Running into some snags with your real estate PPC campaign? No problem, we're here to help! In this blog post we'll talk about the three most common PPC challenges we come across and what you need to do to improve them.
Problem 1 – My Leads Are All Junk
This is one of the most common problems in ALL types of online advertising. While there's no way to ensure all of your leads will be qualified buyers looking to find a home today, you can increase the specificity of your ads to help target buyers who are further along in the buying process. These types of leads will be more likely to register as they are at the point where further help is needed, rather than simply wanting to browse. For campaigns in the real estate industry, the easiest way to do this is to create ad groups for specific neighborhoods (vs. large cities) and to target specific property types (vs. all listings).
Another great way to help eliminate the leads you simply don't want is to take advantage of negative keywords. These keywords are added to the campaign to prevent your ads from showing for specific search terms. If the negative keyword is contained in any user's search term, your ad simply won't be displayed, preserving your daily budget. For an ad group targeting "luxury homes", you may want to add negative keywords such as "foreclosures", "short sales", "cheap", etc.
Problem 2 – My Conversion Rate Is Low
Once you start generating clicks and leads, you can start using that data to refine your campaign. It's important to eliminate keywords and ads from the campaign that are yielding a high cost while providing minimal conversions. Pausing these ads and keywords will allow you to invest your daily budget into your top performers.
It can also be helpful to revise your ad copy to reflect the top converting keywords more often. Variety in ad verbiage is great in the beginning to collect data but as the campaign matures you will be able to identify which ads convert best, and leverage it by adjusting the copy in your weaker ads to improve their performance.
Finally, it's important to optimize landing pages for PPC. If your goal is to capture buyer leads, you'll want to showcase the start of the listings "above the fold" so visitors can see them without having to scroll down. Listings are the number one reason visitors are coming to your site, so you must make sure your landing page delivers. Meanwhile, to capture seller leads, the landing page should feature relevant selling information as well as some type of seller form (or the REW CMA tool w/ registration turned on).
Each of these three factors contributes to your campaign's quality score which is responsible for determining ad position and cost per click.
Problem 3 – My Entire Budget Isn't Being Used
When you aren't generating enough clicks to justify the daily budget you've set, increase your cost per click bid limit. This will allow you to bid more competitively on additional keywords, increase the frequency your ad is shown and ultimately increase clicks. Another tactic is to add broad match and modified broad match keywords rather than just phrase or exact match keywords. These types of keywords capture a higher range of potential searches to trigger your ads.
Expand location settings for additional reach, increasing impressions and clicks. Don't forget to check your ad copy and keywords to make sure they're appropriate for your larger audience.
PPC is extremely dynamic and it's important to stay on top of your campaign as it matures, rather than setting and forgetting about your campaign. Although there's always another way to solve any challenge faced in AdWords, these are effective ways to improve your lead quality, conversion rate, and spend level—I hope they help!