phrases are necessary and particularly useful for boosting ad interaction and engagement.
Here’s a great example of a simple, yet compelling call to action:
10. Add Real Testimonials and Reviews
Adding testimonials to ads is one of the best design tips coming straight from real estate industry experts.
Testimonials help you show potential clients that they can trust you and that you’ve already made other people happy. Seeing what everyone else is saying about you will surely boost their interest in working with you.
If you have no option of setting up an interview with a client, you can do this by taking reviews from your Facebook page and create posts or articles around them. This approach will show that you care about the people you’re working with, and they are happy to be working with you.
11. Stay Within Your Budget
It’s easy to get carried away when setting up a real estate marketing campaign, so plan your budget ahead and stick to it. While it’s usually advisable to spend between $800-$1,000 per month to generate real estate leads, this depends on each market, so it’s up to you to decide what amount is necessary.
12. See What Others Are Doing
Always try to learn from the competition. See what works for them, borrow ideas, and adjust or improve them. Pay attention to details, from the frequency of competitors’ posts to the way they address the audience.
Here are a few real estate Facebook ad ideas that you can use:
Be funny and approachable.
Facebook marketing for realtors doesn’t have to be all transactional, so every now and then, use your page to connect with the audience via funny, relatable content.
Everyone loves pets, so try creating funny posts such as the one below. Plus, people hate constantly being pushed to purchase something, so they will appreciate a break from the promotional posts.
Be proud and showcase your achievements.
Whenever something good happens, share the good news with your audience. This will help boost the popularity of your page as well as the trustworthiness of your clients. Regardless if you’re a company or an individual real estate agent, showcase your accomplishments as often as you can.
Be consistent.
Get the audience accustomed to the frequency of your posts. If you’re not willing or able to post daily, do it once a week, but keep the same format. As in the example below by Josh Flagg, he posts various tops every week and has a great call to action, prompting the audience to interact with him.
Keep your posts informative.
Facebook advertising for realtors is often focused on selling, and it’s easy to understand why. We suggest taking the time to be informative, and let people know what their options are, and what are the necessary steps to consider when purchasing a home. There are many first-time buyers out there, and they may not be aware of the entire process, so be the one that guides them and post as much relevant information as possible.
Show the bigger picture.
To sell a home fast, Facebook ads created by real estate agents usually focus on the exterior and interior of a property. However, taking the extra step and showing the neighborhood usually helps potential buyers understand the perks that come with living in that area.
Final Thoughts
Some of the best Facebook ads for realtors are all about creating that sense of community and building trust. To be successful with your business, clients have to get to know you and acknowledge your work. Use this great platform to its full potential and follow these tips to boost your campaigns and attract more clients.
Remember to optimize your ads properly and test to see what works and what does not. Once you figure this out, all you have to do is show interest and be an outstanding real estate practitioner.
We’re sure some, if not all, of the above-mentioned tips will prove efficient to you, so go on and try them, and let us know in the comments section below what worked best for you and what other useful marketing strategies have proved efficient for you.
Great content. More practical and useful. Thanks for sharing
wonderful article, learned a lot from it. Thanks for sharing.
One article all valuable information, better than any premium course on Fb advertisement on Udemy. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m at the beginning of my journey on real estate and I’ve found a lot of useful thoughts here.