EP 438: Google Ads/PPC for Real Estate Investors – What You Need to Know w/ Brendan Holmes

Want to generate highly motivated seller leads without breaking the bank? When done right, Google Ads (pay-per-click) can be the perfect supplement to a solid marketing strategy, helping you generate leads fast while building long-term lead gen efforts like SEO. Brendan, our in-house Google Ads expert, is here to share: The most common mistakes investors make with PPC ROI, budget & lead expectations How to keep your ads relevant & effective and more! Enjoy! Let us know what you think of the episode – brady@carrot.com Get more content about paid ads at Carrot.com/ads Episode Transcript (This is an automated transcript by robot carrots – please mind the typos 😉) 00:00:00:00 – 00:00:23:06 Brendan Holmes Google ads is how I always related it to two baseball playing baseball through my youth. And our coach always said it’s it’s the little things that can win the game. Yeah. And in Google ads, it’s kind of the same thing. You make these little adjustments and then you can get leads from and those little adjustments for someone just self-managing their campaigns, that that can go a long ways. 00:00:23:06 – 00:00:33:04 Brendan Holmes It’s not necessarily the home runs and Google ads rarely. It’s something major that you did to a campaign that’s going to drive more leads. 00:00:37:27 – 00:00:55:13 Brady Winder Hey, friends, you’re listening to the CarrotCast podcast, where we help investors and agents build businesses of freedom and impact by dialing in your marketing, your online marketing. I’m your host, Brady Winder. And today I have with me my friend, my coworker, PC expert, Mr. Brendan. Holmes What’s up? Brendan? How you doing, man? 00:00:55:13 – 00:00:57:05 Brendan Holmes Hey. Hey. Guess how you doing? 00:00:57:16 – 00:01:16:15 Brady Winder Brendan has year. Let me. Brendan has been accurate since the beginning, you know, with Trevor when this thing started and he he knows carrot customers. He knows carrot members in and out. He knows real estate marketing in and out. And he’s been running PPC campaigns for. And how many members do you think over the years? Ran campaigns for? 00:01:17:29 – 00:01:36:29 Brendan Holmes Hundreds. Yeah, hundreds. It’s kind of funny that I mean, before I recall, you mentioned Kylie as on a call with Kylie talking about Cam paid marketing last week and I got out my binder and this is, this is how I learned that that’s that that was Google ads in 2013. 00:01:37:21 – 00:01:38:11 Brady Winder Yes. 00:01:38:11 – 00:01:49:19 Brendan Holmes And I read almost every every one of those pages to learn about. And now now probably 90% of the ads probably obsolete. And then the other 10% we we kind of still use. 00:01:50:08 – 00:02:01:08 Brady Winder Yeah, that’s awesome. So yeah, you’ve been running PPC, Google, PPC, Google Ads for members for years, since before it was called Google Ads when it was just pay per click goods. 00:02:01:13 – 00:02:04:07 Brendan Holmes Yeah. Yeah. Is that was that’s average. Yeah. 00:02:05:00 – 00:02:26:22 Brady Winder Yeah. Google AdWords it wasn’t even that long ago. So everybody listening and watching, it’s paid ads month at carat. So before you do anything else or I guess after the podcast, go to Care.com slash ads ads and we’ve got a bunch of resources on Facebook ads, on Google ads, YouTube ads, any sort of paid marketing that you want to run to supplement. 00:02:26:22 – 00:02:48:06 Brady Winder You’re also, you know, if you’ve listened this podcast for any length of time, you know, the SEO, we practice what we … Continued

How To Build a High-Converting PPC Landing Page For Real Estate PPC Campaigns (7 Elements With The BIGGEST Impact)

You’re spending a hard-earned marketing budget on your PPC campaigns… Every penny counts. More importantly, every click counts. × × Ready To Get More Leads & Close Your Next Deal? Take Your Business To The Next Level Join the next Challenge The worst thing that can happen is a lot of people click on your PPC ad (costing you money), but none of those people become a lead or turn into cold, hard cash for your business. That would make your PPC campaign a waste of time and money. This is why where you send people (i.e., the landing page) when they click on your ad is so critical. If you send prospects (even motivated sellers) to a low-converting landing page, you might still get some leads, but you won’t get as many as you could (how hard is it to hit the back button and click on your competitor’s website instead?). Sadly, one lost deal could be between $10,000 and $50,000 down the drain, depending on your business model… And that’s not money you’re willing to lose. At Carrot, we’ve generated millions of online leads for real estate investors and agents. During that time, we’ve learned a thing or two about building a high-converting landing page. Let’s talk. What is a landing page for real estate PPC? A landing page is just marketing terminology for the page you send people to in a marketing campaign. In the case of PPC advertising, it’s the page people go to when they click on your ad. For example, if I click on this result… I go to this landing page (this is a Carrot member’s website). The reason that optimizing your landing page is so essential is because it helps determine the effectiveness of your ad campaign. If the page people go to after clicking on your ad is irrelevant, unpersuasive, or even takes too long to load, they won’t stick around and will not become a lead. Now that you know what a landing page is and why it’s important, let’s talk about 7 elements of every landing page that impact conversion. 7 Elements You MUST Have for High-Converting PPC Landing Pages to Maximize Lead Generation High-Converting Element #1: Simple Opt-In Form Every real estate website (agent or investor) at Carrot needs a high-quality, easy-to-fill-out opt-in form. And we don’t just believe that for no reason: it’s science. We’ve run hundreds of A/B tests on our member’s websites to determine whether opt-in forms perform better than a “Call Now” CTA (they do) and what types of forms perform the best. From one test we ran, we found that our member’s sites had almost a 30% conversion rate! Here’s the heatmap from the test… And here’s the data… If you want a high-converting landing page right out of the box, our Carrot sites already have all the elements mentioned in this article baked right in. Or, if you want to build one yourself (no biggie!), here’s what you’ll want for your opt-in form… High-Converting Element #2: Navigation Bar When people click on your PPC ad and go to your website, there’s only one thing you want them to do… That is: give you their information so you can call them, retarget them or add them to your email list. A landing page with a navigation bar can help increase your conversion rate. For real estate investors, a website navigation bar can be an essential tool for increasing leads by making it easier for potential clients to find the information they are looking for and navigate through your website. A clear and intuitive navigation bar can guide visitors to … Continued

Guide to Negative Keywords for Real Estate PPC Plus Free Negative Keyword List for Motivated Sellers

No one likes to waste money! Negative keywords are one of the most underutilized tools PPC advertisers have at their fingertips. They can help you save a budget for the best quality searches when used correctly. We want you to hit the ground running with your campaign quality, so we’ve added 100 negative keywords you can include in your PPC accounts. It will keep your keep ads from showing for words such as “gta” and “paint,” which are sure to accompany some keywords you’re bidding on. ⬇️ Grab a FREE Negative Keyword List for Motivated Sellers ⬇️ Let’s say you’re an investor who’s creating your first Google Ads campaign. You’d like to show up on searches to sell a house. Although, it can be a mistake to advertise for a broad term. Here’s what can happen: Advertiser bids on “sell home” and a searcher comes along and types in “sell home furniture,” looking at the many options to sell their home furniture. Your ad featuring an option to sell their home fast for cash shows. The searcher accidentally clicks your ad, driving up your bill, without any intention of selling you their house. This is a fairly common example. As you’ll discover, from video games to furniture to spiritual statues, lots of search terms represent something that has nothing to do with selling a house fast. What Are Negative Keywords for Real Estate & How Do They Appear In Google Ads? Negative keywords give you an opportunity to block search terms that you don’t want your ad to be shown for. Let’s take a look at the common types of negative keywords that can be added: You can add these negative keywords at the campaign level & ad group level. Campaign level negatives mean those will not appear within an ad group for any keyword. Ad group level means you can set a particular negative keyword for a singular ad group. For the real estate industry, it’s best practice to add negative keywords at the campaign level. Let’s take a look at how negative keywords are often used. More of the traditional use of negative keywords works well for the real estate industry. For example, if you’re looking to capture leads where people are searching looking to sell their house fast without an agent; then you’ll want to block searches for “sell a house with an agent” and “find an agent to sell my house” by adding “agent” to your negative keyword list. *Tip*  You should use Google’s search terms report to find new negative keywords. But, do beware that if you add keywords using this method, Google defaults them as an exact match. How to Build a Strong Negative Keyword List First, if you have a Google or Bing rep, they should be able to help you build lists of negative keywords they use for similar accounts. But you’ll need to ensure these Google or Bing created lists aren’t taking away from your important search phrases. Remember, reps know their products but probably don’t know the industry. The same might be true if you’re having someone manage your account. Next, as with planning any keyword list, you can explore Google Ads Keyword Planner and/or use the Google Suggestion method to see related terms and understand what you might want to weed out. You’ll need to have a Google Ads account to use their tool. For Google Suggestions, search and look at the suggestions below the organic rankings. Here’s an example, Another tool that we use for keyword suggestions is Ubersuggest. This tool is similar to the Google Ads tool, … Continued

[Analysis] 10 Effective Techniques for Creating High Converting PPC for Motivated Sellers Ads 

Based on the Analysis of Over 50 Google Ads Accounts

When it comes to real estate investor PPC for motivated sellers campaigns, there tends to be a lot of emphasis on the quality and content of landing pages to increase conversions. × × Ready To Get More Leads & Close Your Next Deal? Take Your Business To The Next Level Join the next Challenge Your landing page is crazy important, but to get motivated sellers to visit your landing page, you must first persuade them to click on your ad. The best landing page won’t do you a bit of good if a seller doesn’t get to see it.  So how do you make your Google PPC ads stand out from the rest of the clutter on a Google search result page?  Based on the analysis of over 50 Google Ads accounts, we identified the top 10 commonalities with the highest click-through and conversion rates. Here’s a real example of a high click-through (17.39%) high converting motivated seller ad (37.50%)… That little ad has two to three seconds to grab the house seller’s attention after their Google search. You get a small headline and a very short amount of copy to convince the seller your site is worth visiting… and that you can solve their problem. The better your ads perform, the more clicks you’ll get. The Top 3 Google PPC Ads Get 2-6% click-through rates. Whereas ads 4 and below average 1-2% On A Google Search Result Page 10 Techniques for Creating High Converting Motivated Sellers PPC Ads You want to make your ads leap off the page and pull the viewer in. (Like this Carrot member did in his ads) As quickly as possible, you need first to grab their eye; second, show them that you can likely help them, and relay a sense of credibility through the ad to make them feel great about clicking the ad to learn more. Since you only have a few lines and seconds to relay all that, your ad headline and copy need to trigger an instant response. Give motivated sellers a reason to click.  Here are some practical and ethical triggers I use when creating PPC Ads for Real Estate Investors. These triggers have helped to yield an average 5% click-through rate and an 18.2% visitor-to-lead conversion rate across Carrot PPC accounts that I manage. Use this article and our “20 Steps to Optimize Your Google PPC Campaigns” and “How to Tell If My Real Estate PPC Campaign Is Working – Setting Up Conversion Tracking” posts to hone your campaigns. 1. Ask a Question: People naturally interact with questions. Often that sense of curiosity piques our interest, and it creates an “open loop” in our minds to want to find the answer to that question. When asking a question in your ad headline, you’re triggering this curiosity and making your ad appeal to them personally. Here are a couple of ad headline examples where I used a question: Other examples of questions you can pose are… You get the idea. Get creative. 2. If Possible, Use Humor: Sometimes, this is a little harder in the real estate market. People like to laugh. If your ad headline makes them chuckle, they associate your ad with positive emotion. This creates a more receptive message. A way to do that may be… “Is Your House A Total Beater?”Sell As-Is. We’ll Pay For RepairsGet A Fair Cash Offer Todaywww.YOURURLHERE.com 3. Add Credibility Call out a BBB rating or how long you’ve been in business. Increased credibility equals increased persuasiveness of the ad overall and strengthens your brand’s quality. This can lead to a higher click-through rate. 4. … Continued

20 Steps To Optimize Your Real Estate Investor PPC Account

If you’re not prepared, real estate investor PPC can eat your budget faster than Joey Chestnut eats hot dogs on the Fourth of July. You could have the best copy, the perfect landing page, and pinpoint targeting but still be stuck on the hamster wheel. × × Ready To Get More Leads & Close Your Next Deal? Take Your Business To The Next Level Join the next Challenge Sustaining success with real estate investor PPC can be frustratingly complex, and without being able to prove results, you can kiss your ad budget goodbye. Before giving up hope, know that your PPC ads can ALWAYS improve. Our members generated 62.64% MORE Paid Search leads in Q2 2022 over Q2 2021, and 26.12% MORE Paid Search leads over Q1. Whether getting the highest ROAS you’ve gotten in months or stuck on a plateau, there are always ways to improve. A little secret… improvements don’t need to be Herculean efforts.  You can get better results and do less. We’re giving away the essential real estate investor PPC optimization strategies our PPC experts use to manage multiple members and increase lead volumes. Here’s more proof… 70 Google Ads leads in 30 days! 43 Google Ads leads in 30 days. And… 72 Google Ads leads in 30 days! I could keep going and going. We work smarter, not harder. We’ll also tell you when these optimizations should happen so you know exactly how to optimize your real estate investor PPC campaigns and how often. Your account is about to be the healthiest and strongest it’s ever been. What is Real Estate Investor PPC Optimization? Simply, Google PPC optimization real estate investors look at your account data and make changes to ensure optimal performance.  The digital marketing environment changes quickly. The settings and tests that upheld optimal performance last month (or even last week) might be working against optimal performance now. Here’s an example. One of your keywords may have performed well for the first month, but when you look at your data from the second month, you see that it’s now driving up your cost-per-lead (CPL). As part of your optimization regimen, you pause that keyword so your account will focus more on other keywords with lower CPLs. Your optimization time is also when you become more informed about the secondary effects that your current settings, keywords, etc., have on your account. Here’s another example. You have a keyword that’s doing amazingly well in lead volume and CPL, but when you dig into the search terms that your keyword is pulling in, you realize that they’re not relevant to motivated sellers. Suddenly all those unqualified leads that came in last week make more sense. Routine optimization is the best way to ensure you’re pushing your performance in the right direction. The Benefits Of Real Estate Investor PPC Marketing – Why Should You Do It? PPC marketing is one of the first things we do when entering a new market to generate motivated seller, rent-to-own tenant-buyer, or cash buyer leads. How to Optimize Your PPC Campaigns by Carrot Why? Because like the graphic above shows…  We know that PPC marketing can be effective for real estate investors… but you may be asking… “How hard can it be to optimize it? And why do I have to optimize stuff after I get my campaign setup?”. Well… if you’re not tweaking and refining your Google PPC campaigns to cut out the keywords that aren’t turning into leads and continually optimizing to increase your return on investment… you may as well light your money on fire because a non-optimized PPC campaign is doing just that. So let … Continued