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.
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.
@Sean Dolan how do you track phone calls in adwords?
You can track phone calls two ways in adwords:
1.) If you use call extensions, you can enable call tracking. This will track a call whenever someone sees your number in the ad itself, and calls straight from there, without clicking onto your landing page.
2.) If you want to track calls from your landing page, I recommend CallRail. Create a keyword pool, then you'll insert a small bit of code onto your page. Whenever someone comes from an ad, they'll swap out the number with a tracking number, then pass the call information back to AdWords.
Sean , thanks for the input. great testing on IC and LP alike. Is the test complete? What did you conclude? what variables of measurement did you employ?
@Jeff Filali what other methods are you using in accordance with the SEO and Investor Carrot. I have to revamp my site, im not coder savvy but is this something you did yourseslf? I wonder if i can make my own site and SEO without relying on waiting months and months for a web developer to decide he can devote 2 hours to my little project ya know what I mean.
Investor · Concord, NC · Member since 2014 · 9 posts · 3 votes
9y
Hey Logan. We have been with Lead Propeller for just over 3 months including PPC management. It's going great. Our numbers have been a little better than I expected and they are improving.
I am, admittedly, not an expert in websites - I really don't want to be - but I've found their service to be great the few times I've not been able to figure something out.
Real Estate Professional · Volente, TX · Member since 2014 · 1 post · 0 votes
9y
@Doc Brunk Can you share any numbers on your PPC budget and amount of leads generated? My budget is only$600 a month, so was wondering if it was worth it for me
Investor · Concord, NC · Member since 2014 · 9 posts · 3 votes
9y
@Wil May I'm not sure if $600 per month would generate much in results. We budget $150 per day and have been spending just under $200 per lead and just a bit over $2000 per deal. The last number should improve with practice, the rest have improved over time as LP tweaks our ads and bids for better, less expensive leads.
Real Estate Investor/ Private Investigator · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2015 · 73 posts · 20 votes
8y
@Sean Dolan Any new updates from your test you were conducting 7 months ago on investor carrot and lead propeller? Would love to hear what the results are!!
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
8y
@Hector Lozano Yes - Lead Propeller and Investor Carrot performed the same. Lead Propeller generated more phone calls, while Investor Carrot generated more form leads, but the overall lead count was even. We had Investor Carrot and Lead Propeller personally build both landing pages so they represented the best each had to offer.
We had a custom site built that outperformed Investor Carrot by 1% conversion rate, but it was pricey, so for anyone starting out, either option is a good option for "renting" a landing page (you don't own it), but once you get to the point that a $15K custom site is worth a 1% increase in conversions (and up from there), make the move to a custom site by someone who knows what they are doing.
Real Estate Investor/ Private Investigator · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2015 · 73 posts · 20 votes
8y
@Sean DolanThanks for the quick reply. I am currently looking into setting up a website, but was sure whether to go with IC or LP. This option of course is because of my budget. I am actually reading several post on BP where you explain a lot about renting or owning your own website. A lot of the stuff on there is like chinese to me.....just being honest. I see the advantages of renting (not having the time or budget for owning the site), but if I ever want to get to the next level, I would have to start from scratch if I leave either IC or Lp, unless there's a way to keep the content. Still in the process of researching this topic.
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
8y
@Hector Lozano IC is good, you can have PPC leads coming in within a few days.
The IC content is owned by IC, and you'll want to make sure you maintain all urls when you move, to maintain any SEO value you accumulate.
Content is cheap, you can hire it on Upwork.com easily.
I'd recommend IC for the short term (their customer support tips the scale for me), and put the website cost into testing your lower funnel (sales). With a good PPC company, lead quality won't be an issue.
We have clients getting high quality leads for around $200 in some areas of the country. I bet in San Antonio you'd be looking at $250 cost per lead if we ran your ads.
@Hector Lozano Yes - Lead Propeller and Investor Carrot performed the same. Lead Propeller generated more phone calls, while Investor Carrot generated more form leads, but the overall lead count was even. We had Investor Carrot and Lead Propeller personally build both landing pages so they represented the best each had to offer.
We had a custom site built that outperformed Investor Carrot by 1% conversion rate, but it was pricey, so for anyone starting out, either option is a good option for "renting" a landing page (you don't own it), but once you get to the point that a $15K custom site is worth a 1% increase in conversions (and up from there), make the move to a custom site by someone who knows what they are doing.
How much is the going rate for a decent custom site for lead generation? How about with SEO optimized?
Investor · Weston, MA · Member since 2017 · 28 posts · 19 votes
8y
@Will F. I've been involved in the development & optimization of websites from anywhere in the ballpark of $750 - $25k.
@Sean Dolan is money when he says: "but once you get to the point that a $15k custom site is worth a 1% increase in conversions (and up from there), make the move to a custom site by someone who knows what they're doing."
It's worth it at the point to get a legitimate agency to develop a site & full scale digital marketing plan based on that online presence. Some of these big investment companies and brokerages are spending even more than that on just their site alone...believe me.
And you can get an optimized site done a lot cheaper or even by yourself. There's entire freelance communities out there who can do something like SEO and web development. But if you're looking for a steady stream of leads - you need it done right, which we all know always costs quite a bit more.
Vendor · Katy, TX · Member since 2015 · 390 posts · 218 votes
8y
@Will F. - I say that because at that price there is a lower chance of being scammed. It's just like contractors, if someone is willing to paint an entire house for $200, something isn't right, but if you don't know anything about the cost of paint and labor involved in doing it correctly, then you just go with the cheapest option, and end up regretting it. A bad website is like an anchor around your neck - load speed, functional forms, rendering on all devices, or you find out with the next Wordpress update that it completely breaks your site because the developer edited core files to get the look they wanted. Some websites cost 100K, it just depends on what bells and whistles are needed. Could you get the same result of my $15K site for $5K? Maybe, but you're taking a big gamble that the person you are working with is taking shortcuts to get there. If you are looking to hire a developer, I'd be happy to charge hours of my staff's time to review their plans - get a second opinion on it before you move forward. I hate seeing folks get a bad website and constantly patching it.
@Brian Connelly right on man, I'll find you on linkedin. We manage the website builds, but we use reliable contractors to build them.
Investor · Los Angeles County, CA · Member since 2012 · 962 posts · 279 votes
8y
That's interesting. That can be true about contractors
$ 15k still seems very high though when there are a lot of word press themes that have a lot you can get for $40-100.
What would the breakdown in cost be, because I've seen very attractive Wordpress theme sites fully functional for $100-800. Some with basic SEO plugins that they get off Themeforest wordpress etc.
What is the scope of work for all the other features that are added. Like you mention load speed, functional forms, rendering on all devices, etc. I've seen a lot of wordpress themes for under $40-100 that have a lot of those already built into them.
If a Wordpress theme is updated then couldn't you just purchase the update from the developer or have someone fix it for $100-200?
I just don't see what the extra $10k+ covers.
I guess if it really did generate leads better then it would be worth the thousands of more dollars. But Im curious what that entails specifically?
If you sourced all the materials yourself, you could build a house cheaper, similarly, I wouldn't argue that it's not possible to get a site for cheaper, but you would need to count your hours spent sourcing material into the final cost. If you're chipping away at the final cost by spending your own time doing it, you need to compare what your hour is worth, versus the cost of the provider per hour.
For a $15k website, blended rate of $150/hour, you're looking at 100 hours of work. This includes meetings/discussions, client changing their mind, unique content, ssl certificates, hosting compatibility, CSS, Javascript, Html, all customizations, tracking... here's a pretty good list of website scope:
100 hours is just north of two weeks of a full-time employee at the blended rate of $150/hour.
I'd would rather you enter the market expecting $15k and beat down someone to $12k, then find someone offering a $2K website, and walk you up to $7K, and you end up with a net negative, a website that doesn't function, and you're pumping money into it to keep it afloat. Just seen it too many times. If someone is good, with happy customers, no online complaints, they're going to charge $150/hour. If they are charging $25-$50 - you have to ask yourself why are they charging so low if others can charge $150/hour?
It is SO easy to read a few blog posts and sound like a web genius, and I see it all the time. And if I didn't know any better, I'd fall for it. So, just trying to help everyone avoid pain. We get a lot of clients coming to us, literally got one today that said 'this will be my 5th marketing company to work with, please tell me how you are different' - lots of BS out there.
I hope that answers your question. My best advice would be to ask the web designer what other investor sites they've built, then ask the client (don't just assume that because they tell you they built a website that they ACTUALLY built it, verify it). If you talk with 3 investors they worked with, and a year has gone by without any major website overhauls required, they're a safe bet.
An analogy that might resonate here. It's like you're making the case that there are manufactured homes that you can get for 64k, and I'm telling you that a custom house is going to cost $120K. A manufactured home takes every shortcut, and limits you down the road (ie: you will have to add a garage later for 20K), whereas a custom home will suit you for the next 5-10 years while your family grows into it, you won't have to move homes as new needs arise. The custom home comes with all the features you will need, and will future-proof you from needing to scrap your website and start over every year or two to keep up with technology. Hope that helps.
Investor · Los Angeles County, CA · Member since 2012 · 962 posts · 279 votes
8y
Hey @Sean Dolan I agree with the analogies. I'd just like to know more details on what the $15,000 price entails
I can see by your site that you're very thorough an it's sort of a holistic marketing/design/ strategic website versus just slopping together a website.
There's a lot of small startup investors on biggerpockets so it would be hard for them to come up with that sort of money when the don't have that money for a deal.
I'd think it would make more sense to start with a $100-300 website with information and a form like a squeeze page. Set it up with a cheap domain/ host for $10 a month and kind of DIY. That's what most of the newer investors are like.
Even me I think I'd go for a $500-$1k website then upgrade if it 'works' because I have a hundred other expenses.