The Value of Pay Per Click Campaigns in Real Estate

With the rise of digital marketing and social media, Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns have become an important part of any online strategy for real estate businesses. PPC is a form of online advertising where a business pays a specific amount every time someone clicks on their ad.

In this blog post, we'll be discussing how PPC campaigns can benefit real estate agents in their efforts to attract new clients and sell more houses.

What is a PPC campaign?

A PPC campaign is an advertising strategy that allows you to reach potential buyers and sellers with relevant ads when they search for information about your product or service online.

You can choose from several different types of PPC advertising, including text ads and video ads. These ads appear on Google and other websites where people search for real estate services or information about homes for sale. You'll pay each time someone clicks on your ad.

Why use PPC?

The benefits of using PPC in real estate include:

- Increased visibility: When people search for information about your real estate services or properties, they'll see your ad along with others that are relevant to their search query. You'll have the opportunity to get in front of them when they're looking for exactly what you offer!

- Increased traffic: Your PPC ad will show up whenever people search for things related to your business—and this means more potential customers will find you!

- Cost-effective: You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, so you won't have to worry about paying for traffic if no one responds.

PPC: inbound or outbound marketing

Is PPC inbound or outbound marketing? The short answer: both. PPC is not just an inbound or outbound marketing strategy, it can be both!

PPC is a form of outbound marketing because it's paid to drive traffic to a specific website. It's also inbound marketing, however, because it relies on organic search results to drive traffic to your site.

To explain further, PPC becomes a form of outbound marketing because it's used to advertise to people who are not already on your website, or who have not yet expressed interest in your product or service. The goal of PPC is to convert visitors into leads and sales at a low cost per click (CPC).

Meanwhile, inbound marketing draws customers to your brand naturally and PPC advertising gives real estate agents a way to attract customers who are actively looking for information related to their services or properties.

So if you're driving traffic through organic search results and also paying for ads, then PPC is both inbound and outbound marketing.

Spending on PPC campaigns for real estate

The cost of PPC is determined by the amount you bid for each click. For example, if your competitor bids $1 for a click and you bid $2, you'll win the auction because your ad will show up higher in the search results.

If you're wondering how much you need to spend on PPC campaigns for real estate, the average pay-per-click rate is $2.37 on Google Adwords and $0.75 on Google Display Network according to Google Ads Benchmark by Wordstream.

Meanwhile, another study reports that for real estate professionals, PPC costs can range from $0.50 to $5 for keywords (such as ‘homes for sale) and up to $65 for investors seeking terms like 'sell my property fast.'

However, there are no absolutes when it comes to how much you should spend on PPC. The amount that works for one real estate agent may not work for another, and the best way to decide how much you should be budgeting is by evaluating your business goals.

How do you create a PPC campaign?

Creating a PPC campaign is not as complicated as you might think. Here's how to get started:

1. Start by defining your target audience. What type of person do you want to reach? What pages have they visited recently? What kind of content do they consume on social media? These are just some of the questions that will help you create a successful PPC campaign.
2. Do some research about your target keywords. See what others are doing in relation to keywords related to real estate—you can even use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool if necessary!
3. Choose your keywords and match types. The more specific you can be, the better—and this will also help you save money on clicks by advertising only on results that are relevant to what you're selling.
4. Set your budget and daily spending limit. This will help you keep your ad costs in check, which is important if you want to be able to track the performance of your ads over time.
5. Set up tracking codes and monitor performance regularly so that you can make adjustments as needed!

Learning about PPC

The best way to learn PPC is by doing it! You can start by reading the following PPC resources and setting up your own Google AdWords, but the only way to truly understand how things work is by diving in and trying it out for yourself.

Some Free PPC Resources To Help You Start

• Hubspot (pdf) - The Beginner’s Guide to Paid Search: Using Paid Search to Compliment Your Inbound Marketing
• Search Engine Journal (pdf or online) - PPC 101: A Complete Guide to PPC Marketing Basics
• SEMRush Academy with Joel Bondorowsky - PPC Fundamentals Course
• Hubspot Academy - Paid Search Advertising

PPC and ROI

For real estate agents, conversion rate determines the ROI from PPC. Conversion is the percentage of traffic that becomes leads (whether by leaving their contact information or inquiring about a property listing). Based on Google Ads Benchmark, the average conversion rate in real estate is 2.47% on Google Adwords Search and 0.80% on Google Display Network.

You can also check your Cost Per Lead to see how effective your PPC campaigns are. Simply divide total ad spend by total leads generated in a given campaign period. Example: ($100 ad spend) / (10 leads generated) = $10 CPL. According to WordStream, the real estate industry’s average CPL is $116.

Conclusion

PPC is an inexpensive way to get your business name out there and drive more traffic to your website. The value of PPC campaigns in real estate is that it allows real estate agents to reach people that are actively looking for what you have to offer, at a very low cost. This can make all the difference between getting a customer in the door or not! 

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