Facebook Ads vs Google Ads for Real Estate Agents
Facebook Ads vs Google Ads: The Best Option for Real Estate Agents
As a real estate agent, you are constantly looking for lead generation tips and tricks to help drive more businesses into your pipeline. When looking at lead generation strategies, the two main sources are Facebook Ads and Google Ads. As a real estate agent, is which advertising platform do you think is more effective: Facebook Ads or Google Ads?
In this post, we are going to decode which lead gen platform is better for REALTORs.
Think Like A Consumer
When you are creating your campaigns, the first thing you need to do is think like a consumer. Often real estate agents start building Facebook and Google Ads without much thought about who will be clicking on these ads. This is a huge mistake and can lead to wasted advertising dollars and frustration with both Facebook Ads and Google Ads.
Both lead generation strategies work for real estate agents, however, you can be left with no leads and a just a bill if you do not think like a consumer.
When thinking like a consumer, consider the reason that the lead is going to Facebook or Google and how they will interact with your ad
Facebook Ads
On Facebook, the consumer is on this social media platform to browse, catch up with family and friends, and see what is happening in the world. The lead is not going to Facebook to see ads or to buy a house. This is one of the big mistakes real estate agents make with their Facebook Ads. They set their ads up with messaging like, “looking for a house?”
The problem with this is they are not looking for a house. They are on Facebook to see what is happening in their network, not buy a house. This means that Facebook users typically have lower buyer intent. That doesn’t mean these leads are not as a good. It just means there is a different process to Facebook leads.
Therefore, you need to capture the Facebook lead with compelling ad copy that provides information versus sells them a house. You need to use show stopping images or videos to stop the lead from scrolling through their Facebook newsfeed.
The alternative is to use Facebook custom audiences to market to your database which is a very effective way to nurture your network.
To think like a Facebook consumer, think lead with information and use stunning images.
Google Ads
Google is quite different from Facebook. On Google, people are searching for homes and are actively putting real estate related keywords into their search. They go to Google to get a quick answer and not just to browse.
If you are not targeted with your Google Ads, then you could waste a great opportunity to connect with a buyer. Google users are actively looking for homes on the internet so they have high buyer intent.
You need to structure your Google Ads to appeal to people that are currently looking for homes and capture their information.
Facebook vs Google For Lead Generation
Let’s look at the pros and cons of both Facebook and Google as lead generation platforms for real estate agents.
Facebook Ads
Pros: Less expensive, visual advertising, fantastic database marketing with custom audiences
Cons: Lower buyer intent
Facebook Ads are best used to target people that are early in the buying journey. They could be 1+ year away from starting their search, so you need to be prepared to nurture these leads. Leads are usually less expensive on Facebook too so it can be a cost-effective way to build your email list.
Facebook Ads are unreal when it comes to database nurturing because of the ability to use custom audiences to target your email list.
Don’t use Facebook Ads if you are looking for a quick transaction because most of the leads will be early in their search or not actively searching at all.
Google Ads
Pros: High buyer intent, highly targeted based on keyword phrases
Cons: More expensive, higher learning curve
Google Ads are great for people looking for buyers and sellers that are actively looking for homes and service. When a lead signs up through a pay-per-click (Google Ad), you should be prepared to start communicating right away as this person is probably in the buying or selling window.
Don’t use Google Ads if you have a very limited budget or you don’t have the time to learn to use the platform.
The Winner
Both Facebook Ads and Google Ads have their pros and cons but they both win in two distinct ways. If you are looking to nurture your database then Facebook custom audiences are the best, however, if you are looking for lead generation, then Google Ads is the winner.
Facebook Ads: Database Marketing Winner
Google Ads: Lead Generation Winner
The main question to always ask yourself is “what is the user doing on the platform?” Use Facebook Ads for database nurturing and Google Ads for lead generation and you will be doing fantastic on both these advertising platforms.
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:12] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. My name is Michael Montgomery. Today we are having a face off. We are having a face off between Facebook ads and Google ads in which one you should be selecting as a real estate agent. They both have their pros. They both have their cons and they both appeal to a different style of marketing strategy. So we have to look at our marketing strategies first off the very first thing is understand what you are trying to do with your ad seems obvious. We've probably heard this before. Know what your target market is in these sort of things. But because you're looking at Facebook vs. Google they have two different strategies. So knowing your campaign and knowing your audience is extremely important when determining between the two because it will impact what you will get for leads and then also what the leads are going to cost you.
[00:01:04] Facebook is a pay per impression. You do have the option to pay per click in these sort of things but Facebook ultimately is you're paying for people to see your ad come up in their newsfeed. For Google, it's more of a pay per click. So you are paying to have people and you can pay for impressions but what you are truly doing is you're really trying to drive the click on Google and you are paying per click. So this basically means that there's two different intents. You have a buyer intent on Google where they are typing in a word and they are looking for a result they are looking for a home. So they type in homes for sale in city whereas Facebook being more on the impression side they are going to Facebook with the intention of looking at photos or seeing what their friends are up to they're not going with the intention of buying a home. So the Facebook buyer intent is quite a bit lower. The Google buying intent is quite a bit higher. Facebook users are not looking for homes where Google users very much are looking for homes. So based on this you'd probably think OK. Well Google's clearly the winner right. Google should be the winner of this one because they have the buyer intent but that's not always the case either.
[00:02:18] If you are looking for a quick deal Google will probably nudge out Facebook. However for Facebook it works very very well for custom audiences and staying in touch with your database. So let's look at some pros and cons of each. First off Google the pros high buyer intent. Also it's very targeted so you can really narrow down the search words based on the keyword. This is a very powerful aspect to Google ads. Now for the cons. So your lead will be a little bit more expensive for Google ads. It's just a higher price. Also there's a little bit of a higher learning curve. There's a lot of aspects to Facebook that can get quite complex as well. But typically people find Google ads to be a little bit more complex. However there is a lot of information out there to help you through this. On the Facebook side your leads will be less expensive so the cost per lead will be less. Also another really nice pro to Facebook ads is the database marketing and how you can upload these custom audiences and just continue to market to your database over time with custom messages. This is extremely powerful because it's basically this whole billboard thing where you see the billboard on your Facebook news feed coming up. The cons to Facebook. It's the low buying intent. It's the thing that we covered right off the bat. People aren't necessarily going to Facebook in order to buy a home.
[00:03:42] So which one wins here. Well you know if you are looking for a quick sale Google with the high buying intent makes a lot of sense. You have to know what you're doing and you have to make sure that you are targeting people properly. And the other thing is you really want to be driving people to something where you can capture their information so that you can actually make use of the lead. So whether that be a forced sign up on a website where they're looking at properties and if they look at two there's a for sign up or whether it's a landing page. Either way you really want to be capturing their information on Facebook. You definitely want to be a lot more focused on the visual side of things and I'd highly recommend running Facebook ads in order to get leads but also really run them to custom audiences within your database. This is one of the most powerful things that you can do with Facebook. So with Google oftentimes what you're doing is you are trying to get a deal and then with Facebook yes you might be trying to get a deal but you're also marketing and you're nurturing. So depending on where you're at and what you want to do they can both have their pros and they can both have their cons. Personally I like to really focus on Google ads in order to get the lead. And then I really like to focus on Facebook to basically keep the lead and to continue to nurture the lead. So they both have their place. You probably knew there wasn't going to be one clear winner but depending on what you want to do with your advertising campaign one can win. So Google can win. If you're looking for buying intent and Facebook can win. If you are focused more on the nurturing side of thanks. Thank you very much for listening this episode. Please head over rate and review the podcast. This helps so much. I am very grateful for this and you will definitely get a shout out on the show. Thank you again for listening and we will catch you in the next episode.
[00:05:25] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.
Follow Up Reading:
How To Ask For A Referral On Facebook
2 Facebook Ad Tricks for REALTORs
8 Top SEO Tips for New REALTORs
Question: Do you prefer Facebook or Google Ads for your real estate business? Let me know in the comments below.
-Michael Montgomery