Best Place for a Realtor to Spend Money Advertising

Every Realtor has put much effort into this thought, “Where is the best place for me to spend money advertising”? The truth is that many Realtors have wasted thousands of dollars on advertising. So, I want to give some insight into this topic to help you put your money in the right areas to give the most return on investment.

Just as I said that many Realtors have wasted thousands of dollars on advertising… but many have put their money to good use and got great returns and many leads. I hope to give you the info you need to make wise decisions concerning where to spend money advertising.

Zillow Leads

I decided to start with advertising with Zillow.com because it is one of the first places that comes to the mind of Realtors when they consider where to spend money advertising.

Zillow is ever changing and they do a great job staying in the front of the minds of home buyers and even sellers. As a result, they have one of the highest traffic counts for any real estate website.

The more traffic they have the more leads they can sell you. I have personally advertised through Zillow and I can tell you that they will sell you tons of leads. So, You don’t have to worry about the amount of leads you will receive each month. They will give you an estimated amount of leads each month and I never received less than that amount.

If your biggest concern is the amount of leads you will receive then I think Zillow will help you accomplish that goal. There is one thing about these leads though. It is not the amount of leads you will have to worry about, it is the quality of leads.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I made good money from the leads I received from Zillow but it took time and effort sorting through the dead-end leads and very cold leads. If your time is limited then you might want to spend money elsewhere.

Zillow advertising is perfect for Realtors with the time to receive a high quantity of leads and nurture them along for sometimes up to two years (Yes, true story) to be able to get them to the closing table.

Zillow advertising is also great for teams. Teams are set up to handle higher volumes of leads and usually have one person dedicated to this aspect.

The last thing I want to point out is that you can set your budget per month but Zillow does have a minimum. The last time I advertised with Zillow this minimum was around $300 per month so be prepared to spend some money if you go with Zillow.

Facebook Advertising

Advertising on Facebook would be another popular route a Realtor might consider when thinking about where to spend money advertising so I decided to put this form of advertising in the article. Again, I have quite a bit of experience with Facebook advertising.

First, I want to point out that Facebook has changed quite a bit in the last year or two. They have added many rules and regulations that restrict how a Realtor can market and advertise on their platform. I won’t go into details in this article but if you have more questions about this let me know and I would be happy to explain in more detail.

Your first step to advertising on Facebook would be to create, if you haven’t already, a Facebook Page. This page should be dedicated to your Real Estate market, company or even yourself as a Realtor. You have to have a page to be able to advertise on Facebook.

After you have your page set up you will need to decide what kind of ad you want to run. There are many options from just advertising your page to promoting a post and you can even set it up to receive phone calls, messages or even send them to a website or landing page.

You can set you budget and length of ad time to anything you want as long as you spend more then one dollar per day that your ad is active.

Again, with the right ad and the right budget and audience you can receive a high quantity of leads. Just like Zillow these leads may be cold leads and may need some time to nurture to get them to the closing table.

In my personal opinion every Realtor should try Facebook advertising. It is easy and you won’t break the bank with this form of advertising.

Realtor.com Advertising

Advertising on Realtor.com is going to be very similar to Zillow. You will basically be buying leads. The pricing and set up will be very similar between the two.

The one difference will be the amount of leads Realtor.com has to sell. They have a much lower traffic count then Zillow so they will have less spots for Realtors to advertise on the site.

The setup is the same between the two. They have it divided up by zip codes and they determine how many leads they will have in each zip code then they sell spots in the zip codes. The Realtor that pays the most will get the most leads in that zip code.

You can even pick more then one zip code. Again, with this form of advertising you need to be prepared to spend quite a bit of money especially if you want to get a higher place in one or more zip codes.

If you decide to spend money advertising with Realtor.com you may not get as much leads as you would with Zillow but in my opinion, you will get a slightly better-quality lead. So, you will need to determine if your want/need quality or quantity.

Google and Bing Ads

I have done some ads on both Google.com and Bing.com in the past. I had a little success with them but not as much as other advertising I have done.

You will definitely get a much lower amount of leads with this kind of advertising but in my case the leads I received were warm leads and had a very specific need they were calling me about.

You will need to create a landing page or connect your website to the ad. Setting up these ads will take a little more time then other forms of advertising. You will need to create the ad and then pick search terms and target audiences to run the ad.

Google and Bing ads will cost way more per lead then other forms but you will not be bothered by very cold leads or non-leads like you will find yourself dealing with when advertising with Zillow, Realtor.com and Facebook.

Another thing to consider when advertising is brand awareness. When potential clients see your company or personal brand appear on Google and Bing you will appear more creditable and you will come to remembrance later on.

Direct Mail Advertising

I know, this is way outdated right? This doesn’t work anymore. People don’t respond to regular mail anymore. That is not true! I know for a fact that it is not true.

You must look at mailings as another form of lead generation but it is not the same as digital or online advertising where you will receive hundreds of leads, no you will receive a much lower amount of leads but the leads you receive will be warm and ready to work with you.

Direct mail marketing will include mass mailings and select mailings such as expired listings and “For Sale By Owner” properties. All of this should be considered to help your business grow. This is not an area that you will want to pour too much money into but you should consider this as part of marketing plan.

This is another form of advertising that you can pick your own budget and adjust as you go. You can send as little as one letter a day or hundreds of mailers per day.

If you haven’t yet, you need to look into do Every Door Direct Mail through the United States Post Office. If you can fit it into your budget you need to give it a try, maybe not every day but even a few times a year will allow you to blanket part of your town with you contact info.

Conclusion

There are many other platforms you can advertise on but I chose to briefly talk about these few options.

You may be wondering what do I suggest for you do pick to advertise on??? Well there is no quick and easy answer. This is because it really depends on what you need for your business, do you need a bunch of leads quickly or do you need the quality of leads to be higher. Do you need warm leads or cold leads?

No matter what stage of your career you are in you need to advertise if you plan to grow or maintain your business. Also, If you have it in the budget you should be using a combination of advertising platforms.

I hope this has helped you to determine where you should spend money advertising and if you are looking for more tips check out “One Thing Realtors Fail At”.