How To Use Facebook Ads for Real Estate Marketing

Using Facebook Ads for real estate marketing is an excellent resource when done correctly. Learn how to use Facebook ads to target new audiences, reengagement, and ultimately get more leads as a real estate agent or broker. 

Many real estate agents are turning to digital marketing such as Facebook, Google Ads, and Instagram to show off properties. But are they really getting any leads? If you are using money to put toward ads, you will want to make sure it’s done correctly. 

The Ultimate Guide to Using Facebooks Ads for Real Estate 

Today we are going to talk about how to set up your ads, why you should want to use Facebook Ads to reach more people, and some examples of how real estate agents set up their ad campaigns. 

What are Facebook Ads? 

We’ve all seen them. You know when you are browsing a website and the next time you log onto facebook, there’s that product you were previously searching for. That my friends was not a coincidence, that was strategy. 

Facebook allows you to set a budget for the lifetime or the ad or a daily budget. In turn, they show your posts, videos, and campaigns to more people that you are targeting in your audiences. 

If you aren’t consistent on Facebook or you have a property you need to sell quickly, this is a great way to get the word out. 

RELATED: 24 Business Ideas in Real Estate That Are Very Successful

Why as a Real Estate Would You Want to Use Facebook Ads? 

You can actually use ads in any business, but some niches can be more appealing. With beautiful photos and the technology to offer 360 views and home tours, this type of content is super engaging. 

It’s important to remember that not every person is looking for a home to buy or rent, but the more you can stay in front of people the more likely they are to purchase from you or tell their friends and family. 

Contrary to when you post personally on your Facebook business page, when you setup your ads correctly you can reach more or a targeted audience. THis means while its great that all of your family likes and shares your page, this is not your ideal client. Your ideal client is a homeowner looking to buy. 

Within the audience sections of your Ad dashboard you can target multiple demographics, interests, income ranges, and more. This is out you get the word out about your real estate business. 

Compared to other marketing methods, Facebook ads come relatively cheap and are super effective in terms of users. According to Sprout Social this is what they revealed about the platform in 2020. 

  • 74% of high-income earners are Facebook users
  • 1.62 billion users visit Facebook daily.
  • 94% of Facebook Ad revenue is from mobile
  • The average cost per click for a Facebook Ad is $1.72
  • Mobile-friendly video generates higher engagement.

Steps to Take Before Setting Up Your Campaigns

Here are a few things to do before actually creating your ads if you haven’t done them already. 

Sign up for Facebook Business Manager. This just makes things easier for business accounts and keeps everything in one place. You can also add team members or assistants if needed. 

If you have a website, go ahead and install the Facebook Pixel code. This allows tracking and targeting of people who have engaged with your website. It also just gives better data in the long run. 

Types of Facebook Ad Campaigns

When you open the ads section from your business page, with the “new” Facebook, here are the goals you will see. 

Know that you NEVER want to boost a post so stay away from both of those. 

It’s possible that if you are using a business manager, you may see a different screen when it comes to creating your campaign, either way eventually you will end up in the same place. 

screenshot of facebook ad campaign
screenshot of choosing a facebook ad objective

Brand Awareness

Generally used when you just want people to recognize your brand, get more page likes and are typically pretty cheap to run. This is a good option for beginners and is great if you’re running a special or offer and want to attract new people that in future will likely to engage with your page more often. Also, Facebook shows this type of campaign to people who are most likely to be interested.

Reach

This objective means that Facebook is going to show your ad to as many people as possible in your targeted audience. So compared to brand awareness, this is a little more generic in terms of targeting people who actually may be interested in real estate. BUt it’s great if you are looking to grow your following on Facebook and aren’t trying to advertise a special property for sale. 

The most common objectives used under consideration that real estate professionals use are Traffic, Engagement, and Video Views. 

Traffic

Choose this objective when you are sending your target market outside of facebook such as to a blog post on your own website or a property listing. 

Engagement

This differs from the brand awareness category because this facebook ad objective allows users to like, comment, and share, whereas the other one only allows them to take action to like your page. 

Video Views

Obviously, if you have some nice videos you may want to use this option, but this does come up in the Facebook video section. You can still use videos in the other campaigns as well. 

Lead Generation

This tool collects audience information without leaving the Facebook platform. So the downside is that there will not be any traffic going to your website if you have one. Most older people do not convert well using this type of ad, but younger people do. 

 App Installs

Chances are being in the real estate business you do not have your own app, so let’s just skip over this for now. 

Messages

This campaign is becoming more popular and allows you to engage with your people through messenger and other messaging apps. However, this may not be the most effective way to use your ad budget in real estate. 

Marketing Real Estate Through Facebook Ad Audiences 

Here’s where things get interesting and targeting is so important! If you are looking to grow your following, you can typically do that with a pretty broad audience range, but still set the parameters related to your local location. 

Custom Audiences

Here’s where you will set your parameters for a custom audience. You could also include website visitors or people from your email list if you have one.

You will set the locations, age, gender, demographics, interest, and languages. There is also the option to exclude audiences. This is helpful when you don’t want to waste your ad spend on people who already like your page, or when you want to reach a cold audience. 

Lookalike Audiences

This generates an audience that is most likely to engage in Facebook’s eyes. Before creating one, you need to have a custom audience first so it can then calculate the lookalike audience. You can also do this with email subscribers as well. 

For example, your custom audience could be people in a certain location that like Remax between the ages of 25-55 and who like HGTV. Then you would create a lookalike audience based on the custom audience. 

When setting up our ads, there will be a dial in the upper right hand corner, you want to make sure that this stays in the green. If it’s not that means your ad is too broad or not broad enough based on the audience parameters you selected.

Ideas for Facebook Ads for Real Estate 

Now that you have all of the information to start building your ad campaigns, here are some examples you may want to try using. 

  • Use photos of yourself or team for brand awareness 
  • Pose with the homebuyers and make a boomerang 
  • Showcase a video testimonial 
  • Use the event’s campaign to market your open houses 
  • In the ad copy when promoting your brand, talk about the number of closings you had, the average time it takes, and what people are saying. 
  • When building ads for properties, include sharp photos, the total square footage, price, and all of the features. 
  • Use image carousels so people can flip through different photos of the home

Outside of ad campaigns you should be using your social media regularly to promote your business and so Facebook will show your content to more people. Need ideas for social media posts? Here’s a whole blog about Real Estate Social Media Post Ideas.

Other Real Estate Business Articles:

Pin For Later!

Using Facebook Ads for real estate marketing is an excellent resource when done correctly. Learn how to use Facebook ads to target new audiences, reengagement, and ultimately get more leads as a real estate agent or broker.