A Guide for Realtors to Generate More Leads

If you’ve purchased a home in the last ten years, then you’ve probably encountered a pay-per-click (PPC) ad on Google. PPC ads are one of the most effective ways for realtors to reach buyers in specific locations, and real estate brands launch extensive ad campaigns to propel their content to the top of search engines. 

If you work in real estate, PPC marketing helps you reach new audiences, convert leads, and engage potential customers looking to buy and sell in your area. It also keeps your brand top of mind and creates timely opportunities to promote your business.

In this post, we’ll explain everything you need to know about real estate PPC marketing, including why you need it and how to launch your first ad campaign. We’ll also teach you how to optimize your ads and review examples of successful PPC campaigns. 

Why Realtors Need PPC

Most people are familiar with PPC ads. They appear on social media, search engines, videos, and websites like your own. But do your clients actually use them? Let’s review some of the benefits of PPC advertising. 

A 2025 study found that PPC ads for realtors received more engagement than most other industries. In fact, average click-through rates for real estate ads were 8.4% while other industries ranged between 5-7%. People looking to buy or sell a property know they need to act quickly, and real estate PPC ads put you in front of the client at the right place and time.

Source: Wordstream

While it may feel risky investing in PPC for real estate, avoiding it puts you at a competitive disadvantage. Research shows that digital ad spend for real estate is about $12 billion, with PPC as the leading channel. If your competitors are using PPC, they’re occupying valuable real estate (pun intended) on your clients’ Google searches and social media pages. 

Prepare for Your Real Estate PPC Campaign

Today’s advertising tools make it easy for realtors to create successful PPC campaigns. By leveraging ad platforms and following a strategic, step-by-step approach, you’ll develop a reliable framework for designing effective ad groups and paid search campaigns.

Define Goals and KPIs

First, define your campaign goals and KPIs, or key performance indicators. Your goals are what you want to achieve with your campaign, while the KPIs are used to measure your success. 

For example, if your goal is to draw more attention to your website, then your KPIs might be website traffic and click-through rates. If your goal is to generate leads, then you might measure conversions originating from your ads. 

Campaign goals should follow the SMART framework. They should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. In other words, you aren’t just trying to generate leads through your website. Your goal should be to produce a specific number of leads within a certain time frame. By creating detailed goals, it will be much easier to measure and improve your campaign.

Identify Your Target Audience

Now you should determine who your ad is intended for. Obviously, it’s your clients — but are they buyers or sellers? Where are they looking to buy/sell? Are they new clients or have you worked with them before?

Just like setting goals, you should tailor real estate PPC advertising for different audiences. Start by determining between buyers and sellers, then think about their client journey with your business. When do they usually reach out to a real estate agent? What problems or questions do they have? Answering these questions will help you write compelling ad copy and narrow down when and where to show your ad.

Some other characteristics to consider about your audience are:

• Location
• Preferred Communication Channels
• Browsing Device
• Research Behavior

These factors help you identify your target audience and learn how to engage them.

Choose the Right Platforms

There are several platforms and websites where you can create PPC accounts. However, it’s important to choose ones that your clients are using because you’ll get a better return on investment since your clients are active on those channels.

Source: Arma & Elma

Here are the most popular ad platforms and the pros and cons of each:

PPC Competitor Analysis

Since your competitors are likely using PPC ads, take a look at what’s working for them as well. This is called PPC competitor analysis, and it’s where search engine marketing (SEM) tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs come in handy. These platforms analyze keywords that different websites rank for. Keywords are words or phrases used when looking for information on the Internet. You can enter your competitor’s website and see what words and phrases people search to find them. 

This will also tell you what the cost-per-click is for each keyword. Cost-per-click (CPC) represents how much someone paid to advertise for a keyword. The higher the CPC, the more competitive the keyword is. This helps with budget allocation and understanding which keywords you can target.

Another option is to conduct a quick Google search for keywords to target for your campaign. For example, if you create an ad for “buy a home in Boston,” you could search for that term and see if one exists. 

From here, we can analyze the ad’s headline, description, and call-to-action to better understand how we might format our content. You should also take a look at the landing page that it directs you to, and, if it’s a social media ad, review the location (timeline, page, group, etc.) where it exists. 

This information helps you plan an organized, effective pay-per-click strategy, making it much easier to launch campaigns and optimize them over time. 

Set Up Your PPC Campaign

With your research complete, you’re now ready to set up your first PPC for real estate campaign. Whether you’re using Google, Meta, or another ad platform, these steps will help you design a campaign that’s catchy, relevant, and effective with your audience.

Research Keywords for Real Estate Ads

Keyword research is one of the best places to start. You could target industry terms, common real estate questions, or how-to topics like “how to sell my home.” 

You’ll have plenty of options to choose from, and ad platforms like Google Ads will even suggest keywords for you:

When conducting keyword research, it’s important to consider the client’s journey and target “high-intent” keywords. For example, if you’re targeting sellers, then “how to buy a home” wouldn’t be a good keyword for your ad. Instead, you might use the following keywords for your pay-per-click advertising: 

• Sell my house fast
• Sell my house in [city]
• How to sell a house
• Real estate agents near me
• How to list a home for sale

All of these keywords are long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are more descriptive and often include a complete phrase, sentence, or question. Long-tail keywords are usually less competitive than short-tailed keywords because they’re more specific and narrow searches to a precise location, description, or audience. This is what we call local PPC because it targets leads in a specific area or demographic.

For instance, the keyword “realtor near me” has a cost-per-click of approximately $20, whereas “real estate agent in Texas” costs around $11. If you work in Texas, this is a much better keyword to target because it’s specific to your location, and fewer people are competing for that keyword. 

Structure Campaigns and Ad Groups

Realtors serve both buyers and sellers, so you’ll want to create ads for both audiences. Since all of your ads will reside on one platform, it’s essential to organize your PPC account structure and separate your ad groups. This will make it easier to conduct a campaign performance analysis and identify areas for improvement. 

PPC account management can also lead to stronger campaign results. It allows you to create highly specific ads that target precise moments in your client’s buying or selling journey.

For example, if you’re buying a property but are served ads about selling one, you’re not going to click on that ad. But, if you group buying ads together and target keywords with a high buyer’s intent, then you’re more likely to earn higher quality scores and serve your clients more relevant ads. 

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Write High-Converting Ad Copy

Keyword research and ad groups will help you reach your audience at the right place and time, but that won’t count for much if your ad’s copywriting isn’t catchy and creative. Ad copywriting has to be interesting enough to grab people’s attention and compelling enough to get them to click.

The best way to write high-converting ad copy is to use benefits-focused messaging. In other words, rather than saying “Want a new house? Click here!” craft a call-to-action that focuses on what makes you unique from other realtors. 

You could say, “Sell your home fast with 18 years of expert realtor services.” This message highlights your experience and lets clients know you can help them sell a home quickly.

By leaning into benefits, you’ll engage more clients and better understand what they want from a realtor. In the example we just shared, customers clicking on that ad are looking for speedy, reliable service. By organizing your real estate PPC campaigns by messaging, you can cater to each of your clients’ needs.

Here’s an example of a real estate company using benefits-focused messaging in their PPC campaign:

Design Landing Pages That Convert

Great — your clients clicked on your ad. Your work is done, right? 

Well, not quite. A click signals that your ad copy and design are working. But once people click, they typically go to a landing page where you prompt them to complete a form or call you for more information. If that landing page isn’t as enticing as your PPC ad, then all of the time and money you invested is lost. 

Landing pages should be clear, well-organized, and mobile-friendly. Make it clear what you want clients to do, whether it’s filling out a form or calling your business. Forms are common because they collect specific information when the client contacts your business. This vets the lead and determines if they’re a good fit for your services. 

Here is some client information you should collect on your landing page:

• Client Name
• Email
• Phone Number 
• Location 
• Buying or Selling

Set Budget and Bidding Strategies

Your PPC budget is important because most platforms work like an auction. You “bid” on keywords against other businesses, and the ad with the highest bid and quality score wins the ad placement. Remember, when we say “cost-per-click,” we’re referring to how much you spent to get one person to click on your ad. If you target keywords with high CPC, then you’ll need a bigger budget for better results.

“As a rule of thumb, each campaign should generate at least 30–50 conversions per month to allow Smart Bidding to work effectively. It’s also crucial to distribute spend across funnel stages – awareness, consideration, and conversion – rather than investing everything in bottom-funnel campaigns.” 

Dennis F, PPC Team Lead at Ninja Promo

Fortunately, ad platforms like Google have built-in budgeting tools. They estimate how much you will spend per campaign based on CPC, quality score, and brands currently competing in the same space. You just have to determine how much you are willing to spend, and the ad platform will provide options for bid management. 

For example, Google Ads offers the following bidding strategies for PPC campaigns:

• Manual Cost-Per-Click (CPC): You set your maximum CPC bids yourself. This lets you allocate more of your budget to specific keywords and ad groups. The downside is that you have to track and improve your performance by yourself. 

• Automated Bidding Strategies (Smart Bidding): Smart bidding is an automated bidding strategy that leverages AI for PPC optimization. It considers your goals, then uses multiple bidding factors to find the best keywords to invest in. It will also adjust bid management over time so performance improves, maximizing the efficiency of your budget. 

• Cost-Per-Action (CPA): Cost-per-action is an automated bidding strategy that prioritizes conversion tracking. You set your average cost per conversion, then your ad platform will bid based on the likelihood that your ad will convert in that placement.

“In real estate PPC, the most effective approach is to start broad and optimize progressively. Start with “Maximize Conversions” – this helps Google gather data quickly and identify audiences that are more likely to submit a form or request a call. Once you have sufficient data (usually 30–50 conversions per month per campaign), switch to “Target CPA” to maintain control over cost per lead and stabilize performance.”

Dennis F, PPC Team Lead at Ninja Promo 

It’s important to note that these are only a few of the most popular bidding strategies that realtors use. Depending on your ad platform, you will likely have additional bidding options that align with your campaign goals. 

Optimize and Manage Campaigns

Here’s an important tip: PPC ads aren’t static. In other words, you should monitor and improve them over time. After all, you don’t want to spend money on an ineffective campaign, especially when you can use built-in analytics to track and boost performance. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some proven campaign optimization techniques.

Track and Analyze Performance

Most digital ad platforms provide real-time PPC reporting tools. But it’s overwhelming to open an analytics report and not understand the information that’s displayed. Those numbers are important because they help you improve campaigns over time. 

Click-through rates (CTR) and conversions are two PPC metrics and KPIs you should always pay attention to. CTR measures how many people saw your ad and clicked through to your landing page, while conversions are actual submissions on that page or form. 

Realtors should also pay attention to lead-based metrics as well. Here are a few PPC metrics and KPIs that our team recommends:

• Cost per Lead or Action (CPL/CPA): This is how much you spend to gain each lead. This is your main efficiency metric. 
• Lead Quality: This refers to the quality of your lead or how likely they are to become clients. This is measured via CRM data, not just form fills.
• Lead-to-Sale Conversion Rate: This is the percent of leads that result in a sale. It measures real business impact and helps you estimate ROI.
• Cost per Qualified Lead (CPQL): This is how much you pay for leads that pass sales qualification. In other words, how much are you paying for high-quality leads? 
• Cost per Acquisition (CPA): This is how much you spent for a client to make a sale or buy a property. It helps you track where your customers are coming from. 
• Return on Investment (ROI): This is your total sales minus whatever you invested in your campaign. It measures the overall success of your campaign. 
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): This is your total spent on ads versus how much you made from your campaign. It’s different from ROI because it only considers your PPC budget. 
• Impression Share: This is the percent of times your ad was shown versus when it could have been shown. It helps you understand why your ads may not be winning bids. 
• Cross Device Attribution: This tells what devices (phone, tablet, desktop) people are using to click on your ads. 
• On-site engagement metrics (time on site, depth of visit): You should also monitor engagement metrics on your website, like time on page and depth of visit. These are strong indicators of traffic quality.

“The real goal is not just clicks, but sustainable lead economics and measurable revenue impact” 

Dennis F, PPC Team Lead at Ninja Promo

A/B Test Ads and Landing Pages

A/B testing is another way you can improve your real estate PPC ad campaigns. It involves creating two variations of an ad and testing them with two small sections of your audience. Whichever variation performs better is sent to the remainder of your audience. 

A/B testing allows you to try out different ad copy, images, and headers. It also helps with landing page optimization, so you can generate more leads from people who click on your ad. Rather than guessing what works best, it’s a systematic approach to optimizing engagement with your audience. This reduces wasteful ad spend and improves conversion rates for your campaign.

Popular ad platforms like Google and Meta offer built-in A/B testing tools. They let you change different components of your ad and experiment to see what works best with your audience. You can even set the parameters of your A/B test, including how big a sample size to test and what to do if both variations fail to engage your audience.

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Reduce Waste Spend

While most ad platforms don’t allow you to exceed your campaign budget, you want to ensure you’re using funds as efficiently as possible. Most systems offer tools like negative keywords and target adjustments, which direct your ads to the right audience while avoiding less-promising bids.

Negative keywords are the opposite of target keywords. These are the words or phrases that you don’t want to advertise for. They typically have little to no ROI and are not an effective use of your ad budget.

Target adjustments are smart tools that adjust your bid automatically based on your audience and/or their browsing behavior. For example, if you only work with clients in a specific location, then you can bid more on searches that are made near your business. In other words, if you’re an East Coast realtor, you won’t advertise to people who are on the West Coast.

Adjust Bids and Targeting Based on Data

Combining these strategies and tools will make it easier to spot ads that are underperforming as well as the ones that are more profitiable for your business. If one ad group is performing exceptionally well, try to determine why and use it for retargeting campaigns in the future. It may be the bid strategy, the ad copy, or another factor that resonates with your audience.

You should also look for roadblocks in your clients’ journey. For example, if people are clicking on your ad but not converting on the landing page, then you might need to change your form or the page’s design. These customers, however, are ideal candidates for remarketing campaigns because they’ve already shown interest in your ads. You can retarget them in a future ad after you update your landing page. 

In fact, research shows that some brands boosted their sales by more than 20% after using remarketing lists for search ads. Conversion rates more than doubled because these customers were already familiar with the brand. 

Source: DemandSage

Tools like A/B testing and bid optimizations help identify these trends and scale them to the rest of your real estate PPC campaigns. That ultimately improves your ROI because you’re investing in successful remarketing campaigns and moving away from ads that don’t engage clients.

Case Studies: Real Results from Real Estate PPC

Let’s review two case studies where PPC marketing and local real estate advertising successfully generated leads for realtors. 

Ninja Promo collaborated with a high-end apartment complex that required assistance in promoting its new living spaces to buyers in the nearby downtown area. The challenge was finding buyers in that specific location, so our agency crafted a real estate PPC campaign that limited bids to searches made in the city. The result was over 200 leads generated with a cost per lead of about $20.

Source: Ninja Promo

Another real estate brand we partnered with was CBRE, a global leader in commercial real estate services and investments. They needed help targeting clients looking for real estate investments, and while they had some success with PPC in the past, their current paid efforts were plateauing, and they wanted a fresh remarketing campaign to engage their audience.

We created a real estate PPC campaign that focused primarily on Facebook and Instagram. Our ads explained the benefits of investing in apartments and provided information about apartment-hotels, like how they operate, where guests come from, and the role of management companies. This renewed real estate ad targeting resulted in a 20% increase in customer interactions and 30K new potential investors, broadening CBRE’s audience base. 

Generate More Real Estate Leads with Powerful PPC Campaigns

PPC for advertising is one of the most effective strategies for client acquisition. It helps you reach clients when they’re ready to buy or sell, and builds your brand on sites like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 

If you’re looking to get started, a PPC agency like Ninja Promo can be an asset for your business. We review real estate digital marketing strategies and brainstorm ways to optimize your ad campaigns. 

Whether it’s overhauling your ad copy, fine-tuning your keyword research, or redesigning landing pages, Ninja Promo is an excellent option for realtors looking to improve the ROI of their PPC campaigns.