Targeting Property Sellers
Property sellers are targeted based on user behavior that indicates they are in the market to sell a property. This usually involves searches like “sell my house fast,” “what is the value of my home” and “listing real estate agent.” They can also be targeted based on the content they are currently viewing or have previously viewed. This can include viewing articles and videos with titles like “Avoid These Mistakes When Selling Your Home,” “How To Sell Your House: A Complete Guide for Sellers.” and “Can I Sell My Home Myself.” Prospects with the intent to sell can be divided into 3 subsets which include..
1) Top of Funnel: Home Value Estimate
2) Mid-Funnel: Prospects who may sell or are likely to sell, but earlier in the process
3) Bottom of Funnel: Prospects who want to sell now, often for cash. These are often distressed or rushed situations
1) Top of Funnell: Home Value Estimate
A popular lead magnet for real estate agencies is to offer a free home valuation. The prospect must submit their contact information to receive the valuation, and the agency gets the lead. These leads are earlier in the selling process and require a lot of follow-up contacts by the agency. These leads will be more valuable to agencies that have a system for following up with and converting down the road. If the leads are more valuable, the agency will be able to bid more aggressively and generate a better ROI from the campaign.
Since these leads are earlier in the selling process, the average cost-per-click is lower than with other search terms focused on seller leads. All of these example search terms are focused on prospects who are looking to figure out the value of their property….
Here are examples of Display Network placements where you can promote the same Free Home Valuation offer…
2) Mid-Funnel: Prospects who may sell or are likely to sell, but earlier in the process
This is a miscellaneous category of seller search terms where the prospect is showing either an intent to sell, or interest in selling. You should not be willing to pay as much for these terms as other terms since the intent is less specific and the prospect may just be doing research. For a landing page/offer, you can use one of the "We Buy Your Home" type offers described below, or you can also use a page of your agency website focused on the service that you provide to sellers. A guarantee like “We will buy your home if we can’t sell it” can also be effective. The ad copy will closely reflect your landing page.
The same ad/offer described above can be used to target relevant placements on the Display Network. This includes web pages, sections, of websites, YouTube channels, and specific YouTube videos.
3) Bottom of Funnel: Prospects who want to sell now, often for cash. These are often distressed or rushed situations
These are the most lucrative and competitive search keywords. Both agencies and investors will want to advertise here so that they can purchase homes at a discount
On the example placements below, you can run display and video ads. These ads don’t convert quite as well as Search Ads, but the average cost per click is much lower. All the examples below are content that is targeted at people who are considering selling their house soon.
The offer/landing page must be tailored to prospects who are looking to sell in a hurry, as opposed to using a landing page that generally promotes your real estate agency. Since these keywords are the most expensive, you should use your strongest offer and/or landing page that you believe will convert best. You should use your regular domain/website so that it's obvious to prospects that they will be dealing with a reputable company. Do NOT use a landing page that is hosted on a 3rd party domain and looks like it could have been set up in a couple of hours.
The ad copy should be a succinct representation of the landing page. Be sure to include as many of the keywords you are bidding on as possible since this will cause Google to show the ad more frequently (Impression Share) and get you a better click-thru-rate (CTR). Use Responsive Search Ads and use all of the slots for Headlines and Description Lines so that Google can test out many different variations.
Location Targeting
For any seller campaign, if targeting a local region, you may want to target all three stages of the funnel. If you only target a specific region and subset of keywords, you may not generate a significant volume of traffic and leads. Most local agencies will want to target their region or specific counties/cities/neighborhoods within their region. If you are targeting the entire US, then you may want to only choose a subset of keywords. Sellers in a distressed or rushed situation for example.