Where do the best Real Estate leads come from?

Trying to figure out where to spend your money when it comes to online lead generation? You are not the only real estate agent trying to find the best answer to this question. Here is my take on it:

First I’ll tell you exactly where to spend your money, later I’ll explain why.

1. Google
Start here, once you cap out your budget with Google meaning you have more money to spend but you can’t as you’re already maxing out our budget with Google move to #2.

2. Bing/Yahoo
Both Bing and Yahoo have advertising platforms just like Google where we are advertising to those searching for homes for sale in which ever area you work in. Once you max out our budget here move to #3.

3. Facebook
There are a lot of different ways you can target your core audience on Facebook. Pick one and stick to it for a while. Remember, on Facebook we are targeting curiosity, not many people are on Facebook looking for homes, they may be interested in buying/selling but they are not on Facebook looking for them.

Why do I think this is the way to go?

First thing we have to look at is intent. Those on search engines who are searching for keywords like “Homes for sale in Toronto” have the intent. We know that they want to see homes for sale and that’s about the only thing we can gauge from their search query.

The reason Google is the #1 search engine is simply because more people use Google. There is no quality difference of leads between Google & Yahoo.

Facebook & other social media websites are driven through targeting groups of users based on their interests and likes. The only problem is, there is no option to target people who Facebook thinks could be in the market for a home. You can however target those who are getting a divorce or just got engaged to name a couple.

Don’t get me wrong, Facebook advertising delivers leads, the only problem is the quality of those leads. I don’t want to praise that the quality of search engine leads is amazing as those leads have to be worked as well but when we compare search engine quality to social media quality, search engines win.

There are a few ways you can get going with a search engine PPC campaign. First, start your own, it’s gotten a little easier to create campaigns these days so you can always try it out. What you need to look at is the cost per lead. If your cost per lead exceeds $15/lead you should consider going on a PPC management plan as it would cost you less. You can easily see how many leads you can get by using the lead calculator.