Imagine crafting the perfect seller ads. Seller ads that bring in new listings. Inquiry after inquiry, contract after contract. Your GCI grows and you have the real estate business you’ve always wanted. It feels like a cool breeze up your shorts on a warm summers day.

Guess what?

That perfect ad doesn’t really exist. You need a series of seller ads. You need to test different seller ads to see which one works best in your neighbourhood. Then you need back up seller ad campaigns for when one starts being less effective and needs to be paused for a bit.

Then you need to get better at learning how to convert more leads.

This post is going to focus on the different ways to generate listing leads with many of the different seller ads you could potentially run. This is focusing specifically on paid Facebook seller ad campaigns. There’s way more strategy involved when you take into account all your marketing channels and options.

The OG Seller Ad: What’s My Home Worth?

 

Get your free home evaluation! Arguably the most overused seller ad in real estate, right ahead of “oh by the way, I’m never too busy for your referral”.

With that being said, the reason its the most popular seller ad is that it actually has worked really well. Some markets its so overdone by so many people that if doesn’t work nearly as well anymore. It’s worth testing in every single market though.  There’s some we’ve seen it be a bust and some its pulling in seller leads that includes name, email, phone number, and address for under $3 per. On the flip side, some markets we’ve seen those numbers be over $40 per lead.

When crafting our home value ads we actually like to take a different approach. We move away from automated valuations towards personalized ones. We use it to establish that you’re a local expert giving them an accurate depiction of not their home value but what they could get if they were to sell their home today.

We focus the language heavily on what their home would get if they were to sell instead of just a free home evaluation. The shift in language attracts less of the “just curious” and more of those who want to know their homes value if they sold it.The more you approach it from the angle of “Are you thinking of selling?” or “Want to find out what your home would get if you put it on the market today?” attracts more of the right kind of lead.

The copy in a seller ad can help eliminate the wrong prospects before they ever opt in. It can help with targeting your ads to the right person just as much as the targeting you actually pick in the Facebook Ads Manager when building the ad.

We’ve tested landing pages for home worth campaigns and Facebook Lead Ads instead and we’ve found a better cost per lead most of the time with Facebook Lead Ads. We recommend testing both. The downside of a lead ad is if you do want to have it send an automated value to the prospect without you having to do anything. A landing page can make that process a lot easier for you.

If you want to generate more listing leads with seller focused ads its always worth testing if you haven’t yet a home value campaign.

Old Faithful: The PDF Guide Download

 

The very first client we ever had here at Just Sell Homes, and many who have come since, have said “I don’t want buyer leads, I just want more listings, so what seller ads can we run?” I didn’t want to just do a home value campaign because they had tried them many times in the past. So we sent out a survey to 100 of their past clients with a series of questions about what caused them stress, what mattered to them, etc… during the process.

The results were interesting. 70% of the responses were NOT about value of their home. It was about the stress around preparing their home for sale, how to get it ready for sale, and other answers that all came back to preparing the home for sale the right way. This led us to create a 3 page PDF for the client called “The Ultimate Guide to Preparing Your Home for Sale”. We’ve tested variations of the name but the guide ultimately is pretty similar with the different clients we’ve used it for. A checklist that goes in depth of everything someone would need to do to get the home ready for sale. They could even print it out and check it off as they do it.

Then we frame it in seller ads along the lines of “Want to see how professionals get their homes ready for sale?” then lead right into talking about the value they can get from the guide.

Short PDF downloads that provide a ton of value are incredibly valuable. The ideal PDF download lead magnet offers more than just what you could make a blog post. It would be a resource like a checklist. The beauty of the PDF for how to prepare a home for sale is that people generally don’t download that if they’re just curious about their homes value. They may be a while out from selling but they’re at least thinking about selling instead of just finding the home value.

Use Cautiously: We Have Buyers

 

We have buyers for your home! It’s simple, and to the point. That’s what sellers want, they don’t care as much about you the real estate agent as they care about a buyer for their home.

The tricky part here is that a lot of home owners are used to people saying this when they are essentially lying. So the more detail you can give about your buyers the more genuine it appears. So instead of “We have buyers for your home” you can say “Do you have a 4 bedroom detached in X neighbourhood? Our clients John & Sarah are looking for a home and nothing on the market right now fits their needs. So if you know someone thinking of moving we have buyers looking right now in X neighbourhood.” Ideally, you do that with a video standing IN the neighbourhood you’re talking about. Go to a park or somewhere recognizable so someone who lives there has instant recognition as they’re scrolling that its their neighbourhood.

The more personal you make it, the better it goes. ONLY do this if you actually have buyers. Doing this when you have none is no different than lying. Use it sparingly when you actually have buyers and target it to the specific area(s) your client is looking for. With Facebook ads you can get VERY specific with how targeted they are.

You do not need fancy copy, just make the ad pop by having imagery and copy that calls out the specific area and then say what you have. The more specifics you can share the better.

The Slow Burn: The Market Update Seller Ads

 

Building an audience before you need to sell something is the best long term strategy. This is where market updates can come in. Run ads offering market updates for specific neighbourhoods, the smaller you can make it the more likely people in the area will sign up for it, and get local homeowners signed up to find out what’s going on in their neighbourhood. From new listings, notable sales, and overall trends, you keep them informed on what’s going on.

The key to good market update ads are to add your insight. Anyone can go out and see stats that have been reported, but sharing your thoughts and expertise builds trust and will lead to business down the road.

When you send out your market updates you add in calls to action. From offering free home evaluations, letting them know what buyers you have at the time, or leveraging multiple CTA’s by adding the Dean Jackson Super Signature can work wonders. It’s the perfect mix of asking for the business without being in your face sales-y.

The End Around: Target Buyers

 

Not all real estate seller ads actually directly target buyers. With a few exceptions like first time home buyers, recreation properties, and investors for example, most home buyers need to sell their current property to buy the next one. Knowing this, and the fact that buyer leads are usually significantly cheaper to acquire on a cost per lead basis, just target buyers that are likely to have a home for sale.

Create ads that are targeting buyers whether its a specific listing, PDF buying guide, or a general list of homes for sale. These campaigns start as buyer leads and when you start having conversations and learning about them you can position yourself to also get the listing.

The Double Dip

 

Someone opts on one of our ads, great! Your seller ad created a seller lead. They get sent to your thank you page, the worst thing you can do here is just say “Thanks, we’ll be in touch!”

This is your opportunity to go further and provide them even more value.

At Just Sell Homes, we call this the Double Dip Offer. Why do we call it that?

I just really like Seinfeld. That’s it. No other big fancy reason. It’s an homage to my favourite show growing up.

 

 

It works like this: You run an ad, in this case lets say a what’s my home worth campaign, they opt in. You get all their information. Now, on the thank you page, make them another offer. They just ordered a report on their homes value. Now offer them the guide on how to prepare their home for sale. People who opt-in on both options are definitely going to be a higher quality lead than someone else. They’ve now received even more value from you. This doesn’t have to stop here. They can opt for the guide and then be sent to a page about looking for their next home. If you don’t have another offer you want to send them, push them to a page with a case study or some testimonials.

When they become a lead, that’s just the start of their interaction with you, treat it that way!

Bonus Tip: Set up your Facebook custom audiences so that anytime someone opts-in to a campaign, they’re retargeted with ads with your double dip offer OR client testimonials. This can help your conversion. If you’re advanced, you can set the Facebook ads to act as a drip campaign. For example, for Day 1-3 after opting in they see one specific ad. Day 4-6 another one, and then Day 7 a book a call CTA. This can help convert at a higher rate.

Want help setting up campaigns in your business? Book a call to see how we can do it for you.