Facebook Ads for Motivated Seller Leads [Progress thread]

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Facebook Ads for Motivated Seller Leads [Progress thread]

Michael McKay
Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes

There are a lot of posts and Youtube videos on using Facebook to generate motivated seller leads, but most of these only cover a small part of the overall marketing campaign. Online marketing has evolved a lot in the last few years- no longer can you expect optimal results from making a couple Facebook ads with stock photos.

I believe that I can find off market deals cheaper than direct mail by using online marketing.

I started working on this project 2 days ago and I’m going to document my entire journey here, including:

  • Which strategies work and which don’t
  • The tools I use
  • How much money I spend on ads, design, vendors, etc.
  • The exact ads I use
  • My cost per lead, my cost per deal...everything

Why am I doing this?

I want to find off market deals and creating this thread will keep me accountable.

This thread also gives me an easy way to share my learnings. Plus, some of you will have great suggestions on how I can improve my strategy :)

What I’ll be building and sharing over the next few weeks

  1. A high converting landing page.
  2. An outline of my marketing funnel- this will be my road map as I build out all the pieces of this project.
  3. Video and photo ads for Facebook- I’ll test these to see which ones work and which ones don’t.
  4. A messenger bot for Facebook ads- We’ll see if these perform better than lead or landing pages ads.
  5. A system to manage leads and automatically follow up with them

Test budget: $2,500.

Most people spend between $1,500 and $2,000 on direct mail to find a deal, so I thought $2,500 made sense since there are some set up items (website design, graphic design, etc.) that cost $500-$700.

I’ll update this thread every few days with my progress. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

I’ll do my best to create detailed posts of what I do, in case anyone wants to borrow my strategies. Feel free to ask questions if anything isn't clear.

15Reply
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Most Popular Reply

James Wise
Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes
6y
Originally posted by @Michael McKay:

There are a lot of posts and Youtube videos on using Facebook to generate motivated seller leads, but most of these only cover a small part of the overall marketing campaign. Online marketing has evolved a lot in the last few years- no longer can you expect optimal results from making a couple Facebook ads with stock photos.

I believe that I can find off market deals cheaper than direct mail by using online marketing.

I started working on this project 2 days ago and I’m going to document my entire journey here, including:

  • Which strategies work and which don’t
  • The tools I use
  • How much money I spend on ads, design, vendors, etc.
  • The exact ads I use
  • My cost per lead, my cost per deal...everything

Why am I doing this?

I want to find off market deals and creating this thread will keep me accountable.

This thread also gives me an easy way to share my learnings. Plus, some of you will have great suggestions on how I can improve my strategy :)

What I’ll be building and sharing over the next few weeks

  1. A high converting landing page.
  2. An outline of my marketing funnel- this will be my road map as I build out all the pieces of this project.
  3. Video and photo ads for Facebook- I’ll test these to see which ones work and which ones don’t.
  4. A messenger bot for Facebook ads- We’ll see if these perform better than lead or landing pages ads.
  5. A system to manage leads and automatically follow up with them

Test budget: $2,500.

Most people spend between $1,500 and $2,000 on direct mail to find a deal, so I thought $2,500 made sense since there are some set up items (website design, graphic design, etc.) that cost $500-$700.

I’ll update this thread every few days with my progress. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

I’ll do my best to create detailed posts of what I do, in case anyone wants to borrow my strategies. Feel free to ask questions if anything isn't clear.

As someone who spends $100,000+ per year on marketing I can say that the highest ROI you'll get from sellers is from direct mail. Online marketing is going to have it's biggest impact on creating and maintaining brand awareness.

5Reply
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127 Replies

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  • Mohammad (Asad) Asaduddin
    Wholesaler · Houston, TX · Member since 2013 · 78 posts · 12 votes
    6y

    One other factor to measure is the time for the deal flow to start after your setup.

    0Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    @Mohammad (Asad) Asaduddin Great point! I'll keep track of that metric starting today. I'll also track the time it takes from a lead coming in to close, using my CRM.

    1Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    @Mohammad (Asad) Asaduddin How long does it typically take for deal flow to start with the marketing methods you're using?

    I'm curious to see how Facebook stacks up against other methods in this aspect.

    0Reply
  • James Wise
    Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes
    6y
    Originally posted by @Michael McKay:

    There are a lot of posts and Youtube videos on using Facebook to generate motivated seller leads, but most of these only cover a small part of the overall marketing campaign. Online marketing has evolved a lot in the last few years- no longer can you expect optimal results from making a couple Facebook ads with stock photos.

    I believe that I can find off market deals cheaper than direct mail by using online marketing.

    I started working on this project 2 days ago and I’m going to document my entire journey here, including:

    • Which strategies work and which don’t
    • The tools I use
    • How much money I spend on ads, design, vendors, etc.
    • The exact ads I use
    • My cost per lead, my cost per deal...everything

    Why am I doing this?

    I want to find off market deals and creating this thread will keep me accountable.

    This thread also gives me an easy way to share my learnings. Plus, some of you will have great suggestions on how I can improve my strategy :)

    What I’ll be building and sharing over the next few weeks

    1. A high converting landing page.
    2. An outline of my marketing funnel- this will be my road map as I build out all the pieces of this project.
    3. Video and photo ads for Facebook- I’ll test these to see which ones work and which ones don’t.
    4. A messenger bot for Facebook ads- We’ll see if these perform better than lead or landing pages ads.
    5. A system to manage leads and automatically follow up with them

    Test budget: $2,500.

    Most people spend between $1,500 and $2,000 on direct mail to find a deal, so I thought $2,500 made sense since there are some set up items (website design, graphic design, etc.) that cost $500-$700.

    I’ll update this thread every few days with my progress. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

    I’ll do my best to create detailed posts of what I do, in case anyone wants to borrow my strategies. Feel free to ask questions if anything isn't clear.

    As someone who spends $100,000+ per year on marketing I can say that the highest ROI you'll get from sellers is from direct mail. Online marketing is going to have it's biggest impact on creating and maintaining brand awareness.

    5Reply
  • Mark Sewell
    Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 871 votes
    6y

    I like it! 

    If I may add -- please also keep track of which campaign objectives you use (traffic, engagement, video views, and of course, lead gen) as well as which audiences you are using.  

    You might also note which ones are origination and which are some form of retargetting within your funnel, but I suspect you already plan to show that.

    3Reply
  • Mike Landry
    Investor · Montgomery, TX · Member since 2014 · 386 posts · 151 votes
    6y

    Nice. I'll be interested in hearing updates. I've bought 2 houses off Facebook from just spamming multiple buy sell trade pages in my area. Last one was probably 2-3 years ago. Now it seams a lot of people are doing it. I do it every now and then but haven't gotten any leads in a while.  I also pm people having garage sales that look like they are moving out and selling a lot of stuff. I've been thinking about the paid adds. But I don't have a proper website or funnel set up.... Yet. Good luck.  

    I should probably know but... When doing paid adds on Facebook what criteria can you choose to show your ad to? Is it just certain area like zip codes? Or can it get into approximate income levels, home ownership, or other demographics? 

    1Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    @James Wise Appreciate the insight. What's your average marketing spend per acquisition using direct mail? A few people I have spoken to have said between $1,500-$2,000 per deal. I'm curious if that's on the higher or lower side you're seeing, since you're doing it at a pretty large scale.

    @Mark Sewell Absolutely! I plan to show everything from my campaigns- cold traffic vs retargeting, campaign objectives, targeting, etc. More to come on this in future posts.

    @Mike Landry Were those Facebook groups or the Marketplace? I haven't experimented with either of those, but I have heard of people getting deals and finding tenants in the Marketplace.

    Facebook has become very strict with targeting for "special category" ads recently, which includes housing ads. You have to pick a 15 mile radius or larger as your target area and they take away a lot of the targeting options, including age. They used to have homeowner targeting, but that was taken away awhile back.

    One strategy that has worked well for me in other industries is show a video to cold traffic (people who have never seen my brand) and then retarget people who watch a significant amount of that video with conversion focused ads. It will be interesting to see if this work well for motivated seller campaigns. I'll do a more detailed post on exactly how to set this up when I set up my campaigns.

    0Reply
  • Joe Cassandra
    Rental Property Investor · Woodstock, GA · Member since 2017 · 517 posts · 772 votes
    6y

    Interested to see this, Michael. Great job diving in. 

    I use online methods for more re-targeting and then PPC as well. Direct mail for me. 

    The tricky part with FB is you can't specifically target lists...

    You may only have FB's algorithm working for you with people who are showing behaviors they want to sell their house. But the demographics can't be tied down. 

    E.g. if you're selling a self-help book, you can target people who like 'tony robbins' page and you'll be on the right track. 

    With motivated sellers, there's nothing that targets that specific, so you're really spraying and praying.

    ---

    Will be watching!

    2Reply
  • James Wise
    Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes
    6y
    Originally posted by @Michael McKay:

    @James Wise Appreciate the insight. What's your average marketing spend per acquisition using direct mail? A few people I have spoken to have said between $1,500-$2,000 per deal. I'm curious if that's on the higher or lower side you're seeing, since you're doing it at a pretty large scale.

    @Mark Sewell Absolutely! I plan to show everything from my campaigns- cold traffic vs retargeting, campaign objectives, targeting, etc. More to come on this in future posts.

    @Mike Landry Were those Facebook groups or the Marketplace? I haven't experimented with either of those, but I have heard of people getting deals and finding tenants in the Marketplace.

    Facebook has become very strict with targeting for "special category" ads recently, which includes housing ads. You have to pick a 15 mile radius or larger as your target area and they take away a lot of the targeting options, including age. They used to have homeowner targeting, but that was taken away awhile back.

    One strategy that has worked well for me in other industries is show a video to cold traffic (people who have never seen my brand) and then retarget people who watch a significant amount of that video with conversion focused ads. It will be interesting to see if this work well for motivated seller campaigns. I'll do a more detailed post on exactly how to set this up when I set up my campaigns.

    We probably see 5-7 deals out of a $2,000 direct mail spend. However you should note that we not only buy, but Broker real estate. In addition as we spend so much you develop continued brand awareness so you'll see a lot of compounded residual effects. 

    2Reply
  • Mark Sewell
    Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 871 votes
    6y
    Originally posted by @Joe Cassandra:

    Interested to see this, Michael. Great job diving in. 

    I use online methods for more re-targeting and then PPC as well. Direct mail for me. 

    The tricky part with FB is you can't specifically target lists...

    You may only have FB's algorithm working for you with people who are showing behaviors they want to sell their house. But the demographics can't be tied down. 

    E.g. if you're selling a self-help book, you can target people who like 'tony robbins' page and you'll be on the right track. 

    With motivated sellers, there's nothing that targets that specific, so you're really spraying and praying.

    ---

    Will be watching!

     Not true.  You can upload lists.  

    1Reply
  • Mike Landry
    Investor · Montgomery, TX · Member since 2014 · 386 posts · 151 votes
    6y
    Originally posted by @Michael McKay:

    @Mike Landry Were those Facebook groups or the Marketplace? I haven't experimented with either of those, but I have heard of people getting deals and finding tenants in the Marketplace.

    Facebook has become very strict with targeting for "special category" ads recently, which includes housing ads. You have to pick a 15 mile radius or larger as your target area and they take away a lot of the targeting options, including age. They used to have homeowner targeting, but that was taken away awhile back.

    One strategy that has worked well for me in other industries is show a video to cold traffic (people who have never seen my brand) and then retarget people who watch a significant amount of that video with conversion focused ads. It will be interesting to see if this work well for motivated seller campaigns. I'll do a more detailed post on exactly how to set this up when I set up my campaigns.

     I haven't put any adds on the marketplace just in the group sites.  I set up a different FB account a while ago, put out adds in those sites, and bumped them often to keep traffic up.  However, I think facebook caught on and eventually froze my account.  Obviously they want you to pay for advertising but hearing how you can't target well makes me wonder the effectiveness.  I know a friend that has had positive results with FB paid marketing though.  

    0Reply
  • Mark Sewell
    Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 871 votes
    6y

    It is really easy to do it wrong on FB.  In fact, don't know that many that even claim to have it figured out.

    0Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    @Joe Cassandra Thanks! I'm a huge fan of retargeting. It's great at staying in front of potential prospects and building trust with them, even if the initial source of traffic to your website is direct mail. 

    As @Mark Sewell mentioned, you can upload lists of custom audiences to Facebook. Facebook will then match the users on this list by using identifiers such as email, phone, etc. The match rate to a user can vary a lot based on how much info you have on a person and the quality of that data. This may work well if you have hundreds of old leads, who called you, but may have never visited your website. You could upload this list and show them ads.

    The demographics are definitely limited when you're running housing ads. I have a few targeting strategies around video and engagement that I'm doing to experiment with that may solve this. Facebook also does a lot of work on the back end to narrow your audience to people similar to those who have previously engaged with your ad. I'll dive more deeply into that and custom audiences by uploading lists once I start setting up the campaign.

    @James Wise Wow. That's a great cost per deal. Being able to convert leads who aren't a good fit as an investment to listings for your brokerage is a great idea to make the most of your marketing spend. I'm licensed in NY, but invest in CT and have been considering working out a referral agreement with CT agents for deals that are better suited to listing vs investing.

    @Mike Landry Got it. Facebook catches on pretty quickly if you're posting the same messages over and over again in groups. Is your friend using paid ads for real estate or another industry? If it's real estate, I'd love to connect with him and exchange strategies.

    0Reply
  • Mike Landry
    Investor · Montgomery, TX · Member since 2014 · 386 posts · 151 votes
    6y
    Originally posted by @Mike Landry:
    Originally posted by @Michael McKay:

    @Mike Landry Were those Facebook groups or the Marketplace? I haven't experimented with either of those, but I have heard of people getting deals and finding tenants in the Marketplace.

    Facebook has become very strict with targeting for "special category" ads recently, which includes housing ads. You have to pick a 15 mile radius or larger as your target area and they take away a lot of the targeting options, including age. They used to have homeowner targeting, but that was taken away awhile back.

    One strategy that has worked well for me in other industries is show a video to cold traffic (people who have never seen my brand) and then retarget people who watch a significant amount of that video with conversion focused ads. It will be interesting to see if this work well for motivated seller campaigns. I'll do a more detailed post on exactly how to set this up when I set up my campaigns.

     I haven't put any adds on the marketplace just in the group sites.  I set up a different FB account a while ago, put out adds in those sites, and bumped them often to keep traffic up.  However, I think facebook caught on and eventually froze my account.  Obviously they want you to pay for advertising but hearing how you can't target well makes me wonder the effectiveness.  I know a friend that has had positive results with FB paid marketing though.  

     @Mitchell Benson  Hey Mitchell can you chime in here.  Weren't you doing facebook adds at one point?

    0Reply
  • Mark Sewell
    Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 871 votes
    6y

    Oh there are plenty of folks that were running FB ads at one point.... 

    One guy who does seem to be making some headway on this is a guy named Fritz Joseph.  He is in Philly and he has gone through the Cris Chico training and kept going, testing and learning on his own.  I like to follow him on his YT channel.

    2Reply
  • Mitchell Benson
    Willis, TX · Member since 2014 · 158 posts · 58 votes
    6y

    @Mike Landry yessir I've been doing facebook ads & @Michael McKay I'd be happy to share about wins / losses using Facebook ads. Right now I'm only running re targeting ads for people who visited my website.

    I actually have been focusing more on local SEO. Its a bit more passive vs spending $50+ per day on running ads to cold traffic.  Setting up and optimizing the website I've actually gotten 3 deals from it in about 6 months and about 6 leads or so. Typically those leads / people are reaching out to multiple 'we buy houses' companies so those leads need a lot of attention & fast responses. 

    3Reply
  • Mohammad (Asad) Asaduddin
    Wholesaler · Houston, TX · Member since 2013 · 78 posts · 12 votes
    6y

    Great discussion. I am trying to start direct mail on multifamily projects. Any ideas?

    0Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    @Mark Sewell I've actually been reading some of Fritz's posts in Facebook groups. I didn't realize he had a Youtube channel. I'll check that now too. I watched some of Chris Chico's videos as well.

    @Mitchell Benson Awesome! I'll send you a message now. Retargeting is going to be a big part of this campaign, so any insights there would be helpful.

    Thats great that you've got 3 deals through SEO without spending money on ads. A friend of mine built his old company (not in the real estate industry) before he sold it entirely on local SEO. Happy to connect you guys if you want to exchange strategies.

    How are you handling those fast responses? Have you automated any of the responses with software or do you just call as soon as they come in?

    0Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    @Mohammad (Asad) Asaduddin I haven't done much with direct mail. Maybe @James Wise can share some insights?

    0Reply
  • James Wise
    Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes
    6y
    Originally posted by @Michael McKay:

    @Mohammad (Asad) Asaduddin I haven't done much with direct mail. Maybe @James Wise can share some insights?

     What is the specific question? What you've posed thus far is too broad to provide any meaningful insight.

    0Reply
  • Account Closed
    remodeling contractor · Birmingham, AL · Member since 2015 · 69 posts · 49 votes
    6y

    Very interested to follow and hear about your results!

    Best of luck

    0Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    PROGRESS UPDATE #1

    The first piece I decided to tackle is building the landing page. I figured this is a good one to get out of the way, since it will take the designer a little over a week to create it. This will give me plenty of time to work on other things, while he designs the page.

    Here’s the process I followed:

    Step 1: Pick a name and check if the domain is available

    There are a million websites that you can buy domains from (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Ionos, etc.). I found unloadmyhome.com was available and bought it through Ionos.

    Step 2: Pick a platform to host/design my landing page

    I know there are websites like Carrot, that offer pre-designed landing pages for investors, but I wanted to create a more unique page for my brand. Plus, Carrot is $49 to $149 per month. I’d rather use that money to pay a designer to create a custom page and pay $12 a month to host it on Webflow.

    Webflow is a website builder, so it does lack some of the A/B testing capabilities that landing page builders have out of the box, but there are external tools that make it easy to A/B test Webflow pages.

    Other options for landing page builders include Leadpages, Unbounce, Clickfunnels, and Convertri. These are more expensive at $75 or more per month, but have A/B test functionality built in. If I was building a lot of landing pages, I’d go with Unbounce, but since I’m only building one I decided to save money here.

    Step 3: Find a landing page designer

    Luckily, I had a landing page designer who I used for a previous project. He was available and willing to take this on.

    If you don’t have a landing page designer, you can find some great ones on Upwork.

    Step 4: Find other landing pages for inspiration

    I searched on Google to see what other investors were using. I also searched “buy houses” pages on Facebook and went to the websites listed on their Facebook pages.

    I looked through 40-50 landing pages and the two best websites I found were We Buy Ugly Houses and Open Door. I also took some inspiration from websites that I had paid designers to create for my other companies.

    Step 5: Create specs for landing page designer

    I use a free tool called markup.io, which allows you to import live sites and drop pins with comments. I imported some of my favorite landing pages and commented on which aspects I liked and didn’t like from each site. I also made comments with the copy I wanted in each section.

    Markup.io is way easier than creating a detailed doc, since the comments are right on the live site and I can easily share it with the designer. The designer can then reply to my comments with any questions.

    I also created a Google Doc for the designer, which included the colors I wanted to use and a few bullet points of the general direction I wanted to take with the page. I told him that I wanted a clean modern look.

    Step 6: Get a logo designed

    The landing page designer wanted to see my logo, so he can make the page design match the logo. I found someone one Fiverr, who specializes in real estate logos. He is making me 3 initial logo concepts with unlimited revisions for $45.

    Total cost for everything above: $458

    • Landing page design (one time)- $400
    • Logo design on Fiverr (one time)- $45
    • Markup.io- Free
    • Website domain through Ionos (annual)- $1 for the first year
    • Webflow website builder and hosting (monthly)- $12

    Remaining budget: $2,042

    I should have the logo back from the designer in 3-4 days. From there, I’ll send everything to the landing page designer.

    1Reply
  • Lan Raby
    Member since 2019 · 61 posts · 44 votes
    6y

    @Michael McKay

    Wow....very interested in how this works for you. Following.

    Good Luck!

    0Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    @Account Closed Thank you!

    PROGRESS UPDATE #2

    Today and tomorrow I'm working on building a map of my marketing funnel. This will be a detailed outline of what marketing the potential seller will see at each stage of the campaign and it will change based on their actions. E.g. If someone watches 75% of a video, they will see different follow up ads than someone who doesn't.

    Here's an image I created of the basic funnel overview.

    Once I've created the full funnel map, I'll post it here along with a detailed explanation and video.

    0Reply
  • Michael McKay
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Jacksonville, FL · Member since 2016 · 155 posts · 68 votes
    6y

    PROGRESS UPDATE #3

    The logo came back from the designer today. I'm now sending everything to the landing page designer and should have a mockup of the landing page in 4-5 days.

    I'm still working on the funnel map.

    1Reply
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