Using PPC to Generate Listings

[bargerms]

Hi, I am new to this website and actually enrolled in classes right now to recieve my real estate license.

I am pretty web savvy as I have run a few different websites on the side.

I am very detailed oriented and love to plan things out. I have laid out a pretty good PPC marketing plan to attract buyers to my listings but I am having some trouble generating a plan to get listings.

Has anyone had success generating listings from PPC campaigns? If so, care to share some of the keywords?

Thanks for your help.

[retechulous]

I haven't personally used this for listings, but use the keyword tool and search for terms related to your area (i.e. san antonio homes, san antonio real estate, etc.) Just search "keyword tool" in Google and select the first option that comes up. This will give you a lot of great ideas to go with. Additionally, Google places is free and works awesome as well. You can make these keyword specific and even show up in the top rankings a lot of the time depending on your area.

[Kjmendy]

I wouldn't waste your money looking for listings via PPC. Buyers search sellers don't.

Despite the web real estate is still a face to face business, you need to get out from behind your computer and meet people if you want to list their home.

[Mark Z]

Keep in mind half the buyer leads you get have to sell their house. One of the first questions the buyer agents on my team are required to ask is "Do you currently own a home or rent in the area" Then it's all about follow up. So you don't have to specifically target sellers to get listing leads.

I also have to disagree with the comment above that "sellers don't search." In the last couple years our listing leads from the internet have increased dramatically. Sellers used to list with agents they would see in print advertising. Now that print advertising is going by the waste side, more and more consumers are going on line to find a realtor to list their house. I would try ppc keywords like "Selling a house in city name" Sellers will go online to find a Realtor to list their home with, just like they are to find a plumber. Everything is going online.

[Kjmendy]

I also have to disagree with the comment above that "sellers don't search." In the last couple years our listing leads from the internet have increased dramatically. Sellers used to list with agents they would see in print advertising. Now that print advertising is going by the waste side, more and more consumers are going on line to find a realtor to list their house. I would try ppc keywords like "Selling a house in city name" Sellers will go online to find a Realtor to list their home with, just like they are to find a plumber. Everything is going online.

True. "Sellers don't search" is a bit of over simplification.

The idea that was trying to express was that you have far more buyers searching than sellers and your efforts are better spent on buyers than sellers. This is because most sellers are also buyers but buyers don't need to be sellers.

[tommytx]

<quote>generating listings from PPC campaigns?</quote>

I have done a ton of PPC ads and until now have never done a PPC Listing ad... just never thought of doing it to experiment and see what happens.. I just typed in "Sell my Home in Virginia Beach" over a million competing pages came up and several PPC ads.. to get ideas, simply type in some term you think a like seller might type in and see what sort of PPC ads come up. That will give you ideas. Also type those same search terms into the google keyword tool to see if a lot of folks are typing in the same ones you thought of. IF very few or even no one is typing in the key phrases you typed.. forget them, as google will not show them anyway... if the traffic is close to zero they just won't show them for you.

Later when you get on line, you can go into the google analytics to see what folks are typing in and use those key phrases to add to your adwords ad groups. I suppose you could even take it further and for anyone who signed up with you and said the had a home to sell also on the form then use google analytics to see what the actual keyphrase they typed and make sure that is an exact match Phrase with an excellent AD written for it.... hell maybe you can become a PPC listing lead generator... I don't think that sucker exists yet.. be the very first.

[LauraAlAmery]

I have had great response for listings/sellers leads with Google Places, and Google Adwords PPC for potential buyers, which I lead to my landing page in order to build a buyer's list.

[brandonre]

Your ROI will be much better with buyer leads using PPC

[ryan01]

Now that consumers are much more web savy, does anyone know the stats of what percent of people will actually click on Paid Ads vs. always clicking on the organic info?

[zcoplan]

Its true that buyers will be searching quite a bit more than sellers, but that doesn't keep me from keeping a constantly running PPC campaign for _____ Realtor. When someone searches for that key term they probably mean business.