How to Use Facebook Ads for Lead Generation for Real Estate

Source: Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

All landlords know that finding and keeping good tenants is essential to success. But the search and turnover process can often be harder to manage than you might expect. The only way out is to have a strategy that keeps your occupancy high without spending a fortune on marketing.

And the solution? Social media.

When used correctly, social media advertising is a type of digital marketing that landlords and investors can take advantage of. It helps you reach out to potential tenants, improving reputation, increasing occupancy rate, and secure cash flow all year round.

From newbie investors to real estate moguls, all of us can learn a thing or two on how to harness the full potential of social media for a real estate business.

Benefits of Facebook Ads for Lead Generation

Facebook is a huge platform with a ton of useful tools for businesses—and the real estate industry is one industry that’s not taking full advantage quite frankly. In real estate, a lot of businesses are approaching Facebook wrong. They’re running one ad campaign and trying to convert cold audiences too quickly.

Lead generation is crucial, sure, but you need to make sure you're using your Facebook Ads strategically. Otherwise, you’re wasting your ad dollars showing your business off to thousands of uninterested people. We’ll cover tips later so you won’t make the same mistake.

When done correctly, your Facebook ads can:

1. Identify potential tenants for your real estate properties

2. Find buyers for your wholesale properties

3. Collect subscriber information for your newsletter

4. Understand the interests and behaviors of potential customers

5. Get people to enroll in your real estate courses or programs

What You Need to Run Facebook Ads

Before you can start running ads on Facebook, you need to make sure you’ve created the necessary accounts. Facebook has a specific Ad Suite that makes managing your digital marketing campaigns much easier. Plus, Facebook gives you the data you need to see what is working—and what’s not.

To start running ads, you need to:

1. Set up a Facebook Business Page—not a personal profile

2. Tap on the button with “Go to Ads Manager”

3. Verify your information on the account set up page

4. Indicate your payment method

After that, simply save the changes you’ve made and you’ll have a Facebook Ads Manager which is the control center for all your Facebook ads.

How to Make a Facebook Ad for Real Estate

So, here is where the difficult steps begin. As with most things worthwhile, Facebook advertising does come with a steep learning curve. So much so, that some will choose to hire a team instead to run and optimize the ads for you.

Still, even if you plan to outsource, it’s good to know the specific steps necessary to place effective Facebook ads for real estate listings. This way, you can be confident that the ads you place will generate quality leads for you to convert in the future.

Here are the steps to making Facebook ads for real estate:

1. Conduct a Brand Audit for Professionalism, Authority, & Trust

Since Facebook is a visual medium, it’s important for you to establish your branding before spending any money on ads. Take the time to finalize your mission, vision, values, logos, website, and more. You want to be as concise as possible while differentiating yourself competitors and engaging with your audience.

2. Decide the Type of Leads You Want

Facebook allows you to target buyers and sellers, so you’ll need to have a good idea of the kinds of leads you want to generate. How many buyers or sellers do you need to hit your financial goal? How many sign-ups do you need for your program? All of these fall into different categories.

3. Determine the Maximum Cost per Lead

Once you know the amount of leads you want to acquire, you need to take the time to calculate how much you’re willing to pay for each lead. You can do so by dividing your gross commission from the deals you close by the number of leads you generate on Facebook.

You’ll then have a good idea of how much you’ll need to spend to generate a single lead.

4. Create Your Facebook Business Page

Next, you want to set up a Facebook Business Page for which to start running your real estate ads. Make sure to add your category, write a good description for your page, and add both profile and cover photo for professionalism.

5. Begin Your First Campaign

So, the system is ready and you have everything you need to begin churning out the ads.

In the advertising world, a campaign refers to the overall objective you have to generate a specific type of lead (e.g., a buyer lead campaign will have ads targeted for buyers). Simply tap on “Ad Center” then “Create Ad” in your Facebook Ad Manager to kickstart your campaign.

6. Tinker with the Campaign Objective and Ad Settings

Tap “Lead generation” and provide your objectives and campaign name. Facebook offers a lot of options, so ensure that you choose the right ones.

Move over to ad settings and tap “housing” under “special ad categories.” We still have to abide by the Fair Housing Laws, so Facebook requires you to use this category.

7. Identify Your Contact Method and Budget

After that, you’ll now set up your advertisement budget and adjust a couple more settings. You’ll have a couple of options for contact methods, such as instant forms, automated chat, and calls. Just choose the one you’re most comfortable with using.

Then, under the “Page” button, accept Facebook’s terms and allow the platform to optimize the elements of your ad to get as many leads as possible.

Remember that Facebook ads’ pricing is based on a bidding system. In other words, advertisers will bid how much they are willing to spend on their ads. All you need is to set your maximum daily bid and Facebook will automate the rest—determining when and how much you’ll bid for ad placements.

8. Define and Refine Your Target Audience

Ads are useless if they aren’t served to the right audience for valuable leads. So you’ll have to tell Facebook what audience you want to target. This includes their location, language, demographics, and interests.

You can also check out the “Connections” to see all the people who’ve liked or engaged with your page, so you have a rough idea of who is interested in your offering.

9. Pick Your Placements

Now, Facebook lets you choose where your real estate ads are placed. For example, you can have them show up in both Facebook or Instagram or on Facebook’s “Audience Network” which includes other participating apps. We suggest that you go with the latter for optimum reach.

10. Write Lead Forms for Contact

Create lead forms for your leads to fill out, so you can nurture your leads. Simply tap the “Instant Form” and “Create Form” button to start drafting your form.

Remember not to overwhelm your leads with too many questions, or they won’t even answer them. Alternatively, you can choose to have no questions and replace it with appointment scheduling.

11. Optimize and Spending Controls

The next step is to set the optimization and ad spending controls for your campaign. The most important factor is to set a daily ad budget based on your cost per lead, so Facebook can optimize your ads faster.

Your ads will get more exposure, which will result in more leads for you.

12. Choose and Design Your Ad Format

Then, you’ll need to put on your creative hat and choose one of the 3 options Facebook offers for ads:

Carousel Ads: These are the ads with multiple photos or images that the audience can scroll through. You can show off more than one property at a time, have more than one photo of your home, or other creative ways to use multiple panels.

Single Image or Video Ads: Instead of having multiple panels to show off your offer, a single image or video ad only shows one material at a time. It has less distractions for the audience, but is quite limited.

Collection Ads: While these are usually for e-commerce companies, collection ads feature a video with a selection of products right below it.

Think of what your audience might like and choose the format that’ll capture their attention the most. Once you have that down pat, you can create lead magnets, improve your copy, and design your ad to support your ultimate objective.

13. Setup Your Landing Page and Prepare for Retargeting

Don’t stop with your Facebook ad! Remember that you still need a landing page for your leads to begin their journey with you. The landing page is where they’ll “land” after tapping on your ad, so it must include your contact information and other important details about your offer.

Retargeting, on the other hand, is where you’ll take note of the people that visited your website and show ads to them on Facebook. It’s a powerful way to generate leads, especially since people aren’t easily convinced. It’s also a good way to stay on top of their mind until they’re ready to get in touch.

Increase Occupancy with the Power of Social Media

With a little bit of effort and creativity, you can get more conversions without spending an arm and a leg on advertising. The key is to focus on social media marketing—specifically, Facebook ads.

All of the steps we’ve outlined can help you reach more potential tenants quickly and efficiently. But if you're feeling a bit overwhelmed, don’t worry. You won’t have to force yourself. Our property management team can provide all the guidance and assistance you need.

We'll work with you every step of the way, from creating your very first online presence to maximizing your ROI with online content. for more information on how we can get started together.