Facebook ads for real estate investors

What Facebook ads can and can’t do

Let’s be honest about what a Facebook ad is. Remember the three ways to get in front of your audience:

• Organic Strategies: They look for you and find you.
• Paid Ads: You position yourself forcibly in front of them.
• Referrals: Others refer you, to them.

A Facebook ad is the purest form of the second one. Nobody asked for it. Unlike a Google search, the person scrolling Facebook didn’t just type “sell my house fast”. They were looking at pictures of their cousin’s dog.

And no, you can’t target motivated sellers with Facebook either. No list, no software, no app, no gadget, no AI, no nothing can target motivated sellers, because no one and nothing knows when someone becomes or is about to become motivated (why).

So what is a Facebook ad good for? The same thing a list is good for: getting in front of homeowners who can potentially become motivated, before anyone else does and before they hit Google. When the day comes that they need to sell, you want them to already know your face, your name, and how you work.

Stage 2: they need to notice you

Seeing and noticing are not the same. One does not imply the other.

A stock photo of a house with “WE BUY HOUSES CASH!!!” is the 100,001st ad. It looks exactly like every other investor’s ad, and people’s thumbs don’t even slow down. What’s the one thing nobody else in your market has? You.

That’s why video works here. Which do you think gives a better representation and feel for who you are, what you are like, and what it would be like to work with you?

Just like a picture says more than a thousand words, a video says more than a thousand pictures, and an in-person live interaction conveys more than a thousand videos. You can’t be in person in a Facebook feed. But you can be on video.

The recipe for an ad people stop for

Just like no one would want to even try a bland, boring-looking, tasteless, and uninteresting dish, no one will want to watch or engage with a boring, bland, uninteresting video. We need to make sure we always use the following 3 ingredients, no exceptions:

1. A Smitch of Competence.
   Showcase your knowledge and skills clearly, but don’t brag. No one likes an egotistic showoff.
2. A Whopping Heaping Helping of Personality.
   Let your unique character shine through. But make sure it aligns with what a motivated seller would want to work with.
3. A Dash of Credibility (but not too much).
   Build trust with evidence of your experience and successes. But be careful not to try too hard. Trying too hard to make people believe something often has the opposite effect.

Common mistakes

• Assuming you know what your audience finds valuable. Many people believe they understand what their traffic values, but often they miss the mark.
• Assuming your audience knows what you know. Avoid abbreviations or industry jargon. Nobody outside our world knows what “ARV” means.
• Assuming your audience thinks you are real, competent and awesome. The best way to show credibility is not by stating it directly but by indirectly showcasing it.
• Thinking your audience will think your video is good because you do. Your perception doesn’t guarantee theirs.
• Not because you have a video does it mean people will click “play”. Give them a reason to, for their own sake, not as a favor to you.

Your message: “visit my website”

A Facebook ad can’t make you credible in eight seconds. A website can. So don’t ask a stranger to sell you their house from an ad. Asking them to get to know you is a much smaller step.

What should the ad say? Speak to the situation, the way the seller would feel it, and offer the next small step: see how it works, see who we are. It’s one thing to say: “Are you stressed?” Yet, it’s completely different and a lot more powerful to say: “Are you losing sleep at night? … because of that house that keeps draining your wallet every month?” If they are going through exactly what you put into words, they know you understand.

Then send them to your website, where your How It Works and About Us pages do stage 4. How to build it: a real estate investor website that converts.

Most people who see your ad aren’t ready today. That’s fine. Someone browsing today may become motivated in a month or a year. If they remember you, they’ll come back.

The housing ad rules on Facebook

Meta treats ads about buying and selling homes as housing ads, and “we buy houses” ads generally fall in that category. You have to declare it when you create the campaign; if you don’t, the ad can be rejected. Under the housing category, you can’t target by age or gender, you can’t target ZIP codes, detailed targeting is limited, and location targeting uses a wider minimum radius.

In other words, you can’t tell Facebook to find “distressed homeowners”, and you never really could find motivated sellers that way anyway. What selects the right people now is your creative and your message. Which is exactly where you want to compete.

Meta changes these rules from time to time. Check the current requirements in Ads Manager when you create the campaign.

Budget it, test it, judge it fairly

Facebook leads usually need more follow-up than search leads, because most of these people weren’t looking for you when they saw your ad. So judge the channel on cost per deal, not cost per lead, and plan a test budget from your marketing budget that you finish before judging.

Facebook ads for real estate investors, step by step

1. Film yourself explaining how you buy houses.
   Competence, a whopping heaping helping of personality, a dash of credibility. Short, plain words, no jargon.
2. Create the campaign as a housing ad.
   Declare the housing category; target your cities.
3. Make the ad about the seller’s situation.
   In their words, not yours. Then offer the small next step: see how it works.
4. Send people to your website.
   Your How It Works page is often the best first stop.
5. Answer fast, and follow up for weeks.
   Many won’t be ready on the first call.
6. Judge on cost per deal at the end of the test.
   Then keep what produces deals, and fix what doesn’t, one change at a time.

Questions