Facebook Ads can significantly benefit your real estate investment business, helping expand your market reach and find more motivated seller leads. The audience on Facebook is endless and spans numerous demographics. Because ads for real estate investors fall into the special housing category, your targeting options are limited, however with the right strategy it is possible to get in front of motivated seller leads ready for a cash offer.

Facebook Ads can significantly benefit your real estate investment business, helping expand your market reach and find more motivated seller leads. The audience on Facebook is endless and spans numerous demographics. Because ads for real estate investors fall into the special housing category, your targeting options are limited, however with the right strategy it is possible to get in front of motivated seller leads ready for a cash offer.

Below we look at eight tips for Running Facebook Ads. Let's get started:

1. Monitor Facebook Comments and Messages

You need to engage with potential sellers, respond to comments, and invite those who 'like' the post to like your REI companies Facebook page. Negative comments can hurt a Facebook ad campaign. So, monitor all comments and either reply or hide the comment depending on its nature. Many times if someone leaves a negative comment such as, “Don’t sell to these companies, they rip you off. Use a realtor instead,” they aren’t the only person with that thought. This gives you a chance to reply in a professional manner and educate them on how you are not the best option for every seller, however there are certain sellers in specific situations where a fast cash offer makes more sense. In other cases, someone may leave a comment that’s very rude, or even use vulgar language. We recommend just hiding those comments and even blocking those people from your Facebook page so they never see your Facebook ads again. 

Managing comments and likes on Facebook is easy:

  • Open Facebook Ads manager.
  • Go to Ads Manager Settings.
  • Click 'All Tools'.
  • Click 'Create & Manage' and select 'Page Posts'.
  • Click 'Ads Posts'.
  • Choose the post and click 'View Comments.
  • View, 'Like', and reply to comments.

You can also view and reply to messages using the same steps. Choose 'Messages' instead of 'Page Posts'.

2. Avoid Facebook Lead Forms (And What To Do Instead)

The purpose of Facebook ads is to generate the best, most qualified motivated seller leads who are serious about selling their house fast. The best way to attract qualified leads is by developing a Facebook Ad strategy that targets only those leads while trying to filter out the unqualified leads.

For this reason, you should avoid Facebook lead forms. Here’s why:

A lead form is a powerful lead-generating tool that works well. However, it generates engagement from leads you don’t want. Facebook makes it easy for a user to leave their information in lead forms. 

With such a low barrier to submit information, you receive a lot of leads that aren’t truly motivated to sell their house fast. So, if your goal is to get qualified, motivated seller leads, lead forms are not the best tool. 

A more effective strategy than a Facebook lead form is a simple landing page (like the one below) with a long form (ten to twelve questions). We recommend using a separate landing page with a long form because it encourages the visitor to commit to submitting their property and personal information.

If someone isn’t willing to spend time filling out a lead form, they’ve demonstrated that they’re not likely truly motivated to sell. It is a great way to filter out less motivated leads from the leads that are more motivated. 

Our marketing team can help you set up your landing page and long form to attract more qualified leads from Facebook ads.

3. Test Facebook Ad Creatives and New Ad Copy Monthly

Businesses who benefit the most from Facebook ads are those who test their ad creatives and build their strategy over time. There are three benefits of testing Facebook ads.

  1. You ensure your best ad is shown.
  2. You help the Facebook algorithm learn about optimal placement for your ad.
  3. Both you and Facebook learn more about your audience.

If you want to ensure that your ad spend is optimized and you're not wasting money, make sure you create quality ads that convert. Make sure that it's the solution your audience is looking for when they're looking for it.

Testing is an ongoing process of finding the best-performing ad and improving it. Once you have a winner, you throw your conversion campaign behind that winner. You'll need to establish your budget for testing and then work your best ads into your budget as you go. 

If you're trying to build a budget for testing, we recommend a minimum of $50/day to start. When we are working with clients, we advise an initial 90 day testing period. This is very important because the Facebook pixel, which we will talk about next, takes time to warm up. When we say to warm up a pixel, what we mean is give it time to collect data. The more data your pixel collects, the smarter it gets and the better your ad campaign can be optimized.

4. Set Up Conversion Tracking for Motivated Seller Leads

You can use the Facebook Meta Pixel to track your website visitors' actions. Tracked conversions appear in the Facebook Ads Manager and the Facebook Events Manager, where you can use them to analyze your conversion funnel's effectiveness and calculate your return on ad spend (ROAS).

Once you define custom audiences, Facebook uses the information to identify other Facebook users who are likely to convert. Facebook targets the users with your ads.

There are three ways to track conversions with the Pixel:

1. Standard Events

Visitor actions that Facebook defines you report by calling a Pixel function.

2. Custom Events

Visitor actions defined and reported by calling a Pixel function.

3. Custom Conversions

Visitor actions are tracked automatically by parsing your website's referrer URLs.

5. Select Housing Category

Facebook's Special Ad Category refers to ads that relate to four categories.

  1. Employment
  2. Credit
  3. Housing
  4. Politics

If your ads mention these topics, you must specify so within Facebook's Ads Manager when creating your campaign. Once you select a category, Facebook will limit your targeting capabilities. When selecting a category as a real estate investor, choose 'Housing'. Don't try to get around the system. Facebook will not let you.

6. Address Specific Seller Pain Points in Your Ad Messaging

As a real estate investor or home buyer, you are looking for a specific type of home seller. However, your Facebook Ad messaging may appeal to a broader audience. As a result, you are attracting unqualified leads.

To attract motivated home sellers, address specific seller pain points. For example, many of the home sellers you help are often in one of the following situations:

  • Foreclosure
  • Bankruptcy
  • Probate (inherited house)
  • Divorce
  • Rental properties
  • Damaged houses
  • Vacant houses
  • Relocating or new job
  • Downsizing

Craft Facebook Ads focused on these topics. Right now, at the time of writing this, foreclosure seems to be a trending topic for home sellers due to the economic hardships in the U.S. So create a Facebook Ad that focuses on foreclosure. It may attract more qualified motivated seller leads.

7. Set Up Location Targeting

Facebook Location Targeting options can provide powerful methods to reach specific users in certain areas. Location targeting allows you to tell Facebook the relevant geographic locations where you would like to show your ads.

Facebook allows you to target by

  • Country
  • State
  • City
  • Zip Code
  • Business Address

Note: Both zip code and business address targeting is not allowed for real estate investors since your Facebook ads fall into their special “housing” category.

You can also target multiple locations within a single targeting group. However, there are limits to how many specific targeting parameters you can build. For example, you can include up to 25 individual countries or 250 individual cities in a single group. You can also tell Facebook which locations to exclude.

8. Use Facebook in Your Retargeting Strategy

Facebook retargeting ads allow you to reconnect with users who have already interacted with your brand in some way on or off Facebook. It includes users who have:

  • Shared their email with you as leads
  • Followed your Facebook Page or interacted with it in some way
  • Interacted with a Facebook Event
  • Watched a certain amount of your on-platform videos (ad videos included)
  • Interacted with your app
  • Viewed certain pages of your site or taken certain actions on it
  • Interacted with your Instagram Page in some way

You can create custom audiences for each of the above criteria by finding "Audiences" under your Business Manager. From there, create a custom audience and choose who you want to retarget.

Since Facebook allows you to connect with warm audiences, retargeting ads can result in higher conversion rates and lower cost-per-click averages than other ads. These ads can also help you create more complex and well-targeted ad funnels that are more likely to convert.

Buy One to Three More Houses Every Month With Our Motivated Sellers Marketing Program

Magnyfi can help you get more qualified, motivated seller leads through various paid and organic online marketing strategies. Learn more about how we can help you implement the Motivated Sellers Marketing Program in your area.

To check the availability of your market, fill out our application form or contact us at 877-540-4248, and we will walk you through the process. We only work with a limited number of investors per area, so claim your market today!

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