facebook ads real estate case study

13 Inspiring Real Estate Facebook Ads Examples [2024]

Facebook ads are the easiest and fastest way to get more real estate leads, clients, listings, and sales. Here’s exactly what to do.

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Almost half (46%) of realtors say their highest quality leads come from social media, compared to MLS (30%) and relationship management (26%). And yet, 24% of realtors spend less than $50 a month on lead generation.

But given that 96% of home buyers look for listings online and 80% of sellers contact only one real estate agent before hiring them(!), you should really up that budget.

Relax: you don’t need to spend thousands on ads. You just need to know the real estate Facebook ads formulas that work, and try them for yourself.

Grow. Create. Engage. Schedule. Publish. Measure. Win.

13 great real estate Facebook ad examples

1. show a floor plan.

When I was looking for a house, I had a few specific, deal-breaker layout requirements. I would scroll to the end of a listing’s photos to check the floor plan first, then go back and see the other photos.

Am I weird? Probably. Are there other weirdos like me out there? Definitely.

Floor plan ads aren’t just for new construction projects. Try a Facebook ad about your latest listing’s floor plan, especially if it’s unusual or interesting.

Source: Silversaw on Facebook

Why it works:

• Instantly captures the attention of buyers who know what they want.
• Effective ad format for new construction presales.

2. Call out a pain point

Instead of talking only about the property, try getting super specific for a certain type of buyer or seller. Figure out what their biggest struggle with buying or selling is, then create an offer around that.

This company knows downsizing can be overwhelming and physically demanding for seniors, so they created an all-in-one service for them.

Source: Rosie’s House on Facebook

• Your most successful ads aren’t the ones that reach the most people. They’re the ones that reach the right people.

3. Push your latest listing

Yep, this Facebook ad is exactly what you think it is. Nope, there’s no top secret strategy here: Advertise your latest and/or coolest listing.

Think of it this way: Not every commercial airs during That Big Annual Game. Not every campaign needs to be a potential Oscar nominee, okay?

Go with a single image or carousel ad. Facebook even has a special real estate Facebook ad format for properties. These Facebook ads are the “bread n’ butter” of real estate social marketing .

Source: Guarantee Real Estate on Facebook

• Buyers want to see listings. Especially millennials, who spend about 14 hours a week looking at house listings on social media.

Bonus: How about saving a ton of time advertising your new listings and open houses on Facebook? With Hootsuite, you can easily create paid Facebook ads from your existing Facebook Page posts in minutes .

Check out how to make real estate Facebook ads with Hootsuite:

4. Highlight recently sold listings

For seller’s agents, this is your equivalent of the above real estate Facebook ad example. Feature one recently sold listing, or choose a few examples from the same zip code, and briefly touch on a factor you had to overcome to sell it.

Source: Rick Moore Realtor on Facebook

• Positions you as a neighborhood expert.
• Shows your capabilities, rather than telling.
• Opportunity to show off your problem solving skills for difficult-to-sell listings.

5. Brag (a bit) about awards

Did you hit the top 1% of sales this year? Have you won any other award, like an honorary recognition from your city or community organization?

Use it to (modestly) show off how great you are. Of course, don’t brag too much and risk turning people away. Use your good judgment to figure out where that line should be.

This ad is especially effective with the addition of “2012” because viewers instantly understand the positive connotation of winning this award for over 10 years and form an instant subconscious judgment of, “They must be good.”

Source: Leeds Real Estate on Facebook

• Inspires trust.
• Develops your reputation, especially if the award was specific to a type of property, client, or location.

6. Brag (a bit)

Did your last listing sell in 24 hours? For $100,000 over asking? Within your client’s super tight timeline? Or some other extreme or unusual achievement?

Client testimonials are great, but pointing to real results you’ve achieved are undeniably effective, too.

Source: Umer Farooq on Facebook

• Nothing demonstrates your capabilities better. As the expression goes, “The proof is in the pudding.”

7. Promote a video tour

Video is the new default on social media nowadays, with the popularity of video-first formats like Reels growing 50% year over year .

Facebook knows video ads bring in tons of eyeballs. They constantly add new features to further improve video ad conversion rates. Why? Because the more results you get from ads, the more ads you’ll buy, and the more profit Facebook will make.

Two recent changes are especially powerful for video ads: Making in-feed videos play automatically and the new video views objective. Facebook claims these changes have led to increased reach and lower video ad costs — both good things for you.

Source: Curtus Collins on Facebook

• Video tours capture attention right away.
• Videos the king of the Facebook algorithm .

8. Offer a free home valuation

First-time and experienced sellers both know the market is always changing. Those considering a move may take you up on your offer to appraise their home.

Bonus: Find out how to target your ads super effectively, including to people who may want to move soon, at the end of this article.

Source: Tasha Carnes-Perez on Facebook

• Can be targeted to specific groups of people based on demographics, location, or interests.
• Leads who fill out the form tend to be highly qualified.

9. Post a candid Reel from your latest listing

Polished video tours make effective ads, but you don’t always need a perfectly designed asset. Record yourself walking through a home and talking about your favorite features. Or show off just one part of the house, like the lush backyard oasis on a hot summer day.

Being in front of the camera may feel awkward at first but showing up casually and authentically is important for building your brand, and it’s what people want to see more of.

Source: Home Sale Hardy on Facebook

• The old marketing expression — “People buy from people they know, like, and trust” — is still true. Candid video lets people see your personality.

10. Create a neighborhood guide

If you specialize in a certain city or have several listings in the same neighborhood, create a blog post or page on your website about that area.

Include facts buyers would find interesting, such as the population, average age ranges, any great restaurants or attractions nearby, how walkable it is, and more.

Source: Kathy Zajac Real Estate on Facebook

• Buyers imagine their dream life, thanks to your lively neighborhood description, and see your listings as the way to get there.
• Attracts people already interested in moving there.
• Very effective when combined with advanced location targeting.

11. Promote listings in a specific neighborhood

Facebook’s new properties ad format also allows carousels , so you can feature multiple listings within one ad. You could advertise a group of either luxury or affordable properties aimed at a specific type of buyer lead, or feature several in the same neighborhood.

This is an easy way to target your real estate Facebook ads by location without having to create a dedicated neighborhood guide.

Source: Sheri Dettman & Associates on Facebook

• Highly effective when combined with advanced Facebook ad location targeting.
• Higher chance a buyer will like at least one listing, resulting in clicking through to see it.

12. Share a testimonial

For most people, buying or selling a home is the largest transaction they’ll ever make. That’s probably why 36% of sellers ask friends and family for realtor recommendations.

Sure, your Facebook ad isn’t the same as Aunt Marg saying, “Call Mike!” across the table at family dinner. But simply seeing that someone somewhere was happy with your work goes a long way toward getting strangers to trust you and reach out.

Plus, these ads are easy to make: Collect client testimonials in a document. Create a social media template, swap out the copy, save the image, and upload it as a Facebook ad.

Source: Caleb Wilkerson on Facebook

• Reviews and testimonials are powerful for every business, but especially for “big ticket” services like real estate.

Bonus: Make testimonial ads even easier with Hootsuite’s Canva integration . Pull up your template, customize, and insert it into your post without ever leaving Hootsuite Composer.

You can even choose a template by image size, including Facebook ads:

Try Hootsuite for free

13. Focus on lifestyle

“This is a house, it has 3 bedrooms, and a roof, and…” Yeah, buyers deep into their search may gloss over the generic details after a few weeks. Listing ads are important, but try changing things up by creating real estate Facebook ads focused on the lifestyle around the home, versus the home itself.

Is it close to Disneyland? Are there 4 coffee shops within walking distance? Are the world’s very best tacos a mere 5 minutes away?! These are the things people care about.

I can almost smell the forest and picture myself dipping my toes in the pond after reading this listing aimed at nature lovers:

Source: Premier Real Estate Services on Facebook

• Allows people to visualize themselves living in that home and neighborhood, taking advantage of those amenities.

Bonus: Get the Facebook advertising cheat sheet for 2022. The free resource includes key audience insights, recommended ad types, and tips for success.

Facebook ads for real estate best practices

Optimize for mobile.

Your ads should look great across all devices, but it’s especially important to ensure they’re mobile friendly. 76% of buyers use a mobile device — phone or tablet — to look for listings and agents, with Millennials doing so twice as much as older generations.

First off, ensure you’re using the correct Facebook ad image size . Then, consider mobile behavior.

For example, 85% of mobile users watch videos with the sound off. Ensure you have captions for any spoken content (which also makes your content more accessible ), or create video ads that don’t rely on sound to get your point across.

Run A/B tests

As with sales strategies and home staging, trends on social media change, too. Don’t be afraid to try out different types of Facebook ad content, or style of images or videos, to find out what works best for you.

The easiest way to try something new is to A/B test your Facebook ads. Create one ad the way you normally would, then create another version of it with one thing different.

Why just one thing? Because if you change too much at once, and the new ad converts higher than the regular one, that’s great… but you won’t know exactly why the new ad worked so well.

For an A/B test, try changing these things. Remember to test just one at a time.

• The caption copy
• Text in the actual Facebook ad
• Your brand voice
• Visual style or layout
• The call to action
• Who you’re targeting
• Your budget

Check our complete social media A/B testing guide for a step-by-step process to follow.

Track results

How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? Cliché and true.

Tracking your growth over time is vital to figuring out what works to bring in the best results. It’s also motivating as heck to visually see your progress over time.

What should you track? First, the basics:

• Follower count
• Average engagement rate

And for Facebook ads, the basics are:

• Impressions
• Clicks and/or leads generated
• CPC (cost per click)
• CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)
• ROAS (return on ad spend)
• Conversion rate

Finally, how do you keep track of all this?

You can either remember to log in to Meta Business Suite and click around the various analytics reports to find the numbers you need to know… or find everything you need instantly inside your Hootsuite dashboard.

Hootsuite Analytics brings all your social profiles together (including Facebook ads if you’re an Enterprise user) so you can see an overview of the most important metrics across all your accounts in one place. You can also dive deep into a specific account or create your own custom reports that auto-update 24/7/365 while you’re out serving your clients.

Wondering how often to track your analytics? What each metric means? How to turn analytics numbers into real strategic improvements?

Find out all that and how to incorporate social media analytics into your routine.

Use automation

The best thing social media can do for your business is bring you real estate leads. But the best thing you can do is spend as much time as possible with your clients. Automating your social media tasks allows you to do both.

Think you don’t have time to learn deep Facebook ads strategies, or manage campaigns? Not to worry: Hootsuite does it for you.

Besides planning, scheduling, and publishing all your social media content, Hootsuite can automatically create Facebook ads from your existing content. Yep, this is the absolute easiest way to get started with Facebook ads for real estate.

The Hootsuite Auto Boost feature automatically identifies and boosts posts that meet specific criteria. Check it out, and how to set up automatic Facebook ads in 6 minutes:

If you’re ready to take charge of your own ad campaigns, try Hootsuite Social Advertising . Create custom Facebook ad campaigns — plus Instagram and LinkedIn, too — and see the analytics, ROI, and results of both your organic and paid content together.

Finally: one place to do everything you need to on social media, and instantly see how it’s working. *exhales in tranquility*

Try advanced targeting

If you’re ready to get nerdy, Facebook ad targeting can save you a ton of money. By targeting your ads, you’ll reach less people, but you’ll only be paying to reach the ones you want.

Fair warning: Targeting Facebook ads is tricky if you’re new to social media advertising. If you’re a beginner, I’d recommend using Facebook’s automated targeting options, or let Hootsuite auto-boost your Facebook posts .

Real estate Facebook ad targeting options include:

• Location (country, state, or city)
• Behavior targets, such as people interested in or who follow real estate related Facebook Pages, such as Realtor.com, MLS, or many other options

Ready to dive into targeting? Find out how in our complete guide to Facebook advertising .

Hootsuite is a realtor’s BFF with all the content scheduling, publishing, and analytics tools you need combined with automatic Facebook ads and campaign management — across all your social accounts, all in one place.

Get Started

Get new clients and close more deals with Hootsuite, the #1 social media management tool for real estate agents .

Become a better social marketer.

Get expert social media advice delivered straight to your inbox.

As an ex-agency strategist turned freelance WFH fashion icon, Michelle is passionate about putting the sass in SaaS content. She's known for quickly understanding and distilling complicated technical topics into conversational copy that gets results. She has written for Fortune 500 companies and startups, and her clients have earned features in Forbes, Strategy Magazine and Entrepreneur.

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• Case Studies
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Facebook Ads for Real Estate: 9 Proven Strategies

Facebook ads are strategically important for such a highly competitive niche as real estate. There are various reasons beyond that. Most importantly, a vast amount of your target audience is spending their daytime communicating on social media platforms like Facebook:

Nonetheless, a lion's share of real estate players underestimates Facebook as a strategically viable ad resource.

Today, we are sharing top industry insights into why Facebook ads are of crucial importance for boosting your real estate marketing effort.

Most importantly, our PPC experts have selected proven Facebook ad strategies. This is because ‘how to target Facebook ads for real estate’ is still an open question on today’s real estate agenda. 

Why are Facebook Ads Effective for Real Estate

In 2023, the economic landscape affected the sectors experiencing year-over-year declines. Amid a fluctuating housing market, a reduced number of individuals engaged in property transactions, which resulted in falling conversions for real estate businesses.

Therefore, more and more realtors are leveraging Facebook as a powerful ad platform. It stands out due to its unparalleled array of rich, diverse, and deep ad targeting options. This strategic advantage alone surpasses Facebook over any other advertising platform. 

Unique ad options enable real estate players to efficiently reach their ideal customers with a precision unmatched by any other marketing channel.

Facebook stands out as a powerful marketing channel where your prospects are not only present in larger numbers but also spend more time compared to any other platform. 

The effectiveness of Facebook ads in real estate hinges on a well-thought-out strategy, consistent efforts, and continual adjustments to your campaigns.

How to Target Audience for Real Estate on Facebook 

Targeting in real estate advertising.

Since 2022, Meta has cut off some Facebook ad-targeting options for real estate:

✅ Elimination of demographic targeting based on gender, age, education, and income

✅ Removal of certain housing and financial interests

✅ Behaviors are excluded from real estate and mortgage targeting

✅ Restriction on geotargeting to a minimum radius of 15 miles

✅ Exclusion of zip code targeting.

Despite these alterations, you are free to tailor your real estate targeting strategy by focusing on precise interests that feature your ideal target customer. We suggest betting on liked or visited pages by your target audience and related topics.

‍ Our expert says: Accurate targeting is crucial for the success of your Facebook dynamic ads for real estate, especially when your goal is to secure more seller listing leads and buyer leads. Targeting precision on Facebook will help you reach ideal prospects and turn them into qualified leads. Facebook's ad algorithm continuously excels to bring you optimal results. Anastasiia, Ilchenko, Senior PPC in Promodo.

Facebook leverages extensive data sets by interests to target your potential real estate customers. The platform is well-equipped to recognize both online and offline activities of property buyers and sellers, including the frequency of their visits to specific sites. 

The diverse data will help you identify prospects with a genuine interest in purchasing or selling properties:

✅ Individuals interested in Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia

✅ Individuals interested in house hunting or first-time home buying

✅ Individuals interested in mortgage loans.

Facebook Ad Campaigns Targeting Traffic Objective

When opting for the traffic objective in Facebook ads, your campaign is strategically optimized to generate clicks from your ads to your designated landing page, app, or event. 

‍ Our expert says that this ad strategy is most suitable for small-sized real estate business advertisers as it effectively attracts a higher number of visitors with a high potential to convert them into customers. Anastasiia, Ilchenko, Senior PPC in Promodo.

So far, Facebook ads are showing an average cost per click (CPC) of $0.65 across the real estate industry. An all-industry CPC average in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns is $0.83, significantly lower than the average CPC of $4.22 in Google Ads.

The average click-through rate (CTR) in real estate is 2.45%. This is substantially higher compared to the all-industry average CTR of 1.51% in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns. Real estate rates among the industries with the highest CTR along with Arts & entertainment at 2.55%, and Restaurants & food at 2.29% accordingly.

While CTRs differ across industries, successful Facebook ads necessitate impressive visuals as the proven way to attract the attention of a scrolling audience to your real estate offers.

As the traffic ad campaign objective is explicitly crafted to boost traffic, metrics such as cost per lead (CPL) and conversion rate (CVR) are not of strategic importance here.

‍ Our expert says: CTR gauges how often viewers click on your ad. Essentially, the CTR of your campaign reflects how far viewers appeal to and engage with your Facebook ads. Higher CTRs prove the quality of your real estate ad copies and creatives. Anastasiia, Ilchenko, Senior PPC in Promodo.

Facebook Ad Campaigns Targeting Leads Objective 

Facebook ads targeted at the leads objective generate leads by encouraging users to take action on your real estate website: 

✅ Fill out forms

✅ Send messages

✅ Make calls

✅ Complete conversions.

When implementing a leads objective campaign, you will deploy Facebook Lead Ads. These ads incorporate prompts directly within the advertisement to facilitate the collection of lead data.

Here are the latest CVR and cost per lead (CPL) real estate industry benchmarks for the Lead generation campaigns on Facebook:

Our expert says: Facebook aims to minimize click costs. Nonetheless, leads objective campaigns across industries are showing a 66% higher CTR. Despite the higher cost, the audience targeted by lead gen campaigns on Facebook is way more effective for real estate businesses compared to the traffic objective ad campaigns. Anastasiia, Ilchenko, Senior PPC in Promodo.

Along with arts & entertainment at $13.46, and sports & recreation at $15.33, Facebook leads objective campaigns in real estate entail the lowest cost per lead (CPL) at $12.43.

Top Strategies for Real Estate Ads on Facebook

While realtors are free to apply various targeting strategies and ad types in their real estate Facebook ad campaigns, you should well prepare in advance to save your ad budget.

Facebook advertising allows realtors to opt for a variety of ad objectives tailored to each campaign. Align your real estate Facebook campaign goals with specific objectives and bidding strategies: 

✅ Awareness

✅ Engagement

✅ App Promotion

The platform fine-tunes real estate campaigns based on the chosen objectives and lets realtors attain strategic business goals:

✅ Generate both seller and buyer leads

✅ Boost attendance for open houses

✅ Reinforce your brand presence among potential homeowners, current homeowners, and real estate investors.

1. Make Your Ad Copy Transparent

Trust building is essential in the real estate business. Mostly, your prospects want to meet a highly trusted realtor experienced in local properties. Furthermore, they want to deal with someone who’ll ensure a deeply personalized attitude to their individual property needs and preferences.  

Crafting your real estate Facebook ads, show realistic images, and be honest in your ad copy. Before someone clicks on your ad copy, they want to make sure they will get the same value in terms of: 

✅ Rental price

✅ Square footage

✅ Number of rooms.

✅ Facilities.

Build trust by providing your prospects with detailed property descriptions 

2. Make Lifestyle Ad Creatives

Compelling creatives will help your real estate ads stand out with captivating creative elements. 

Fill your property ads with stunning real estate imagery of the highest quality. With that, appeal to the lifestyles that feature your potential buyers.

Appealing to a desired lifestyle with powerful imagery will help you hook qualified leads.

3. Leverage Carousel Ads 

This strategic approach will help you show multiple properties or their parts all at once. Facebook’s Carousel ad format is a perfect way to boost visual appeal. The option allows real estate advertisers to display images as a catalog so viewers can view multiple property images or listings.

By capturing a buyer’s eye this way, you increase the chances of hooking more real estate clientele.

4. Apply Video Marketing to Bring Your Properties to Life 

Video marketing remains a largely underused technique in real estate. Some of your competitors achieved some 400% more inquiries for local property listings with videos.

Engaging videos will provide your prospects with a way more realistic look into the properties. By creating 360 videos, you’ll let potential buyers move around with their mouse just like they would tour the apartment and explore it in person. 

5. Scale Your Ad Spend During Peak Times

Once in the real estate race, you’ll stick with the peak months when people have more cash in their pockets. This signals the market is ready to buy or rent local properties. Peak seasons provide sound selling opportunities, so be sure to show your local property listings to the right people on Facebook.

It may take you by surprise, but much of the property-selling business depends on weather conditions. There are warm climate markets like Miami, where the window of real estate opportunity opens in March. By contrast, the locations like Boston featured by harsh winters are dead by mid-to-late April.

So, plan your Facebook ad campaigns well ahead and allow a bigger budget behind your ads to penetrate a larger audience. This strategic approach will help you win local competition.

6. Win People’s Trust with Testimonials and Reviews

While gaining people’s trust through your real estate ads is vital, make your happy customers do some talking about your services. 

Customer testimonials and reviews play a core role in building trust, so incorporate them into your ad copy. The strategic approach will help you boost your brand awareness and position yourself as a reputable real estate venture.

7. Target Traffic Objective

Targeting the traffic objective, you directly prompt Facebook's ad algorithm to display your real estate ads and optimize them for maximum clicks. 

You’ll save much of your ad budget by A/B testing your CTA buttons. This essential practice will help you enhance click-through rate CTR. Promote popular CTA phrases in your ad copy to boost engagement.

8. Target Leads Objective 

Experiment with various form styles that will help you spot the most effective approach to maximize lead quality and quantity. The integration of conditional logic to Facebook lead generation forms will help you win more pre-qualifying leads.

Elaborate a clear messaging approach and articulate a desired action to make users click on your real estate lead ads. The more interest you spark, the more potential leads will know about your real estate offers.

Focus on click-through rate (CTR) as a useful measure of your lead generation success, though not as an exclusive one. There are other essential metrics to consider like the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) and cost per click (CPC) that will help you grasp a broader context beyond targeting the leads objective in real estate and making informed decisions.

Fill your ad copy with powerful words. Elevate your real estate Facebook ads with emotionally charged language. Crafting compelling ad copies will distinguish your real estate business from competitors and eventually boost your CTR.

Utilize reporting dashboards to track and measure Facebook ad metrics that are most relevant to your strategic real estate business goals.

Save your Facebook ads budget by tailoring your real estate audience targeting based on specific objectives. 

Our expert says: Target Facebook lookalike audience for traffic objective to introduce your business to potential customers. Alternatively, you may focus on specific email addresses or re-target users for the leads objective, as these audiences are already familiar with your real estate business and are more likely to convert into qualified leads. Anastasiia, Ilchenko, Senior PPC in Promodo.

Experiment with ad scheduling and lifetime budgets to optimize cost management. Utilize ad scheduling with a lifetime budget. Rather than continuous coverage, you’ll better manage your costs by choosing specific days or times for your ad’s appearance. 

All-industry cost per thousand impressions (CPM) benchmarks: 

9. Bet on Facebook Ad Conversions

Ensure effective conversion tracking by fine-tuning your Facebook pixel on your real estate website. Clearly define the conversion actions you want to track to prevent any loss of conversion data.

Lay the groundwork for a high conversion rate by optimizing your landing page. Ensure a seamless and user-friendly experience on your Facebook ads landing page.

Integrate a cross-channel strategy by supplementing your paid Facebook ad efforts with regularly sharing organic posts on the platform. Extend your target audience reach by leveraging other social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat. Deploy other digital marketing channels like SEO and search ads. A holistic marketing approach across various channels ensures a broader audience reach.

Leverage AI and automation options to streamline cross-channel campaigns. This will boost the overall performance of your ad campaigns to target the audience for real estate Facebook ads in line with your strategic business goals and marketing budget.

That’s much about detailed targeting Facebook ads for real estate.

Our expert says: Successful ad campaigns on Facebook hang on three core pillars: (1) attractive image, (2) engaging  offer, and (3) high-quality audience segmentation. Make your ads as interesting as possible for your prospects, provide a unique offer, and find your perfect audience. Regular tests of creatives and audiences will help you identify the most effective combinations. Also, along with conversions, pay attention to how the audience interacts with your ads: measure CTR, frequency, reactions, subscriptions, etc. This will help you assess the quality of your content and come up with the right conclusions. Anastasiia, Ilchenko, Senior PPC in Promodo.

Best Facebook Ads for Real Estate

Emphasizing the effectiveness of Facebook ads for real estate, we decided to share our featured case study. 

In 2020, our international client from the UAE, The Place Group , tasked us with establishing a wider presence in the commercial property rental market in Dubai. 

The Client aimed to leverage various digital tools within the limits of their marketing ad budget. Our primary focus was on attracting relevant traffic and generating leads. 

To meet these objectives, we incorporated Facebook ads by targeting specific professions, positions, and interests to engage lookalike audiences and implement remarketing strategies.

We focused on leveraging Facebook as a primary channel for identifying freelancers interested in co-working. Our approach involved precise targeting at freelancers, influencers, and creators. Additionally, we experimented with the audience of top managers and individuals who featured  "real estate" as their employment.

We meticulously configured location-based campaign settings to the client's preferences, which allowed us to target specific areas in Dubai with the most potential residents. 

Thanks to Promodo, we managed to attract new leads. During our cooperation, we continuously received updates from their responsive team. Madi Omarov Community Manager, The Place.

Launch a Successful Facebook Ad Campaign with Promodo

Hot tips for Facebook ads will help you promote your real estate services. Promodo real estate marketing experts are right at hand to create and optimize your ad copies and run ad campaigns. We know how to maximize exposure and achieve your business success on the Facebook platform. 

While there is no universal approach to the best Facebook ads for real estate, trust the experience and expertise of our digital agency to enhance your real estate business.

You may still wonder how to do Facebook ads for real estate. Relax and take your time for informed decisions while our PPC experts do all the groundwork for you!

‍ Content Marketing Manager at Promodo

Taras has 16 years of hands-on copywriting experience overseas with 3000+ unique copies.

Accredited with Certificate of Proficiency in English (C2 level) by Cambridge University. Studied at Writing Launch Academy (United States) and owns an Academic Writing Certificate from Oregon University. Author of 12 dictionaries with Apriori Publishers.

Senior PPC Specialist

More than 7 years in marketing. Experience of working with leading players of Ukrainian retail, western projects. Current lecturer at Promodo Academy on Contextual advertising, targeted advertising and digital marketing courses.

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11 Facebook Case Studies & Success Stories to Inspire You

Published: August 05, 2019

Although Facebook is one of the older social media networks, it's still a thriving platform for businesses who want to boost brand awareness.

With over 2.38 billion monthly active users , you can use the platform to spread the word about your business in a number of different ways -- from photos or videos to paid advertisements.

Because there are so many marketing options and opportunities on Facebook, It can be hard to tell which strategy is actually best for your brand.

If you're not sure where to start, you can read case studies to learn about strategies that marketing pros and similar businesses have tried in the past.

A case study will often go over a brand's marketing challenge, goals, a campaign's key details, and its results. This gives you a real-life glimpse at what led a marketing team to reach success on Facebook. Case studies also can help you avoid or navigate common challenges that other companies faced when implementing a new Facebook strategy.

To help you in choosing your next Facebook strategy, we've compiled a list of 11 great case studies that show how a number of different companies have succeeded on the platform.

Even if your company has a lower budget or sells a different product, we hope these case studies will inspire you and give you creative ideas for your own scalable Facebook strategy.

Facebook Brand Awareness Case Studies:

During the 2017 holiday season, the jewelry company Pandora wanted to boost brand awareness in the German market. They also wanted to see if video ads could have the same success as their other Facebook ad formats.

They began this experiment by working with Facebook to adapt a successful TV commercial for the platform. Here's a look at the original commercial:

The ad was cut down to a 15-second clip which shows a woman receiving a Pandora necklace from her partner. It was also cropped into a square size for mobile users. Pandora then ran the ad targeting German audiences between the ages of 18-50. It appeared in newsfeeds and as an in-stream video ad .

Results: According to the case study , the video campaign lifted brand sentiment during the holiday season, with a 10-point lift in favorability. While Pandora or the case study didn't disclose how they measured their favorability score, they note that the lift means that more consumers favored Pandora over other jewelers because of the ad.

Financially, the campaign also provided ROI with a 61% lift in purchases and a 42% increase in new buyers.

Video can be memorable, emotional, and persuasive. While the case study notes that Pandora always had success with ads and purchases, the jeweler saw that a video format could boost brand awareness even further.

In just 15 seconds, Pandora was able to tell a short story that their target audience could identify with while also showing off their product. The increase in favorability shows that audiences who saw the ad connected with it and preferred the jeweler over other companies because of the marketing technique.

Part of Pandora's success might also be due to the video's platform adaptation. Although they didn't create a specific video for the Facebook platform, they picked a commercial that had already resonated with TV audiences and tweaked it to grab attention of fast-paced Facebook users. This is a good example of how a company can be resourceful with the content it already has while still catering to their online audiences.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame , a HubSpot customer, wanted to boost brand awareness and get more ticket purchases to their museum. Since they'd mainly used traditional customer outreach strategies in the past, they wanted to experiment with more ways of reaching audiences on social media.

Because the museum's social media team recognized how often they personally used Facebook Messenger, they decided to implement a messaging strategy on the Hall of Fame's official business page.

From the business page, users can click the Get Started button and open a chat with the Hall of Fame. Through the chat, social media managers were able to quickly reply to questions or comments from fans, followers, and prospective visitors. The reps would also send helpful links detailing venue pricing, events, other promotions, and activities in the surrounding area.

Since the Messenger launch, they claim to have raised their audience size by 81% and sales from prospects by 12%. The company claims that this feature was so successful that they even received 54 messages on an Easter Sunday.

Being available to connect with your audiences through Messenger can be beneficial to your business and your brand. While the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame boosted purchases, they also got to interact with their audiences on a personal level. Their availability might have made them look like a more trustworthy, friendly brand that was actually interested in their fanbase rather than just sales.

Facebook Reach Case Study:

In early 2016, Buffer started to see a decline in their brand reach and engagement on Facebook due to algorithm changes that favored individuals rather than brands. In an effort to prevent their engagement and reach numbers from dropping even further.

The brand decided to cut their posting frequency by 50%. With less time focused on many posts, they could focus more time on creating fewer, better-quality posts that purely aimed at gaining engagement. For example, instead of posting standard links and quick captions, they began to experiment with different formats such as posts with multi-paragraph captions and videos. After starting the strategy in 2016, they continued it through 2018.

Here's an example of one an interview that was produced and shared exclusively on Facebook.

The Results: By 2018, Buffer claimed that the average weekly reach nearly tripled from 44,000 at the beginning of the experiment to 120,000. The page's average daily engagements also doubled from roughly 500 per day to around 1,000.

In 2018, Buffer claimed that their posts reached between 5,000 to 20,000 people, while posts from before the experiment reached less than 2,000.

Although Buffer began the experiment before major Facebook algorithm changes , they updated this case study in 2018 claiming that this strategy has endured platform shifts and is still providing them with high reach and engagement.

It can be easy to overpost on a social network and just hope it works. But constant posts that get no reach or engagement could be wasted your time and money. They might even make your page look desperate.

What Buffer found was that less is more. Rather than spending your time posting whatever you can, you should take time to brainstorm and schedule out interesting posts that speak directly to your customer.

Facebook Video Views Case Studies:

Gearing up for Halloween in 2016, Tomcat, a rodent extermination company, wanted to experiment with a puppet-filled, horror-themed, live video event. The narrative, which was created in part by their marketing agency, told the story of a few oblivious teenage mice that were vacationing in a haunted cabin in the woods. At peak points of the story, audiences were asked to use the comments to choose which mouse puppet would die next or how they would die.

Prior to the video event, Tomcat also rolled out movie posters with the event date, an image of the scared mouse puppets, and a headline saying, "Spoiler: They all die!"

Results: It turns out that a lot of people enjoy killing rodents. The live video got over 2.3 million unique views , and 21% of them actively participated. As an added bonus, the video also boosted Tomcat's Facebook fanbase by 58% and earned them a Cyber Lion at the 2017 Cannes Lions awards.

Here's a hilarious sizzle reel that shows a few clips from the video and a few key stats:

This example shows how creative content marketing can help even the most logistical businesses gain engagement. While pest control can be a dry topic for a video, the brand highlighted it in a creative and funny way.

This study also highlights how interactivity can provide huge bonuses when it comes to views and engagement. Even though many of the viewers knew all the rats would die, many still participated just because it was fun.

Not only might this peak brand interest from people who hadn't thought that deeply about pest control, but interactivity can also help a video algorithmically. As more people comment, share, and react to a live video, there's more likelihood that it will get prioritized and displayed in the feeds of others.

In 2017, HubSpot's social media team embarked on an experiment where they pivoted their video goals from lead generation to audience engagement. Prior to this shift, HubSpot had regularly posted Facebook videos that were created to generate leads. As part of the new strategy, the team brainstormed a list of headlines and topics that they thought their social media audience would actually like, rather than just topics that would generate sales.

Along with this pivot, they also experimented with other video elements including video design, formatting, and size .

Results: After they started to launch the audience-friendly videos, they saw monthly video views jump from 50,000 to 1 million in mid-2017.

Creating content that caters to your fanbase's interests and the social platform it's posted on can be much more effective than content that seeks out leads.

While videos with the pure goal of selling a product can fall flat with views and engagement, creative videos that intrigue and inform your audiences about a topic they relate to can be a much more effective way to gain and keep your audience. Once the audience trusts you and consumes your content regularly, they might even trust and gain interest in your products.

Facebook App Installs Case Study:

Foxnext games.

FoxNext Games, a video game company owned by 20th Century Fox, wanted to improve the level of app installs for one of its newest releases, Marvel Strike Force. While FoxNext had previously advertised other games with Facebook video ads, they wanted to test out the swipe-able photo carousel post format. Each photo, designed like a playing card, highlighted a different element of the game.

The add offered a call-to-action button that said "Install Now" and lead to the app store where it could be downloaded. FoxNext launched it on both Facebook and Instagram. To see if the carousel was more efficient than video campaigns, they compared two ads that advertised the same game with each format.

Results: According to Facebook , the photo ads delivered a 6% higher return on ad spend, 14% more revenue, 61% more installs, and 33% lower cost per app install.

Takeaways If your product is visual, a carousel can be a great way to show off different elements of it. This case study also shows how designing ads around your audience's interest can help each post stand out to them. In this scenario, FoxNext needed to advertise a game about superheroes. They knew that their fanbase was interested in gaming, adventure, and comic books, so they created carousels that felt more like playing cards to expand on the game's visual narrative.

Facebook Lead Gen Case Study:

Major impact media.

In 2019, Major Impact Media released a case study about a real-estate client that wanted to generate more leads. Prior to working with Major Impact, the Minneapolis, Minnesota brokerage hired another firm to build out an online lead generation funnel that had garnered them no leads in the two months it was active. They turned to Major Impact looking for a process where they could regularly be generating online leads.

As part of the lead generation process, the marketing and brokerage firms made a series of Facebook ads with the lead generation objective set. Major Impact also helped the company build a CRM that could capture these leads as they came in.

Results: Within a day, they received eight leads for $2.45 each. In the next 90 days, the marketing firm claimed the ads generated over 370 local leads at the average cost of $6.77 each. Each lead gave the company their name, email, and phone number.

Although these results sound like a promising improvement, readers of this case study should keep in mind that no number of qualified leads or ROI was disclosed. While the study states that leads were gained, it's unclear which of them lead to actual sales -- if any.

This shows how Facebook ad targeting can be helpful when you're seeking out leads from a specific audience in a local area. The Minneapolis brokerage's original marketing and social media strategies weren't succeeding because they were looking for a very specific audience of prospective buyers in the immediate area.

Ad targeting allowed their posts to be placed on the news feeds of people in the area who might be searching for real estate or have interests related to buying a home. This, in turn, might have caused them more success in gaining leads.

Facebook Engagement Case Study:

When the eyewear brand Hawkers partnered up with Spanish clothing brand El Ganso for a joint line of sunglasses, Hawkers' marketing team wanted to see which Facebook ad format would garner the most engagement. Between March and April of 2017, they launched a combination of standard ads and collection ads on Facebook.

While their standard ads had a photo, a caption and a call-to-action linking to their site, the collection ads offered a header image or video, followed by smaller images of sunglasses from the line underneath.

Image from Digital Training Academy

To A/B test ad effectiveness of the different ad types, Hawkers showed half of its audience standard photo ads while the other half were presented with the collection format. The company also used Facebook's Audience Lookalike feature to target the ads their audiences and similar users in Spain.

Results: The collection ad boosted engagement by 86% . The collection ads also saw a 51% higher rate of return than the other ads.

This study shows how an ad that shows off different elements of your product or service could be more engaging to your audience. With collection ads, audiences can see a bunch of products as well as a main image or video about the sunglass line. With a standard single photo or video, the number of products you show might be limited. While some users might not respond well to one image or video, they might engage if they see a number of different products or styles they like.

Facebook Conversion Case Study:

Femibion from merck.

Femibion, a German family-planning brand owned by Merck Consumer Health, wanted to generate leads by offering audiences a free baby planning book called "Femibion BabyPlanung." The company worked with Facebook to launch a multistage campaign with a combination of traditional image and link ads with carousel ads.

The campaign began with a cheeky series of carousel ads that featured tasteful pictures of "baby-making places," or locations where women might conceive a child. The later ads were a more standard format that displayed an image of the book and a call-to-action.

When the first ads launched in December 2016, they were targeted to female audiences in Germany. In 2017, during the later stages of the campaign, the standard ads were retargeted to women who had previously interacted with the carousel ads. With this strategy, people who already showed interest would see more ads for the free product offer. This could cause them to remember the offer or click when they saw it a second time.

Results: By the time the promotion ended in April 2017, ads saw a 35% increase in conversion rate. The company had also generated 10,000 leads and decreased their sample distribution cost by two times.

This case study shows how a company successfully brought leads through the funnel. By targeting women in Germany for their first series of creative "baby-making" ads, they gained attention from a broad audience. Then, by focusing their next round of ads on women who'd already shown some type of interest in their product, they reminded those audiences of the offer which may have enabled those people to convert to leads.

Facebook Product Sales Case Study

In an effort to boost sales from its Latin American audiences, Samsung promoted the 2015 Argentina launch of the Galaxy S6 smartphone with a one-month Facebook campaign.

The campaign featured three videos that highlighted the phone's design, camera, and long battery life respectively.

One video was released each week and all of them were targeted to men and women in Argentina. In the fourth week of the campaign, Samsung launched more traditional video and photo ads about the product. These ads were specifically targeted to people who'd engaged with the videos and their lookalike audiences.

Results: Samsung received 500% ROI from the month-long campaign and a 7% increase in new customers.

Like Femibion, Samsung tested a multiple ad strategy where the targeting got more specific as the promotions continued. They too saw the benefit of targeting ads to users who already showed interest in the first rounds of advertisements. This strategy definitely seems like one that could be effective when trying to gain more qualified leads.

Facebook Store Visits Case Study:

Church's chicken.

The world's third-largest chicken restaurant, Church's Chicken, wanted to see if they could use Facebook to increase in-restaurant traffic. From February to October of 2017, the chain ran a series of ads with the "Store Traffic" ad objectives. Rather than giving customers a link to a purchasing or order page, these ads offer users a call-to-action that says "Get Directions." The dynamic store-traffic ad also gives users the store information for the restaurant closest to them.

Image from Facebook

The ads ran on desktop and mobile newsfeeds and were targeted at people living near a Church's Chicken who were also interested in "quick-serve restaurants." The study also noted that third-party data was used to target customers who were "big spenders" at these types of restaurants.

To measure the results, the team compared data from Facebook's store-reporting feature with data from all of its locations.

Results: The ads resulted in over 592,000 store visits with an 800% ROI. Each visit cost the company an average of $1.14. The ROI of the campaign was four times the team's return goal.

If you don't have an ecommerce business, Facebook ads can still be helpful for you if they're strategized properly. In this example, Church's ads targeted locals who like quick-serve restaurants and served them a dynamic ad with text that notified them of a restaurant in their direct area. This type of targeting and ad strategy could be helpful to small businesses or hyperlocal businesses that want to gain foot traffic or awareness from the prospective customers closest to them.

Navigating Case Studies

If you're a marketer that wants to execute proven Facebook strategies, case studies will be incredibly helpful for you. If the case studies on the list above didn't answer one of your burning Facebook questions, there are plenty of other resources and success stories online.

As you look for a great case study to model your next campaign strategy, look for stories that seem credible and don't feel too vague. The best case studies will clearly go over a company's mission, challenge or mission, process, and results.

Because many of the case studies you'll find are from big businesses, you might also want to look at strategies that you can implement on a smaller scale. For example, while you may not be able to create a full commercial at the production quality of Pandora, you might still be able to make a lower-budget video that still conveys a strong message to your audience.

If you're interested in starting a paid campaign, check out this helpful how-to post . If you just want to take advantage of free options, we also have some great information on Facebook Live and Facebook for Business .

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Case Study: How Dan Henry Turned $441 in Facebook Ads into $900,000 in Real Estate Sales

By the leadpages team    |    published jun 24, 2016    |    updated nov 17, 2023, by the leadpages team.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to discover truly innovative marketing tactics within a certain industry.

Take marketer and entrepreneur Dan Henry . By this point in his career he’s done just about everything you can do in online marketing. But when he first started out, he was simply looking for an escape route from his job delivering pizzas.

His first attempts at affiliate marketing led to several successful e-commerce and brick-and-mortar businesses, which eventually led to managing complex campaigns for all sorts of clients looking to get leads more effectively online.

One of Dan’s recent clients was a real estate company looking to sell out a large new condo development—and that’s where Dan got really creative.

Dan himself has provided one more special resource for you to take away from this post, so keep reading to make sure you get everything you need to take action on the insights you’ll find here.

In this article:

Step 1: flip the traditional real estate marketing formula, dan’s facebook advertising strategy, real estate success with leadpages, what’s next for dan, how to use dan’s strategies in your own real estate marketing.

The usual thinking on selling homes goes like this: list your properties everywhere, hold an open house, and make sure tons of people show up to increase your chances of finding buyers fast.

To Dan Henry, that seemed downright inefficient.

“I’m the king of unusual. I do not do anything like anybody else,” he proclaimed when I spoke with him to find out more about his campaign.

In this case, rather than reaching for standard real estate marketing tactics, he got inspired by another industry: nightclub marketing. Before taking on clients, Dan had used Facebook ads to successfully launch new nightclubs, and he saw an opportunity to reach this real estate company’s target audience of millennials and downtown professionals with some of the same strategies.

So, he said, “Instead of an open house, we said it was a VIP event. We had drinks, it was a lounge setting, it was very relaxed."

Guests at the VIP event

With this strategy, Dan transformed the standard sales process. Instead of being shoppers subjected to a pitch, customers became prospective party guests hoping for an invite. The opt-in button became a velvet rope—and all they needed to do to reach the other side was to provide their contact information.

Before this point, however, Dan had to spread the word about this exclusive VIP event to the right audience. And for this, he exclusively used Facebook Ads.

That was an especially smart choice due to the platform’s advanced targeting. Dan started by setting up audiences for the two groups his client was most eager to attract: millennials who lived in apartments nearby, and well-paid professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, who worked downtown.

Some of the Facebook Ads audiences Dan targeted

Young apartment-dwellers saw ads reminding them that they could be putting their rent money toward owning a home, while nearby professionals were targeted with more general messages about the new convenient and luxurious housing option they now had close to their jobs.

Two of the Facebook Ads Dan used during the campaign

In some cases, Dan was ultimately able to get leads from Facebook Ads for as little as $2 each—though he cautions against using CPL as the be-all, end-all metric for short-term campaigns like this:

“It’s not just about getting these leads, it’s about figuring out who buys the most. So say you sell 10 condos to millennial apartment owners, and your average lead cost is $2. But if average lead cost is $10 for a doctor, but doctors bought 30 condos—I would rather pay the $10 and sell more condos. That cost per lead is not that big a difference when you’re selling something that’s so high-ticket.

In the first phase of this campaign, Dan spent $441 on ads—which led directly to $900,000 in condo sales. Those buyers started as cold traffic on Facebook and ended up as VIP event guests—and, eventually, homeowners.

Let’s take a closer look at what happened in between.

At every step of the way, Dan kept his landing pages simple. Here’s the Leadpage he used to ask visitors from Facebook to claim their VIP ticket:

“I don’t think a landing page makes someone download anything,” he says. “A landing page should simply not get in their way … They already clicked through from your ad because they want what you offered, so the best thing you can do is not mess that up.”

Dan looks for simple, single-fold templates that make the transition from the Facebook ad to the opt-in as swift and seamless as possible. He’s found that Leadpages’ templates are the highest-converting pages of any he’s tried precisely because of their simplicity: “They either click the button or they don’t.”

In fact, the templates themselves got notice when he started using Leadpages to promote his webinars—“I paid for my Leadpages membership in about 24 hours,” he said. Attendees would ask him what software he used to create the webinar page, and he had his Leadpages affiliate link at the ready to give them so they could try it themselves.

Leadpages’ Lead Notifications feature was also useful to Dan in this campaign. The client wanted to use their own ESP and handle follow-up on their own, so once someone opted into the landing page, Dan would automatically receive an email with their contact data that he could simply forward to the real estate company. From there, the company could reach out however they saw fit.

In the meantime, new leads were taken to a thank you page that worked to expand Dan’s reach even farther. He says:

“I have a little trick on the thank you page where I ask them to share, and instead of linking to the landing page, I link to the Facebook post. That way they get the whole experience. I used to just send them to the landing page, but the conversion rate was like 5%, which is no good. So instead I took them to the beginning.”

It’s an important lesson: when you’ve constructed a sequence that works, make sure you’re preserving all its most effective elements when you scale it up.

“Everybody wants to hear about this campaign because of the amount of money it generated,” says Dan, but he notes that it’s not the only successful strategy he employed for this client. After the initial week and the high-converting VIP event, he kept fine-tuning his approach, targeting slightly different audiences, and setting up opt-in pages for downloadable resources specific to the condo development.

If he had to do it all over again, there are a couple of changes he’d make. If it were up to him, real estate agents would be calling new leads to confirm their RSVP and remind them about the event—something he thinks could have dramatically increased event attendance.

He’d also make sure staffing levels on the client’s side were sufficient to handle the volume of new leads coming in. Being overwhelmed by leads is a pretty good problem to have, but it’s a problem nonetheless if you miss out on opportunities just because there aren't enough hours in the day.

Despite his remarkable success, it’s likely Dan will be handling fewer campaigns for clients in the future. After applying many of his favorite Facebook marketing strategies to promoting his own webinars, he’s planning to shift more of his attention toward educating other entrepreneurs.

Why? Dan explains it this way: “My wife said to me, ‘Once a business succeeds, you immediately sell it. Why is that?’ And I said, ‘Well, once a business succeeds, I’m bored with it.’ And she was like, ‘Well, why don’t you teach? That way you could have a new business to mess with every day.’ I thought, wow, that’s a good idea.”

Soon he’ll be releasing a course called Facebook Ads for Entrepreneurs, but in the meantime, he was happy to share a few words of advice for real estate marketers who want to try a similar campaign.

Underlying everything Dan’s done is a laser focus on customer psychology. He doesn’t geek out on conversion-rate optimization strategies; he’s not one to snap up shiny new tools that promise the possibility of a few new leads here and there.

As a consequence, his advice is easy for even newer marketers in less digital-savvy industries to grasp and use—because anyone has the ability to research and discover what motivates their desired customers.

Here are a few of his top tactics:

• Follow the “Rule of 10:” Sometimes the insights that seem simple turn out to be hard-won. Dan didn’t come up with his winning formula overnight.“I spent $16,000 over the past few years figuring out Facebook ads with trial and error,” he says. “At the end of the day, I realized: it’s not about the Facebook ad, it’s not about the button. It’s about your customer. I call it the Rule of 10: the ad itself is only responsible for 10% of the success or failure of a Facebook ads campaign. Instead, focus more on the 90%”—that is, crafting an offer your customers will truly want.
• Use early successes to improve your campaigns: "We actually got some footage from the first VIP event, and I edited it together and used it in a promotional video," Dan says. Whether you're shooting video, collecting social media comments, or simply receiving testimonials from your first few clients, you can often make immediate use of them by incorporating them into your landing pages or ads. Then, watch your success snowball.
• Above all, make your opt-in offer unique: “Most of the time real estate companies will use pre-made landing pages and ways to get leads—all these rehashed ideas,” says Dan. “I don’t believe in that. When I take a client to get real estate leads, the entire campaign—the video, the landing page—is tailored to them . So I wouldn’t say, ‘Download this PDF on how to get a house for a good price,’ I would say, ‘Hey, would you like to download a PDF on the best floorplans in downtown Houston that have a skyline view?’ or ‘Download our complete inventory of 3-bedroom homes that allow pets.’“With this real estate campaign, we asked people to download a floorplan. And I think by personalizing it and making it unique, you completely stand out … People think, ‘Oh my god, there’s a human being with blood and veins behind this.’ And that’s why I have such high conversion rates.”

Have you discovered any unorthodox real estate marketing techniques that work online? Share them in the comments!

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Case Studies

Case Study: A Real Estate Marketing Success Story

October 29, 2021

For most people, buying or selling property is something that only happens a few times throughout their lives, and it’s a major life event that they don’t take lightly. A real estate business’s survival depends on its ability to have a visible presence whenever and wherever potential clients are looking.

SEO (search engine optimization) marketing and paid advertising are often seen as opposite ends of the marketing spectrum, but with a smart real estate marketing strategy, they’re two sides of the same coin.

Local real estate business drives success with remarketing and SEO

One real estate business, with the help of their Marketing Success Manager and content writer , learned just how impactful it can be to combine the powers of SEO marketing with a strategic ad strategy.

Over a six-month period, they saw more than a million impressions, tens of thousands of clicks and hundreds of conversions.

How did they do it?

Seo and content marketing.

SEO and content marketing have been the main focus for this real estate marketing team, and as it’s their top-performing channel, it’s clear that this strategy has paid off for them.

First, they increased their rankings for relevant keywords by optimizing their website, including title tags and meta descriptions and page content.

They integrated advanced search tools and an IDX feed into their website through IDX Broker , adding value and giving their website visitors a reason to stick around longer.

Second, they added valuable content to their website on a regular basis in the form of blogs and web pages.

Third, they expanded their organic presence to YouTube, where they created informative videos and optimized them with relevant keywords.

This three-pronged organic strategy has helped to drive high-quality traffic to their site effectively and consistently — traffic that stuck around thanks to IDX Broker .

Retargeting ads

Often, when someone finds a real estate business online, they’re still in research mode and not ready to fill out a lead form.

Retargeting ads helped this real estate business stay top of mind with people who had previously visited their website but weren’t quite ready to commit.

You don’t have to choose between content marketing and paid ads. Like most digital marketing channels, they’re better together. A cohesive, multi-channel real estate marketing strategy can drive success across the board, especially when you have a great real estate website with an IDX feed to drive visitors to.

Build, manage and grow your small business with Marketing 360®

Marketing 360® is a singular platform that offers everything you need to build a modern, professional website , launch ads on popular channels , manage all of your contacts, projects and deals , schedule out social media posts , monitor your SEO performance and so much more, plus the marketing team you need to grow your business.

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Account M15846 Screenshots taken on 5/25/21

Originally published on 5/25/21

*Results are based on past client performance. Individual account performance may vary. Results are not guaranteed.

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2 Facebook Ads Case Studies – Leads for Less than $2!

When I started in 2006, the cost per click of many keywords was only $0.10 in Google Ads (aka AdWords) and Yahoo (aka Overture).  Fast forward to today and it’s nearly impossible to find keywords that cost less than $1 or $2 per click.  In some more competitive industries, keywords can cost up to $10, $20, even $50 per click!

As the cost per click of keywords rises, so does the cost per lead (if your website conversion rate stays the same).  It’s just basic math.  When your cost per click is $0.10 and your website conversion rate is 5%, then your cost per lead is $2.  When your cost per click is $1 and your website conversion rate is the same 5%, then your cost per lead is $20.  That makes a huge difference in your ROI!

For some businesses, the rising cost of keywords has eliminated Google Ads search ads as a viable option for lead generation.

Luckily, there are other options.  For example, Facebook Ads typically have a significantly lower cost per click compared to search ads.  Facebook Ads can work great for many different types of businesses like e-commerce, B2C, and even B2B.  For our clients focused on lead generation, we have seen the best results with a specific type of Facebook Ad called Lead Ads .  For some clients, the results remind me of the “old days” when you could consistently generate leads for less than $2!

What Are Facebook Lead Ads?

Before we dive into the case studies, I want to clarify how Lead Ads work.  For most ads, when people click your ad they are sent to your website landing page.  Then your landing page sells your product or service and encourages prospects to take action like requesting a quote, scheduling an appointment, signing up for a demo, etc.

Landing pages work, don’t get me wrong.  However, they do have a substantial Achilles heel — most prospects do not know, like, or trust your business or website.  Often it’s your prospect’s first introduction to your business, so it’s a tall order to expect them to take action.  This is one of the key factors that hurt your website conversion rates.

But with Facebook Lead Ads, you do not send prospects to your website.  Instead, your prospect stays on Facebook, which is a website they already know, like, and trust!

Let me walk through the steps so you see this in action:

• First, your prospect would see your ad and click on it.  This is the same as a regular ad.
• Second, your prospect will stay on Facebook and see more information about your offer.  This is the critical difference between regular ads and Lead Ads because prospects stay on the website they’re already familiar with.
• Third, your prospect can complete a form on Facebook and their information will be sent to your business.

As you can imagine, the conversion rates using Lead Ads can be higher than the conversion rates on your website landing pages.  This isn’t due to any fancy design or marketing tricks.  This is just playing into the laws of psychology — people are more likely to take action when the process is easy (Lead Ads are scaled-down and simple pages) and when they trust the website (Lead Ads keep the user on Facebook, which is a website the user trusts).

Now that you know what Lead Ads are, it’s time to dive into the case studies…

Case Study 1: Real Estate Investment Opportunities

The first case study is for a company that wanted to drive leads for overseas real estate investment opportunities.  Before working with us, this company had tested Facebook Ads but had not seen any success.  In fact, they weren’t convinced Facebook Ads were a viable option for their business.

Here’s what we did for this client:

• We built 3 different campaigns: 1. Remarketing to previous site visitors, 2. Demographic & Interest targeting, 3. Demographic & Behavior targeting
• Within the campaigns, we used 3 ad formats: Video, Image, Carousel
• We tested Lead Ads versus Standard Ads that drove prospects to a landing page and we tested many different landing page variations

In the first two months, we only generated 2 leads and the cost per lead was around $70.  This was not a great start, but we saw signs of life and we knew there was a lot of room to improve across the targeting, ads, and landing pages.

We continued to optimize the campaigns and eventually determined the Lead Ads outperformed the Standard ads, so we allocated all of the budget to the Lead Ads campaigns.  After a year of optimizing, we had a record month with 145 leads and the cost per lead had dropped down to $6!

You’re probably thinking, what about the less than $2 cost per lead that was mentioned in the headline?  Well, that brings us to case study number 2…

Case Study 2: Women’s Apparel E-Commerce

The second case study is for a women’s apparel e-commerce business.  In addition to promoting and selling products, our client wanted to drive more email newsletter signups.  The goal was to acquire emails and then use email marketing to sell their products.

• We built a campaign targeting a Lookalike Audience from previous purchasers.
• Within the campaign, we used 3 ad formats: Video, Image, Carousel
• We tested Lead Ads only because we had data from our other client that showed these would likely perform the best

For this client, we saw success right away.  In the first month, we generated 83 leads with a cost per lead of just $1.88.  The following month we generated 184 leads with a cost per lead of only $1.27!

Are Lead Ads Right For Your Business?

If your goal is to generate leads, then I strongly recommend you test Facebook Lead Ads.  As highlighted in the first case study above, success will likely not be instantaneous and you may have to work hard for several months to a year to get your campaigns dialed in.  But once you do, then you can reap the rewards of lower-cost leads on an ongoing basis.

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