Whether it's submitting a form or signing up for an offer, roughly 44% of visitors to a real estate website leave without taking the next step.
Often, real estate leads aren’t ready to decide on their first visit. Retargeting ads remind them of your services and local expertise, keeping your business top-of-mind as they continue their search.
According to a recent report, retargeted visitors are 70% more likely to convert than first-time visitors.
This guide explores incorporating retargeting ads into your real estate lead generation system.
What are Retargeting Ads for Real Estate?
Retargeting ads are crucial to any agent’s real estate lead generation system. These ads are your second chance to grab your audience’s attention and urge them to revisit your website and become a real estate lead.
Retargeting ads for real estate follow a user who visited your website as they browse other websites, showcasing properties or services they viewed earlier and prompting them to return to your site.
For example, a user visits your real estate landing page and clicks on a few listings. After scrolling around for a few minutes and looking through the images and descriptions, they leave your website without submitting a form.
Instead of losing this potential lead, retargeting ads help you reconnect with them by displaying an ad featuring the same or similar properties they previously viewed.
This keeps your listings top of mind and motivates the visitor to return and take the next step. By re-engaging them with listings they’ve shown an interest in, you increase the chance that they might return to your site, explore more options, and contact you.
Benefits of Retargeting Ads for Real Estate
Retargeting ads offer many real estate lead generation advantages for agents and home builders:
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Enhanced Ad Targeting
With retargeting ads for real estate, your ads don't just show up randomly on people’s screens. They are personalized and tailored to the viewer's specific interests. Rather than advertising to a broad audience, you’re reaching out to potential real estate leads who have already shown an interest in your services or listings.
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Increased Conversion Rates
According to a Business Insider report, first-time visitors on real estate sites only convert 2.4% of the time. However, 26% of them will return to your site through retargeting ads, creating more opportunities to convert visitors into real estate leads.
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Maximized Ad Efficiency
Retargeted customers are three times more likely to click on your ad than those who’ve never interacted with your business. It’s a simple logic—warm leads are easier to convert into clients than cold leads. According to a recent report by I-COM, retargeting ads see 180% more click-throughs on average than conventional ads.
Retargeted ads are also 8x cheaper to convert than ads targeting new prospects. This means you’re spending less money to bring back users who have already shown interest in your properties than you'd spend trying to attract new visitors.
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Higher Engagement Rates
Since retargeting ads are shown only to users who have interacted with your website, they are less likely to cause ad fatigue and more likely to drive engagement. Rather than being an intrusive sales pitch, retargeting ads is a strategic reminder.
Steps for Retargeting Ads for Real Estate Campaigns
The process of running retargeting ads can be divided into four simple steps.
Step 1: Setting Up Site Cookies
Install a tracking code, known as a pixel, on your website. This code tags your visitors and monitors their behavior on your site, including which properties they viewed and how long they stayed.
Step 2: Building An Audience
Many of your previous visitors are warm real estate leads—users who’ve shown some interest but aren’t ready to decide yet. When they enter any site within your partner sites network, the cookies on their browser trigger advertisements from your site. You can create separate lists for those who view luxury properties, rental listings, homes in specific neighborhoods, etc. This creates targeted ads for different audience segments.
Step 3: Serving The Ads
Create ads that resonate with each visitor. Ad platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads make this easy, allowing you to craft and display ads to your visitors as they canvass other sites in their ad network.
However, you must be strategic in choosing your ad content. You need to customize the ads based on a visitor’s location or the location they searched for, behavior, focusing on listings or a specific offer or promotion that might appeal to them.
Step 4: Capturing Real Estate Leads
Retargeted ad users are 3x more likely to click on an ad than new prospects because they have already shown interest.
You need to make it easy for users to perform the action you want. Ensure your lead capture form is short and easy to find. This is how retargeting ads for real estate turn casual site visitors into warm or hot real estate leads and contribute to your real estate lead generation.
How a Website Helps a Retargeting Strategy
A successful retargeting strategy starts with an effective real estate website. To help you better understand the role of your website and landing pages, here are some points to keep in mind:
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Tracking User Behavior
Tracking your visitor’s behavior on your site is the first step towards crafting ads that resonate with them. Use analytics tools and site cookies to track visitors’ actions. This data helps you understand what your audience is interested in and how to tailor your ads accordingly.
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Segmenting Audiences
User data from your real estate website helps segment your audience. For example, you can create different segments for users interested in luxury properties, commercial real estate, or homes for sale in a specific area. You can then tailor your retargeting ads to these interests to make them more relevant and engaging.
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Optimizing User Experience
A positive user experience makes it likely for your visitors to return and take action on your site. With effective website design, returning visitors can easily find relevant information and contact you with minimal clicks or searching.
User-friendly features such as intuitive search functions, clear property descriptions, and high-quality images help generate initial interest and encourage return visits.
Google Ads for Real Estate in a Retargeting Strategy
Your ad campaigns are the other big piece of your retargeting puzzle. There are many ad platforms to choose from, but Google retargeting ads is nearly unparalleled in reach and options.
Use these steps to maximize your Google retargeting ads:
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Setting up Audience Tracking
Google provides a piece of code, the Google Ads Pixel, that you can install on your website to track your visitors’ behavior. This code tells you which listings a visitor has viewed, how long they’ve stayed on certain pages, and whether they’ve engaged with any calls to action.
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Customizing Ads
After assessing how your visitors interacted with your site, create targeted, customized ads for them. You can serve different ads to different audience segments to align your ad with each visitor’s unique journey.
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Displaying Ads Across Google's Network
With over 2 million websites, including YouTube, and apps on The Google Display Network, your retargeting ads follow your audience to just about anywhere they visit online. Whether they’re reading a blog, watching a video, or checking the news, the vast reach of the display network will keep your listings fresh in the minds of potential real estate leads.
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Performance Tracking
Google Ads comes with analytics that tell you how well your real estate lead generation campaigns perform. You can track metrics such as click-through rates, conversions, and cost-per-click. This information helps you determine which ads are working best and those which need to be optimized.
Google Ads retargeting allows you to create custom audiences and serve personalized ads to them. You can guide your warm real estate leads back to your site when they’re ready to decide.
Landing Pages and Real Estate Retargeting
Real estate landing pages improve your retargeting strategy’s ability to generate and convert real estate leads.
A landing page is a standalone website that guides visitors to a specific course of action, whether booking a property tour, submitting a contact form, or signing up for exclusive offers.
Follow these real estate tips to ensure your landing pages are ready to convert traffic from your retargeting ads.
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Laser-Focused Purpose:
Unlike your homepage, which gives an overview of your business, landing pages focus on a specific purpose like a property listing. Remove anything that might be a distraction or provides too many options, leaving only content geared towards conversion.
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Capture Real Estate Lead Information
Landing pages are all about collecting personal info from your audience. Forms are indispensable to landing pages. You can insert forms for booking a tour, signing up for a newsletter, or booking consultations.
Tailoring the User Experience
Landing pages can be specifically designed for different property listings or areas to help you create a more personalized and targeted experience for your potential leads.
They maximize the impact of your ads by doubling down on your core message, eliminating distractions, and giving prospects a clear sense of direction.
Real Estate Tips for Effective Retargeting Campaigns
Use these tips to hit the ground running with your real estate retargeting campaigns:
- Use High-Quality Visuals: Real estate is all about visual appeal. To capture attention, use high-quality images and videos in your retargeting ads.
- Create a Sense of Urgency: Use limited-time offers or highlight upcoming open houses to encourage immediate action.
- Rotate Your Ads: To prevent ad fatigue, rotate different ad creatives and messaging.
- Set Frequency Caps: Limit the number of times your ads are shown to avoid overwhelming your audience.
- Optimize Landing Pages: Ensure your real estate landing pages align with your ad messaging and provide a clear path for users to take the next step.
Convert Leads with Real Estate Retargeting Ads
Don't let your real estate leads slip through the cracks.
Retargeting ads are your calling card for getting visitors to return to your website by keeping your name and listings top of mind.
To get started with real estate retargeting ads, simply insert cookie codes on your website, segment your audience based on their behavior, and create personalized ads.
At Agent Launch, we create and manage high-converting retargeting campaigns to deliver targeted real estate leads. Our result-driven approach ensures that your ads reach the right people at the right time, maximizing your return on investment.
Contact Agent Launch today to learn how our retargeting campaigns can help you drive more leads and close more deals.
FAQs
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What kind of content should I use in my retargeting ads?
Your retargeting ads should feature high-quality images or videos of properties, clear and urgent calls to action (“Schedule a Tour Today”), and messaging highlighting unique property features or benefits. These elements should reflect the user’s interests based on their behavior on your site.
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How long should I run retargeting ads for potential buyers or sellers?
This depends on how long your typical sales cycle lasts. Generally, a retargeting window of 30–90 days works well for real estate retargeting ads.
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What types of ads work best for real estate retargeting ads?
Google retargeting ads is the most popular platform and network for retargeting.
Visual ads with property images or video tours perform best for real estate. People are drawn to imagery, especially when house hunting. High-quality visuals combined with a strong call to action can lead to more success in your retargeting campaigns.
