Want to generate 20+ buyer leads for every listing without exhausting your wallet?

It’s a lot simpler than you think, thanks to the many improvements made to Facebook Lead Ads over the years. These lead ads negate the need for a high converting website – it means people are converted into leads before even getting to your website.

However, Facebook Lead Ads haven’t always been so successful. We tested them when they first launched on Facebook. We found that the results were of very low quality and no different than other types of ads we ran.

But what about now? The platform has evolved into an incredible tool. We run lead ads almost exclusively for our clients’ listings. We procure leads for listings ranging from $0.75 to $5.00 on average. Rarely do we get leads with a cost per result higher than $10.

These low averages mean you can generate a high quantity of leads with a low budget for every listing; but there’s a method to this madness.

The trick is to combine some of the best practices for building other ads with lead ads.

To begin, don’t give away every detail of the listing in the ad. Include the basics – number of bedrooms and bathrooms, finished basement, in-ground pool, hardwood floors, etc. – and then finish it off with a call to action so the view knows how to get more information.

It doesn’t need to be complicated; something basic works just fine, such as “Click on Learn More below for more information .” This accomplishes two things: you get their contact information, and you don’t needlessly clutter up the post. The cliche “less is more” is very relevant here.

From a visual standpoint, it’s critical that your ad stands out in order to draw people in. Don’t make your ad look like every other post scrolling through Facebook. The most important thing is the image, as that’s the first thing people see.

High quality and high contrast is an important element. With this in mind, it’s a smart business decision to have professional photos taken – with a real camera and a real photographer, not you and your iPhone. If you decide to use a video instead of images, keep it short, concise, and always include subtitles.

We’ve also seen a significant increase in results since we started including emojis. Use with caution, however; choose your emojis wisely based on who you’re targeting. Keep it professional and organized, and definitely don’t overdo it. It’s a good practice to experiment with emojis and learn which ones work for you and your ad. Here are some emojis that we have used to great success: 📍👇🏡💰🗝🎯

This is an example of an ad that has worked well for us. It generated a name, email, and phone number for every $1.10 spent. How many ads have you run with a cost per lead that low?

However, there’s one problem with Facebook Lead Ads; you don’t get notified when a new lead comes in. Getting notifications is important if you want a reasonable chance of converting your leads as fast action is necessary. In order to accomplish this, a third party tool is needed that will bridge the gap between Facebook and your email or CRM.

Our top recommendation is Leadsbridge. It’s the easiest and most effective tool we’ve tested on the market to date. What makes Leadsbridge great is that you can set it up to integrate with many different platforms and CRMs, or even just simply emails you the lead.

Here are some of the integrations with which it’s comparable:

• Boomtown
• Fivestreet
• Follow Up Boss
• Real Estate Webmasters
• Realvolve
• Reality Juggler
• Top Producer
• Hubspot
• Infusionsoft
• Insightly
• Pipedrive
• Podio
• Realgeeks
• Streak
• Zoho
• Active Campaign
• Weber
• Constant Contact
• Drip
• Mailchimp
• Google Sheets
• Slack
• Twilio

…and still a lot more.

Get Leadsbridge here if you want to try it out and let us know in the comments how your results turn out!

There isn’t a lot of complications that go into building a successful listing campaign with Facebook Lead Ads. Try out our recommendations, make some adjustments yourself, experiment, and find out what works best for you.

We’re excited to announce we’re launching the 1st Annual Blue Mountain Real Estate Conference!

Support a great cause, network with your peers, and come learn a ton about the real estate industry!

100% of Proceeds from this event will go to support My Friends House, a local shelter to help families recoup and restart their lives free from abuse. (via Six Hours of Gibraltar).

Come learn from some of the best and brightest in the industry on how to grow your business, service your clients, and so much more.

On top of that, Tim Hudak, CEO of OREA, will be joining for a live Q&A.

Speakers & Panelists include Andrew Fogliato, Danny Wood, Barry Lebow, Tim Hudak, Paul Hannan, Tony Iacoviello, Jordan Walker Lin, Sandra Kirkland, John-Ross Parks and more to be confirmed later!

Doors open at 9:00am but it won’t start until 10:00am. Tickets are $50

Topics Include:

Panel: How to Grow your Business Through Agent to Agent Referrals. Panelists include Paul Hannan, Jordan Walker Lin, and Tony Iacoviello. Moderated by John-Ross Parks.

How to Leverage Paid Online Advertising to Grow your Business with Andrew Fogliato

Panel: Top Producing Agents Share Their Secrets to Success

Selling the Haunted House with Barry Lebow

Live Q&A and Update on OREA with Tim Hudak

Panel: What Works and Doesn’t Work in Digital Marketing. Panelists include Andrew Fogliato, Danny Wood, and Amanda Robinson.

More to be announced soon!

Yesterday, in our Group The Wheel House, we interviewed an expert on branding; Seth Price.

In the interview we talked about a strategy to build a brand from scratch when you don’t have a database to work from.

The key is to build your relationships with key people in the town. Then do whatever you can to help then build their business! Start by going into the shops and interviewing the owner and showcasing the business. Do it on video if you can. Then when you’re done, make sure you share it with the owners of the establishment.

They’ll share it with their network, garnering you more exposure with local people. This hyper-local attention is exactly what you need.

As you move through the community you can start getting to know the local businesses. You’ll have a database on your site better than anyone else in the area. This will start establishing you as the expert while building your database. It will take work. By putting your effort into promoting others you’ll build connections that no one else has.

With every piece of content you create around the community, mention someone local. If you speak to

You’ll also want to intersperse educational/how-to content to showcase your expertise. Do this with stories. Don’t explain how things work, use examples that people can relate to.

Always focus on providing value and then use Facebook to promote your content. Tag their pages, make it easy for them to share the content as well. Start building your community. In no time at all you’ll be able to build a network like no else. What may take others years to build, you can do in months with a targeted approach.

One important thing to note, attend as much as possible in town. Social events, networking meet ups, political events, and anything else thats happening. Get out there and meet as many people as possible!

That was one of the things talked about with Seth Price during our interview. Be sure to to watch the interview in its entirety below! You may even have the opportunity to win a copy of his book if they haven’t all spoken for yet.

So you’ve designed a Facebook ad. Perhaps it looks something like this:

You sit back and admire your handiwork and contemplate printing it out and putting it on your fridge because it’s truly a masterpiece. With immense pride, you click the “Place Order” button at the bottom of the page and wait in excitement to see how much action your beautiful ad is about to receive.

That’s some fine handiwork!

But instead of your inbox filling up with

messages from eager buyers, you get notified

with this:

Looking back at the ad image, you’re baffled at how four small simple words could be considered as “too much text”. In an attempt to fix this, you try re-wording and re-sizing; yet the same message appears. In your frustration you even try to make a new ad entirely – perhaps it was just a glitch. No such luck.

The problem lies not within the amount of text – or even necessarily the size – but rather in the placement of the text.

This is a result of what Facebook calls the 20-Percent Text Rule. Simply put, if you split the entire image into a grid of 25 squares, your text cannot fall into more than five of those squares.

If you’re using a site such as Canva, you can apply a grid overtop of your image and adjust the text accordingly. Here’s how:

• Upload Image > Elements > Scroll down to the 5×5 grid > Arrange to ‘Back’ > move the text so it only touches five boxes at most

Here’s a wrong example of placement:

The text overlaps six boxes. Now if we move the text slightly to the right…

…the text now overlaps only five boxes – without having to re-size or re-word it.

If you’re unfamiliar with Canva or other photo-editing sites, Facebook provides a simple tool, the Image Text Check, which allows you to upload your image to test its text. The only downfall of this tool is that it doesn’t show you where the issue lies, merely gives you a “yes” or “no” to let you know whether or not your image passed the test. You can find that tool here.

However, if your image doesn’t pass the test with flying colours, that doesn’t mean it won’t run at all. This rule was recently change from being set in stone to being more of a highly-recommended guideline, meaning there’s still a chance that your ad will run, but it may not get as much exposure and you could be charged more for the ad.

Navigating your way through Facebook Ads can be confusing, and making an effort to learn the tricks of success help stave off many frustrations. Knowing your way around Facebook’s 20-Percent Text Rule will make your ad experience not only less confusing, but will also bring your ads greater success.

The latest instalment of Get to Know the Coaches we get to interview the Tom Ferry, arguably the biggest coach in real estate!

Before jumping into the interview I’d just like to say a big thank you to Tom for doing this interview while travelling through Europe. A big thank you as well to Marni Hale, the Director of Marketing for Tom Ferry who helped coordinate and get the interview done.

Without further ado, get to know Tom Ferry of Tom Ferry International!

How would you describe your coaching, Tom Ferry?

My coaching programs are built around an ecosystem that creates massive growth and duplicable results. The ecosystem is made up of a community of the industry’s top agents, industry’s most knowledgeable coaches, private mastermind groups and referral sharing (that most members say is worth the investment alone), exclusive member only networking and training events, and the proven systems needed for success.

What makes someone “coach-able”?

I always say “What got you here, won’t get you there!” Someone who is coach-able is willing to step outside of their comfort zone because they know that’s where change and growth happens. When they make that commitment, they are showing that they are willing to put in the time and effort to implement the systems and techniques to reach the next level of success in their business and life.

Do you identify more as a coach, sales trainer, mentor, or accountability partner?

I grew up surrounded by some of the best coaches in the industry like Zig Ziglar, Mike Vance, and Brian Tracy. I relate most to the title success coach, but the reality is that I provide all of those services, as any good coach should.

Who should hire you?

I often ask agents, “Are you interested or committed to being successful?” Those agents that are truly committed to success are the ones who will grow the most in our community. They know that they can be better agents/team leaders/owners, who serve more customers, and have a life and business that is by design.

Who shouldn’t hire you?

Energy sucking vampires and agents who would rather complain than help their clients.

What makes you different than other coaches out there?

My coaching experience – nearly 30 years and over 10,000 hours – and my constant and never-ending hunger for learning and improvement. This has allowed me to identify and share the most effective business building techniques.

Have you sold real estate personally?

I’ve been in the training and coaching business since I was about 18 years old, and I’m now 46. I have nearly 30,000 hours of business coaching under my belt. That’s what I do. The insanely great agents from around the globe that work with us, use myself, our trainers, coaches and our ecosystem as a resource to grow their business. They’re not looking for me to sell houses. Instead, to expose them to the very best in the industry, codify what they’ve done, convert it into a system that can be replicated, and allow them to run with it.

Where are you located geographically? Where are your clients?

My office is headquartered in Orange County, California. I have training events around the world and am honored to have coaching clients from around the world too.

What’s your speciality?

My specialties are:

• Helping agents breakthrough the barriers that are preventing them from reaching their desired success
• Transforming rockstar agents into leaders who run a team that outproduces what they could have done on their own
• Teaching team leaders how to grow a scalable business that becomes sellable

Do you have systems for your clients? 3rd party or in house?

Systems are the foundation of my coaching programs. With my nearly 30 years of coaching, I’ve helped top producing agents implement systems that are optimized and proven for success.

Members of my ecosystem have access to my exclusive REsults App, Breakthrough by Design 10-week program, and a proven coaching program. Like I always say, “what gets measured, improves” and our REsults App gives agents the tools to track and measure success. It’s also an amazing way to network with top agents around the world for referrals.

What’s your on-boarding process like? How long to get someone up and running?

As soon as someone signs up they get access to our exclusive ecosystem (see my answers below for what that includes). While that is happening, agents that are new to the program will fill out a self-assessment form so they can be best matched with a coach and a dedicated success representative.

What’s included in your programs?

All members get access to our exclusive ecosystem that includes: private mastermind groups, the REsults app, one-on-one coaching sessions, ongoing group training sessions, discounted or free tickets to events, and access to a massive digital member center with tools, case studies, and exclusive resources.

Depending on where an agent is in their business, I offer three program choices: Core+, Elite+ and Team+ to support their individual needs. Most top producing agents begin in Elite+ and move up into Team+ for the remainder of their business.

What is the price range of your services?

My programs range from approx $6,500 – $32,000 a year, with options for monthly, quarterly and semi-annual payments. The cost of coaching is commonly covered with 1-2 new transactions (in major metropolitan locations,) and Tom Ferry coaching members earn 10X more than the NAR average GCI.

Term length of contracts and cancellation requirements?

The contracts run every 12-months however most agents remain members of the community for the life of their business.

What we know is that success doesn’t happen overnight, and those who are truly committed to success know that it takes time to see massive growth. We provide specific guidelines and actions to take, and if the customer does those things and still doesn’t succeed, we offer a money back guarantee.

What’s your turnover rate?

For agents who make the commitment to building a better business, the turnover rate is extremely low. Most agents are members of the community for the life of their business.

What’s the main reason people stop coaching?

People would like to tell themselves all sorts of reasons about why they stop coaching, but the reality is it comes back to the question of being interested or committed. Progress takes work and my coaching isn’t for everyone. Sometimes agents aren’t committed to the massive action required to reach the next level of success, and they choose to stop coaching.

Can you share documented and proven results for your clients increase in performance?

The success stories from our members are what drives us to serve them better everyday! http://www.tomferry.com/testimonials/

Best training for a new agent?

Most new agents feel overwhelmed and have no idea where to start. The thing is that if you feel overwhelmed it just means you are under planned. I think it’s important for new agents to establish the sales skills, proven systems, habits and strategies right from the start. Getting a solid foundation in those things from the beginning lays the foundation for success.

Do you hold any designations?

• New York Times bestselling author, Life! By Design
• Named #1 real estate coach for four consecutive years (Swanepoel Power 200)
• Included on the Inc. 5000 list for four consecutive years
• Voted best place to work in Orange County, CA

Anything else you’d like to add?

At the end of the day, it’s really not about me… It’s about the real estate industry as a whole, including the agents who are able to create the business and life that they’ve always dreamed of. Most importantly, it’s about the buyers and sellers who are then helped with superior service and skills. My goal from the beginning has been to create a better real estate experience for everyone, and seeing that come to life makes my heart sing.

Want to book a call with our team about how we can take your marketing to the next level? Talk to Andrew Fogliato directly about how to grow your business.