If you’ve followed our blog for a while, you may have noticed we’re interested in taking the overwhelm out of the real estate business. When it comes to your digital marketing strategy there’s so much to consider: your content, how best to engage your leads at every level of interest, and the more technical tasks as well. Specifically, managing your Google AdWords accounts and PPC campaigns.
Don’t worry if you aren’t even sure what those letters stand for. PPC (or pay-per-click in the marketing world), refers to an advertising method in which a marketer (you, in this case) selects specific keywords (something like luxury condo or riverfront condo) that are tied to a potential client’s search and a relevant ad you’re running. When their search terms match exactly with the keywords you’ve chosen and they click on your ad, you’ll pay for the click.
While at first this may seem like a waste of time, if managed properly it’s actually a highly effective way to generate new real estate leads. And who doesn’t want more of them?
How it works
Since you only pay for clicks that are the result of interest from your leads, you won’t waste money running campaigns purely for the sake of getting your ads seen. Plus, using specific keywords guarantees interest and ultimately conversion since people are searching for exactly what your business offers.
Unfortunately, there can be problems related to the running and maintenance of PPC campaigns for the average real estate marketer.
Common PPC management problems
Depending on your skills, the amount of time you choose to devote to online advertising and how well you understand PPC, the entire undertaking can end up becoming a more time-consuming process for you. Or worse, one that you never see many positive results from.
Since successful campaigns depend on close monitoring and active tending, they require that you set aside a decent amount of time to manage. And as a real estate agent, that sort of commitment probably doesn’t make much sense within your professional lifestyle, right?
Another common problem with running PPC campaigns is the amount of tech savvy you possess. A lot of Realtors aren’t tech whizzes and may struggle to understand how different platforms work. That’s perfectly ok, but if that describes you, understand the learning curve may be an uphill battle.
The good news? There’s a way around it, and that’s to bring the professionals in. If you’d rather hand your paid advertising duties over to an expert, you’ll likely find you’ve freed some time up in your daily task calendar and given yourself some peace of mind.
When you choose Web4Realty’s team of PPC and online advertising professionals to manage your campaigns, we’ll handle the entire process. From setting up a Google AdWords account, to carefully monitoring your campaigns and adjusting them accordingly, to sending you weekly reports detailing advertising progress.
How you’ll benefit from PPC management assistance
“Wait a minute! I am a competent professional with some technology skills under my belt,” you may be thinking. “I can absolutely run my own advertising campaigns.” To that we say bravo, but just hear us out before you make a firm decision.
Even if you’re the world’s fastest learner, familiarizing yourself with new systems, especially where advertising money is concerned, can be daunting. You’d likely hire help with writing your blog posts or managing your professional calendar if you had the time and resources. Leaning on PPC experts is no different.
The most obvious advantage to receiving help with your PPC strategy is convenience. Once you begin running a campaign you have to carefully and consistently monitor it for best results, rather than just “setting and forgetting.” If someone else who is genuinely familiar with the inner workings of Google AdWords manages your campaigns, not only does it free you up to handle other, more immediate tasks, but they’ll be able to notice trends or suggest improvements you wouldn’t even consider.
Are there any drawbacks?
Let’s say you make the decision to let someone else take the advertising reigns for your business. One of the more crucial aspects of entrusting someone else with your advertising budget is gauging the dependability of that person or company.
It’s not unheard of for unknown business’s only interested in making a buck off of inexperienced marketers to mismanage their campaigns and just generally waste their time and money. Similarly, if you’re skeptical and attempt to setup and run a low-budget ad to test the process out, it’s unlikely that ad will end up having much reach with the audience you’d like to target.
Go with the pros
If you’re thinking about trying your hand at running PPC campaigns as a dynamic facet of your online real estate marketing strategy, understand there’s a very real learning curve and sometimes it’s a better idea to pass certain tasks over to the experts.
When it comes to your business, don’t leave anything up to chance. Especially something as crucial as your ad spend. If you’re ready to generate more qualified leads and drive higher numbers of your targeted audience to your website, reach out to the experts to handle your advertising so you have more time to focus on engaging with your new and existing customers, showing available properties and ensuring your real estate business continues to run smoothly.
