How to Run Real Estate Facebook Ads That Convert + Examples

If you’re looking for potential buyers for their next home or people ready to sell a property, the best place to find them is online. It’s where they spend most of their time and often begin their search—no matter their age.

So, if you’re a real estate agent or in the property business, advertising on Facebook is a surefire way to get more buyer leads and sell your stock faster.

Read on to discover all you need to know about running real estate Facebook ads.

Do Facebook ads work for real estate?

Hell, yes.

Facebook was born for real estate ads. Just think about it. Who doesn’t love swiping through a carousel of a beautiful home or watching a reel of a video tour of a new property in their area? The visuals allow users to imagine themselves there, surrounded by their things, doing their stuff. 

Meta connects the dots to give users a tailored experience when they’re searching for real estate, and it gives advertisers the tools to showcase their portfolios from every possible angle.

The reality is that social media platforms have indelibly altered the real estate market, changing how people embark on the search for their next dream home. It has also changed how they connect with realtors, with over 94% of real estate agents saying they prefer text messaging to communicate with potential clients.

In fact, 89% of realtors use Facebook for their real estate company, and 59% use Instagram to advertise their property portfolios. Bonus = you can advertise on both platforms with Meta. 

Why do realtors use these social media platforms? Because 47% of buyers start their home-buying journey with an online search, 28% start at a real estate agent, and the rest begin with a combination of either people they know, signage, or print advertisements. 

Advertising on Facebook lets you market to people who live, work, or frequent a particular area and who meet other targeting criteria, making it much easier to match the perfect home to the perfect people.

How much do Facebook real estate ads cost?

Facebook ad costs vary depending on factors like your campaign objective and location, especially the industry. Let’s compare the benchmarks for real estate Facebook ad costs and Google Search ads.

Average cost per click: 

Facebook $1.22

Google Ads $2.37

Average cost per lead: 

Facebook $12.43

Google Ads $87.36 

Average click-through rate:

Facebook 3.69%

Google Ads 3.71%

Average conversion rate:

Facebook 9.58%

Google Ads 2.47%

The data shows us that Facebook ads are still cheaper and generally perform better for real estate businesses than Google Ads.

However, the best way to determine the cost of your ads is to run test campaigns and check the results to discover the various costs for real estate Facebook ads. 

9 inspiring real estate Facebook ad examples

1. DAMAC - Appeal to a luxury lifestyle

This video ad advertises an exclusive, luxurious Dubai townhouse complex that oozes vibrant opulence from start to finish. It offers the starting price, launch offer, and terms and paints a picture of the community lifestyle they’d be buying into in 15 seconds. The ad copy gets straight to the point, describing the offer, and the call to action is enticing. 

2. RE/MAX - Humour is memorable

This video ad starts out with a woman playing guitar at home and quickly devolves into a hilarious sequence of events when a hawk flies into the room through the window. 

The noisy scene of the squawking hawk, barking dog, shrieking woman, and objects that go flying is undeniably funny. The call to action and chat dialog that appears on the screen are witty, supporting the claim that it’s time to move, and RE/MAX is already on it.

3. Weichert Realtors - Offer help to sellers

This single-image ad targets homeowners looking to sell their property. It appeals to them by helping them through the complicated process of selling a home. The family-themed image communicates family values and supports the message “Here to guide your every step.” The call to action encourages homeowners who may doubt whether it’s the right time to sell their property.

4. Engel & Völkers - Focus on qualified leads

A luxury development on Palm in the United Arab Emirates is looking for top-tier buyers and offering a “Special payment plan” while highlighting the main features: luxury independent villas with private beach access. The aerial image is enticing and shows people the lifestyle they’d buy into. 

The ad copy gets straight to the financial details, telling serious buyers what their options are. These details and the starting price prominently shown in the ad help filter out any time-wasters.

5. Gold Coast Estate - Focus on exclusivity

This carousel Facebook ad offers different perspectives of life at Gold Coast Estate. The language used in the ad evokes emotion, and the images you swipe through make you want to see more. The copy also uses scarcity as a motivator, saying, “Only a few residences left,” implying the buyer will lose out if they don’t act now. 

6. Compass - Brand awareness and business growth

Another area-focused ad that promotes exclusive access to pre-market listings before they go live to the public. The ad copy encourages potential clients to contact the agency in Boston in the call to action. The ad visuals show listing images under a “Coming soon” label to support the pre-market messaging and show users the homes going on the market soon. This tactic creates hype about the properties and offers the target audience exclusive access.

7. Harry Norman Realtors - Advertise the neighborhood

This single-image ad appeals to people searching for a home in a specific neighborhood or area. The professional image conveys the area's lifestyle, and the ad links to a landing page with properties on the market in the location.

8. Windermere Real Estate - Support your claim with statistics

With realtors as the target audience, this ad is for a mentorship program that supports real estate agents in managing their businesses. It leads with statistics about the real estate market that “of new agents, 87% fail in the first year.” Fear of failure is used as the motivator to drive clicks.

9. Zillow - Focus on helpful features

Zillow is an app that helps people find the perfect home. The video focuses on apartment rentals and highlights the extensive details of its listings, ultimately serving the renters searching for a new home. With more information, a new buyer or tenant can make better decisions. 

As you can see, there are plenty of different ways to use Facebook ads to market your real estate business. You just need to get creative about how you do it to stand out! 

All these examples are from our 🏠 Real estate board in the Madgicx Ad Library. 

In the Ad Library, you can browse ads by brand, type, industry, and more! Save your favorite ads to boards to access later, and share with the people in your team so you can constantly create converting real estate Facebook ads. Try the Ad Library for free.

Real estate Facebook ads best practices

Before we discuss the nitty-gritty of running effective real estate ads on Facebook, there are a few things to do first. 

You must ensure you’ve created a Facebook Business Page for your real estate agency and that you’ve set up your Meta Business Manager account. Next, you must set up a Facebook Ad Account to run your ads. 

If you want to use Meta’s Advantage+ catalog ad option for properties (more on this further down), you must first create a catalog in your Commerce Manager. 

Lastly, you must set up your Meta Pixel and ensure it’s working before you start.

Campaign objectives

Out of Meta’s six campaign objectives, the most popular ones for real estate ad campaigns are:

1. Traffic: Running traffic ads is a great idea when you’re trying to boost brand awareness and get more eyes on your listings. 
2. Leads: Leads campaigns are a great way to gather information from people who are genuinely interested in the property you’re advertising. 

You must match your campaign objective to the goals you set out to achieve. Running a brand awareness campaign and another campaign to look for people who want to buy or sell houses will require different objectives.

The best Facebook ad types for real estate

The bad news is that unless you advertise on Facebook, only around 1% of your audience will see the organic posts from your Page.

The good news is you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to the different ad types you can create on Meta. Just remember that each ad type has its own sizing and formatting requirements for each placement you must stick to for best results. 

Leads objective ads

If you want qualified leads to sell a property or grow your email list, you can use Facebook’s leads objective to create your campaign. You can make a lead form your target audience must complete and submit to count as a conversion. You also don’t need a landing page for the leads objective as the conversion happens on Facebook.

Meta’s algorithm will show your ad to people within your targeting criteria who are most likely to complete the desired action. Because you’re asking a lot of your target audience to hand over their details, only seriously interested folks will complete the form. This approach means better lead quality; however, the cost per lead is generally more expensive than other campaign objectives. 

It’s important not to ask too many questions in your lead form because it makes it harder to convert. People click away when they feel overwhelmed by too many form questions. Ask for the necessary information, and keep it short and concise.

Once you have a list of leads, you can export it from Facebook and upload it to your CRM, email list, or wherever you house your marketing data.

Advantage+ catalogue ads

Facebook has even developed an ad version just for property listings in the Meta Advantage+ catalog ad options. These ads were previously referred to as dynamic ads. 

Using the property option of Advantage+ catalog ads means you can reap the benefits offered by this custom ad type. You get access to Meta’s unique targeting options created specifically for the property industry, and it lets you create an audience of people who have searched for similar listings.

Marketplace ads

You can choose Facebook Marketplace as a manual placement option for your ads. You should also create Marketplace listings for properties you want to sell or let. Facebook Marketplace is perfect for creating a shareable real estate listing with all the information potential buyers want to know. 

Video ads

Whether it’s a pre-recorded or live video tour of a house or a slideshow of gorgeous images, prospective buyers embrace videos because they want to explore every inch of the property virtually. What they see determines whether they’ll contact you, so it makes sense to offer as immersive an experience as possible with video ads. 

Many realtors include drone video footage in their marketing budget because it offers a totally unique perspective and view of the home. This footage can be costly but may be worth it for luxury or commercial properties.

Incorporating video production into your creative strategy is crucial because it can reduce the time spent on the market. This in turn reduces the overall spend of your Facebook ads. 

Carousel ads

Carousel ads let you add up to 10 images or videos to your ad, with a tile at the end linking to your Facebook Page or Instagram account, depending on the platform where the person is seeing it. This ad type gives you more ad real estate to show off your best photos, giving potential buyers an immersive experience.

Audience targeting for real estate Facebook ads

Meta offers advertisers one-of-a-kind audience targeting, but the real estate industry is considered a Special Ad Category. This applies if you’re an advertiser based in the US or Canada or you’re targeting people in the US, its territories, Canada, the EU, and certain European countries and territories. 

This restricted targeting is partly due to evolving privacy laws and ensuring equal opportunity in the housing market. It’s best to check what rules apply to you before you start advertising.

As a real estate advertiser, you can’t target people based on gender, age, or income level for Facebook real estate ads. You can’t use geotargeting for less than a 15-mile radius in the US and Canada (10-mile radius in other countries), and you can’t use zip code targeting. Some housing and financial interests have been removed for real estate advertisers, as well as audience expansion features.

While these restrictions sound limiting, it just means you need to get creative in your approach. Your best bet is building an audience using interest-based targeting to find the right people based on what you know about them. 

Consider their unique needs and interests if you’re looking for a young professional for a lock-up-and-go apartment in the city. These interests will undoubtedly be different if you’re trying to sell a 5-bedroom family home in the suburbs. 

Location is everything when you’re in the property game and is a determining factor in a sale. Therefore, advertising locally is integral to marketing your real estate business on Facebook. 

Your advertising strategy must include sharing your ads or listings on Facebook community groups in your service areas. These groups are a great place to build relationships with potential clients, whether buyers or sellers. 

Primary KPIs to monitor

If you run real estate Facebook ads, you should monitor these KPIs:

1. Video views - Notice how people engage with your live tours and property video ads, especially those who watch to the end of the video. 
2. Cost per click - This tells you how much it costs whenever someone clicks on your ad.
3. Click-through rate - This metric tells you the percentage of how many people clicked on your ad from everyone who saw it.
4. Cost per lead - This tells you how much you pay for each qualified lead using the leads campaign objective.
5. Messaging conversations started - This is a handy metric to watch for engagement campaigns to see how many people started a messaging conversation with you after seeing your ad.  Sometimes, this optimization goal is cheaper than lead forms. 

Conclusion

If you’re a real estate agent or in the property business, you should be running real estate Facebook ads. Meta has lower ad costs, more ad types, and excellent targeting capability, so finding potential buyers for your properties is easy. Constantly create converting ads with a bottomless pit of inspiration in the Madgicx Ad Library. Try it free today.