Are you using Facebook real estate ads to catch new leads?
Cold outreach can get exhausting, and Facebook ads are an excellent marketing strategy for both saving time and increasing the quality of your leads with AI, or artificial intelligence. Not to mention that Facebook owns Instagram, and any ads you create have the option to run across both platforms. The two social media networks serve billions of people every day, representing any kind of audience you might want to reach.
In this article, we will discuss the best practices for creating real estate ads for Facebook and Instagram in 2021.
How to Use Facebook Ads for Real Estate
If you’ve never considered running real estate ads before, you’re probably curious about how it works. There are many different reasons a real estate professional would run Facebook ads, such as:
- To attract buyers
- To attract sellers
- To attract renters
- To find clients as a real estate agent
- To find clients as a property manager
See also: 7 Real Estate Marketing Trends to Expect in 2021
It’s important to understand that your strategy will vary depending on your goal. If you want to attract clients for a service-based business, you’ll likely want to run a more elaborate sales funnel, which consists of retargeting Facebook and Instagram users as they take actions on your ads and website.
This allows you to follow up with potential clients and gives you the best chance of success. If you have a client-based real estate business, and you’re consistently looking for leads, this type of strategy can save you lots of time compared with networking or cold outreach. It can also be a little more difficult to set up a sales funnel, so you might consider working with a marketing agency to ensure the best results.
When running Facebook ads for real estate buyers, sellers, and renters, you should be able to attract enough leads with a single ad that is targeted based on behaviors, interests, and demographics. You can also have a second ad that retargets Facebook and Instagram users who visited your website but did not contact you.
Real Estate Ads Best Practices for 2021
How to Design Real Estate Ad Creatives That Convert
Within a saturated newsfeed, it can feel impossible for your Facebook real estate ads to stand out. Ad creative visuals are the first impression you get to make on potential leads. If your image isn’t eye-catching, you won’t stop their scroll.
In 2021, design ideas you might consider using include:
- Shocking or bizarre content
- Emotional content that demonstrates overcoming pain points
- Content that contains little text
- Video content
- Pictures of you: The business owner
- Magazine-worthy photographs
It may seem like a tall order, but the visuals you use for effective real estate Facebook ads should be of professional quality. Any blurriness or graininess will not convert. Not to mention, Facebook users can spot stock photos like it’s their job. You won’t be able to fool or win over prospects with unoriginal content.
How to Write Real Estate Ads That Convert
Possibly the most difficult aspect of creating effective real estate ads for Facebook and Instagram is writing the ad copy. It’s easy to name a few key points that have always played a role in high conversion rates. For one, you must speak directly to your leads and their specific persona. It’s also critical to not only reveal that you understand their pain points, but also how you can solve their problem or provide what they most need.
However, real estate Facebook ads and marketing itself is shifting in style. The most clever real estate ads in 2021 will contain ad copy that is long form and conversational. It is important to be friendly but very up front and authentic about your offer. Gimmicks, tricks, salesy language, and other marketing tactics that have worked in the past will not get much attention. Consumers are becoming more discerning, and they want to spark a connection with a person and develop trust.
Some other ideas to consider include:
- Use white space to break up long form ad copy
- Write short lines
- Don’t use difficult jargon or unnecessary words
- Write as though you are talking to a friend
See also: Social Media For Real Estate: A Key to Success
How to Target Facebook Ads for Real Estate
You’re probably wondering how to choose demographics for real estate Facebook ads. Before even attempting to set your behaviors and interest targeting, you should seek to understand your target audience.
A great way to do this is through research. Dig for some data in the areas you intend to serve. If you’re a real estate agent or a real estate investor selling a home, what does the data on buyers look like in your area? This can include age and behaviors such as raising a family, etc. If you find that most home buyers are millennials with young kids, you can set your targeting to include people who’ve expressed interest in children’s toys or clothing brands.
This is only one example, and if you are targeting a sparsely populated location, it may be too specific. But for a highly populated area, it makes for a great way to narrow down. Use Facebook’s estimated audience size and estimated conversions help you determine how specific you need to be in order to achieve your target number of conversions.
Real Estate Facebook Ads Strategies for 2021
Retarget Website Visitors
The #1 most important thing you can do to ensure real estate ads success in 2021 is to retarget warm audiences. A warm audience is a group of people who have expressed interest in what you are offering.
While you can target Facebook users by behaviors, interests, and location, these are considered cold audiences because they’re not yet aware of your business. Once users become aware of your business and engages with your real estate ads or business online in some way, they are considered a warm audience. This is because they have entered the consideration phase: they are interested and are contemplating working with you.
Make sure you aren’t missing out on opportunities to follow up with warm audiences via real estate ads. This can mean retargeting Facebook and Instagram users with real estate ads. You can also use real estate ads to build warm audiences.
Email lists are great for building warm audiences and having a secondary method of selling to them. Whether you’re a real estate investor looking for buyers, a real estate agent, or a property manager, email is an excellent marketing strategy that pairs well with real estate ads. One way to grow an email list with real estate ads is to offer a free guide or webinar in exchange for an email address.
See also: 6 Social Media Marketing Tips for Property Managers
Test Images
As we mentioned earlier, the first and most important indicator of effective real estate ads is the ad creative, or image. If it isn’t a scroll stopper, no matter how great your ad copy or strategy is, no one will click.
For this reason, you might consider creating a few different ad creatives and allowing Facebook to select a winner. Facebook will do this by putting more of your real estate advertising budget behind real estate ads it believes will perform better.
Understand New Changes to Facebook Advertising
While the above strategies and best practices are working for real estate Facebook ads in 2021, it’s important to understand that digital advertising in general is currently going through major changes.
See also: Are You Guilty of Making These Real Estate Marketing Mistakes?
With Apple’s iOS 14 update rolling out, Facebook real estate ads will be impacted. As far as we know, they will still be a highly effective lead generation strategy. However, they will only continue to work if advertisers understand how to adapt to the changes coming as a result of the update.
To stay informed, check back into our blog frequently as we will be releasing information on the iOS 14 update shortly. In the meantime, click here to learn more about how we will help you make faster and smarter real estate investment decisions.
