Investor carrot or lead propeller?

Real Estate Agent · Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2016 · 589 posts · 275 votes

Hi guys n gals. So right to the point. I had the M5 for a while and it was good but it was expensive. I want to hear from members of the BP community. I'm a wholesaler.... new but educated. Has anyone here used investor carrot? Does it work? Leads? SEO meta data ? What about lead propeller? Any feedback about this site for squeeze pages capturing lead data for motivated sellers and cash buyers. Weigh in. Thanks BP folks.

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Jeff Filali

Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes

We use Carrot and like it. You will still need paid traffic unless you're just looking for a few good leads per month. When we don't do paid traffic, we still get 1-2 leads per WEEK, but when we do paid ads driving the traffic to our site, we get 1-2 per DAY. But we're spending a lot on paid ads. SEO alone will rank us on page one for most of our markets, but GoogleAds will rank us top 2 in every market we buy. We also use many other paid ads. GoogleAds can get very expensive, but if you do all of the set up correctly, you will get very high quality leads. I would be willing to pay $500+ for a great motivated seller that fits my criteria. I've found that the higher our cost of customer is, the better the leads, the less time we waste. I'd rather have 1 very solid lead per day instead of 10-20 that waste an entire day.

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Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Mike G. We're running a test now, spending 20k between an investor carrot and lead propeller version of an investor's site. So far we can say there are difference between the two, but the overall conversion rates are similar. Once we're done running the test, there will be more conclusive data to share. You can't go wrong with either one, based on the data we have now. I'm speaking only for Paid traffic directed at the site, not SEO.
6 Reply
Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
We use Carrot and like it. You will still need paid traffic unless you're just looking for a few good leads per month. When we don't do paid traffic, we still get 1-2 leads per WEEK, but when we do paid ads driving the traffic to our site, we get 1-2 per DAY. But we're spending a lot on paid ads. SEO alone will rank us on page one for most of our markets, but GoogleAds will rank us top 2 in every market we buy. We also use many other paid ads. GoogleAds can get very expensive, but if you do all of the set up correctly, you will get very high quality leads. I would be willing to pay $500+ for a great motivated seller that fits my criteria. I've found that the higher our cost of customer is, the better the leads, the less time we waste. I'd rather have 1 very solid lead per day instead of 10-20 that waste an entire day.
9 Reply
Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
Jeff Filali how do you know whether the SEO leads are just folks searching your brand (resulting from other advertising efforts) versus truly organic traffic (not lifted from other advertising efforts)? Most people who say they get SEO leads on here, are actually just getting incremental organic traffic for branded terms (your company name) that are a result of previous PPC, or word of mouth, or other means.
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Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
Jeff Filali Dear moderators/IT: the mobile tagging has been an unresolved issue for at least a year now. Yeesh.
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Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
@Sean Dolan I've ran tests where I did paid SEO ads for a month and then turned them off for a month. Also the leads tell you the search term. You can select all the search terms that you want to pay for and by tinkering with the terms, you can get it down to the most qualified leads. I do not list my company name as a paid term. If you DO NOT do paid ads for a month and get only X leads and had next month you DO paid ads and get 10X leads from Google/SEO, you know what's working. Also, at first we were getting too many generic SEO leads searching for too generic real estate terms.
It's not perfect, but SEO ads have paid for themselves for sure. The nice thing about this business is it only takes a few good leads to make a lot of money.
We also do a lot of free advertising that works.
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Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Jeff Filali SEO ads? Can you do me a favor and look up the definition of SEO and PPC, and then restate your last comment? I think you're misunderstanding those terms.
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Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
Sorry, I was responding on the go and thinking PPC. Your SEO can definitely help people organically find you for free.
But when not doing PPC and searching for terms tied into our SEO, we do rank on page one. Obviously if you search for the company name, it will definitely rank high for Free.
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Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Jeff Filali what term do you rank first page for?
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Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
Most all the ones we want to. Example of one would be "sell my house fast XYZ". XYZ being many cities where we buy. Even if not doing PPC, our page ranks first page for almost all our preferred cities.
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Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Jeff Filali Definitely not selling you anything, simply trying to establish credibility for the advice you're giving. I asked you how you know the difference between branded and non-branded SEO traffic, and you gave a really confusing answer. I suspect you're confusing non-branded SEO traffic with branded traffic.

From your 4lease4sale site, you state: "If you have a commercial property you’re looking to sell in Oklahoma, Texas or Kansas, in particular the Tulsa, Oklahoma City, DFW, Houston or Wichita area" so if I plug these cities into your keyword variable above, that gives us at least the following terms:

sell my house fast oklahoma city - I can identify everyone on the 1st page, not seeing you there.
sell my house fast kansas - not seeing you there.
sell my house fast tulsa - not seeing you there.
sell my house fast dfw - not seeing you there.

Am I missing something? How can you be ranking for 'most of all the ones you want to' if I can't find a single one?

Not trying to pick on you here, just trying to make my original point, that you are probably confusing branded traffic as non-branded organic/SEO traffic.

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Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
Ok, so I found your Oklahoma site: http://www.okcashhomebuyers.com/ and it doesn't rank on the first page for: sell my house fast oklahoma city, in fact I see you at position 34. You don't get organic traffic from ranking #34 - see why I think it's probably branded traffic?
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Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Jeff Filali Also found your Texas homebuyer site: http://www.texcashhomebuyer.com/
Not finding it anywhere for the following searches:
sell my house fast texas
sell my house fast dallas
sell my house fast houston

Lots of SEOs out there scamming clients, and I just don't want you to be scammed by one of these guys. If there aren't any observable rankings, then there's something fishy about them claiming that leads are coming from SEO.
1 Reply
Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
I haven't paid anyone for SEO, set it all up for free myself. I hear you about all the scammers.
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Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
@Sean Dolan type in sell my house fast.... Broken Arrow, Jenks, Owasso, Bixby, Norman, Moore, or Edmond. Those are the premium real estate markets in Oklahoma.
1 Reply
Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
BTW, we don't own OKCashHomeBuyers, that's not us.
We have OklahomaCashHomeBuyer.com and TexCashHomeBuyer.com for our motivated seller sites. The Oklahoma one is set up better then the Tex one because we added the Tex one later and haven't finished all the internal setup that needs to be done to maximize its results.
0 Reply
Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
Ah good, I'm seeing you for broken arrow. I'll take a look tomorrow and see if I can offer some advice.
1 Reply
Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Jeff Filali yep, mistyped the domain, sorry about that.

Here's what you're ranking for, based on SEMrush.com data (for the correct Oklahoma domain), this is sorted by your best rankings, so #35 is one of your best. Keep in mind, they are pulling from a list of keywords that are searched often, so the term 'sell my house fast broken arrow' isn't showing, despite you ranking well for it, because there is almost zero traffic for that term. Not saying there is zero (but there might be), just that it isn't even on the radar for this widely-used tool, because it is so rarely searched.

A big SEO issue you're facing is duplicate content. I grabbed a piece of text from your page and searched it in Google. There are 11,300 other pages with that exact term on it, and probably 95% of your page is duplicated across many of these sites, because you're using the default Investor Carrot site.
You need to unique this content. Investor Carrot offers this as a service. My advice is that if SEO is part of you strategy, it is a given to unique the content, not an option. If you're only using this site for PPC, the duplicate content isn't an issue.
The absolute most important variable, after you patch that big hole, is to have links. You don't have any links. If you are doing SEO, or paying someone to do SEO, and they are not generating links, they are wasting your time and money. Period. There's no reputable SEO anywhere that doesn't include links in their strategy. Might as well hire a plumber who doesn't touch pipes, or an exterminator who's afraid of bugs.

Here's a really good resource for links: http://backlinko.com/link-building

But honestly, doing your own SEO, or doing your own plumbing, or your own roofing, or anything else, is not a long term solution as an investor. You should wait until you can hire a professional. We no longer offer SEO services in-house, but we can refer you or anyone else to someone who's good.
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Jeff Filali
Rental Property Investor · Broken Arrow, OK · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
@Sean Dolan Thanks man, like I said I'm not paying for any of it at this point, but fully intend to in the future. I did it all myself to this point. I decided to put the money into PPC instead to ramp up. But will be looking to hire someone to do the SEO better in the future.
I felt like with PPC, I would be able to target more specific leads for my money at the time. May be getting less but they're very targeted. But you're right, I need to go back and finish all the SEO set up to drive more free traffic. Thanks again
0 Reply
Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Jeff Filali Sounds good man. Just remember that SEO traffic is not free. If you stop pushing that rock up that hill, someone else will overtake you. Time is money, so you're either spending your time or someone else's time to push that rock up the hill. Any rankings that are easily gotten, are likely worthless. Also, when you know what PPC strategy works best, you've painted your keyword targets for SEO - versus building SEO for a year, and finding out you're ranking for all the wrong terms. Prove it out by renting the terms, then follow through with SEO. Good luck!
1 Reply
Mike G.
OP
Real Estate Agent · Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2016 · 589 posts · 275 votes
9y
Sean Dolan great info and feedback Sean. I'm wondering if a aggressive google adwords campaign coupled with either of these sites would suffice to bring in consistent leads, weather or not they are quality leads is another thing but at least if you " have a chance" to convert your " need to sell" leads is all any one asks for.......... look forward to the conclusion of your data on these 2 sites. Keep me posted. Thanks a million
0 Reply
Sean Dolan
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
9y
@Mike G. so far, I can conclude that both will definitely generate a steady flow of leads, just north of $300/lead for the specific keywords we are running (which aren't our cheapest keywords, but they are the higher volume keywords, on average the more costly). I won't know for a couple months how these individual leads pan out into homes sold, which is where the rubber hits the road. My theory is that the quality won't change much between the two because the quality is predicated by keywords they came in on, not the landing page, which is a control across both landing pages. Both landing pages are receiving the exact same set of keywords.
Also, I have multiple clients generating 7-10 leads some days for motivated sellers in their area, without these sites, so these aren't the only solutions, just the more turn-key solutions, and the most popular in this industry.

But honestly, for what it's worth, I'd have zero concerns about anyone signing up for Lead Propeller or Investor Carrot at this point (in terms of PPC, I have major issues with the SEO benefits). When we do have a winner between these two landing pages, they will be close, since it's taken weeks and I still don't have a statistical leader. One thing, Lead Propeller does generate more phone calls and Investor Carrot generates more forms filled. Which reminds me that everyone needs to track phone calls in Adwords (PM me if you need a recommendation on call tracking that ties into Adwords). If we weren't tracking phone calls, we would have already incorrectly concluded Investor Carrot as the winner.

Will keep the community updated on the progress!
5 Reply
Will F.
Investor · Los Angeles County, CA · Member since 2012 · 962 posts · 279 votes
9y
Originally posted by @Sean Dolan:

@Mike G. so far, I can conclude that both will definitely generate a steady flow of leads, just north of $300/lead for the specific keywords we are running (which aren't our cheapest keywords, but they are the higher volume keywords, on average the more costly). I won't know for a couple months how these individual leads pan out into homes sold, which is where the rubber hits the road. My theory is that the quality won't change much between the two because the quality is predicated by keywords they came in on, not the landing page, which is a control across both landing pages. Both landing pages are receiving the exact same set of keywords.
Also, I have multiple clients generating 7-10 leads some days for motivated sellers in their area, without these sites, so these aren't the only solutions, just the more turn-key solutions, and the most popular in this industry.

But honestly, for what it's worth, I'd have zero concerns about anyone signing up for Lead Propeller or Investor Carrot at this point (in terms of PPC, I have major issues with the SEO benefits). When we do have a winner between these two landing pages, they will be close, since it's taken weeks and I still don't have a statistical leader. One thing, Lead Propeller does generate more phone calls and Investor Carrot generates more forms filled. Which reminds me that everyone needs to track phone calls in Adwords (PM me if you need a recommendation on call tracking that ties into Adwords). If we weren't tracking phone calls, we would have already incorrectly concluded Investor Carrot as the winner.

Will keep the community updated on the progress!
Thanks for the updates Sean. Do you have any more? How have the sites been going?
0 Reply
Troy Copeland
Property Manager · Frisco, TX · Member since 2014 · 24 posts · 20 votes
9y
@Sean Dolan,
Do you have any additional data to share after 3 months?
0 Reply
Gabriel Amedee
Investor · Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 379 posts · 330 votes
9y
@Sean Dolan any update? Really interested in your findings.
0 Reply
Carolin Grable
Lakeland, FL · Member since 2017 · 9 posts · 1 vote
9y
@Sean Dolan how do you track phone calls in adwords?
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