Keller Williams Realtors Rock
…or One Week with Facebook Social Ads
The recent Facebook Beacon controversy aside (see Mark Zuckerberg’s Mea Culpa) – Facebook’s Social Ads are one of the most fascinating advertising platforms that has been introduced to the Web over the last little while.
When the platform launched, I posited that it could be a very precise way to target real estate advertising (see Marketing Yourself with Facebook Flyers) to specific members of the network, especially if you grouped members through their physical location (neighborhood) or their employer.
Rather than just talking the talk however, I set out over the last week to really walk the walk. I created a handful of specifically targeted ads to promote my FOREM fan page (see Advertising Your Real Estate Business on Facebook) using creative I developed specifically for this campaign – the “I’m a FOREM fan” badge that you can see on the top of the right column of this blog.
The results so far… not too bad.
Baseline for my campaign.
- I set myself a $50 a day budget. Might sound expensive, but remember, Social Ads are Cost-Per-Click so you only pay for the clicks and I never even hit that daily limit.
- I set a $1 per click bid (the minimum is $0.10) so that I would sit higher in the rotation and get more impressions. Again, you only pay for when people click through, so set a bid that you are comfortable paying for but remember if it’s too low you’ll get very few impressions.
Here are my results:
When I created the ads I deliberately targeted people who had identified themselves as working for some of the larger real estate brokerages (I also threw in folks who worked at Zillow, Redfin and Move.com) and targeted the message specifically for each. I made sure that the title of the ad identified the specific company they worked for – the idea being that that would pique their curiosity.
If you review the chart, you’ll see I had the best response from Realtors who work at Keller Williams. Here’s what my ad for KW looked like.
Since I had a pretty high CPC bid, I got a decent amount of daily impressions. My best day was Wednesday, where I got nearly 1500 impressions of the ad across my campaign.
As an advertiser, I benefit somewhat from some residual brand recognition that these impressions generate but since I was trying to promote my Facebook Page, I was really hoping for people to click through the ad and visit the page.
My best day resulted in 7 clicks – not a stellar result, but again I’m only paying for these clicks, so it did help keep the overall cost down.
So, results.
I did see a steady increase over the week in the number of people who identified themselves as “fans” of my FOREM page.
As an aside, Facebook also gives you a nice demographic breakdown of your fans too.
My theory going into this experiment is that people who were curious enough about the ad to click through to see the Facebook page would then probably be compelled to click through and visit the blog itself.
Sure enough, Facebook helped send a trickle of traffic through to FOREM.
Bottom line, if you have a product or service you are trying to reach Realtors with – following a strategy similar to mine might be a good way to put yourself in front of your target market.
Now, if you’re a Realtor, and are trying to reach consumers, you might try experimenting with targeting a message to large employers in your area. Or reaching people in your city who have identified one of their interests as “real estate”.
Remember – the beautiful thing about this platform is that you can be very precise with who you’re targeting, so make sure you take the time to personalize the message to them.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Make sure to follow Inman News on Twitter too!
Interest Rate Maven | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
I’m also a fan of the platform, and created also a page for my company, http://www.ratezip.com Although too early in my experiment to report results, your test is encouraging. Undoubtedly Facebook allows some of the best ad-targeting out there.
andrew | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
targeting consumers in real estate is a tough nut to crack unless you have figured out what works for you personally. I’ve been playing the re ppc game for 7 years now (aggressively) and I am not convinced FB will give Realtors the roi they need to survive or continue to spend money on the platform. Google has the highest roi and it’s still pretty low.
Perhaps it’s too early too tell but I think social networks like FB and myspace and ppc systems don’t really go together.
Time will tell.
David G from Zillow.com | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
Thanks Joel; very interesting analysis. I would love to know how this approach compares to using ads on AR to drive traffic to Forem.
Mariana - Springs Realty Scoop | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
Target Marketing = Yay! I must say that the title of this post is what made me read it, (as I am a KW agent), but am now walking away with a whole new curiosity about Facebook. Thank you!
Joel Burslem | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
@David – Good question! I’ll have to give that a try too.
Damon Pace - Incredible Agent | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
That’s a great analysis. I love the experimentation. I’m sure there is more to dig into here.
I will be giving this a shot soon.
Team Pulskamp | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
Facebook works wonders. We have had several leads from it and like Joel we only have a CPC around $1, yet it rarely ever costs that much due to the way they charge. Oddly enough, we had many clicks on Thanksgiving Day when we ran a Happy Thanksgiving ad. We raised the CPC on this ad to ensure high frequent placement, we have not seen an exact client from that day, but it gets our name out and was something you don’t see often on Facebook. It’s very nice to have such specifics for your marketing budget finally. And not only does it bring in new clients, but we have had a few past clients see the ad and call to say they saw it, another way to stay infront of your clients!
Fizber | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
I liked your article. We here at Fizber have never used Facebook as a way of promotion. And your first article made us think about this. Now after reading the results of your survey we are ready to start. But don’t you think this to be too expensive?
Gainesville Realty | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
You guys rock! This is such a great intro to facebook advertising, thank you! I plan to thoroughly look into face book in the near future, and I will definitely come read this again when I do. Right now I’m experimenting with FaceBook.
Thank you!
Cape Number Plates | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
This is really interesting. Obviously I’ve heard all the news stories about Facebooks new social advertising scheme but never really looked into it (haven’t had the time). However, your results look promising and I think I may make the time to check it out.
Thanks.
Tyler | Dec 7, 2007 | Reply
I’m glad you have had success using Facebook as an avenue of advertising. I remember a year ago Facebook was only open to college students who could care less about what is going on outside of their college campus. Check out our blog at http://www.homezillblog.com!
Tracy | Dec 8, 2007 | Reply
Excellent information and beautifully articulated how to steps!!! YOU rock! If you want to bring the content down a notch to reach more mere mortals, consider adding a parenthetical as to what “impressions” are. It’s an important concept for new advertisers to understand.
Erik Hansen | Dec 8, 2007 | Reply
I have recently joined Facebook and am curious the best ways to benefit from the connections. I have been a Google PPC user for about a year now, and it has been very good to me. This post leaves me wondering if it can truly be a smart place to set up a PPC account. What do you suggest for trying to target local employers? I am in the Orlando area, where there are several large corporations, not to mention the new ones moving in every month! Keller Williams Realtors DO ROCK!! Thanks.
Dee Copeland | Dec 18, 2007 | Reply
I’m a Keller Williams agent here in Austin. I actually saw this ad, clicked, and joined the network. I’ve been using the flyers since then. I’m not tracking the clicks, but it’s gotten some good leads.
Dennis Hearing | Oct 18, 2009 | Reply
Keller Williams agents do rock!
Now the third largest company in the US!
Wait and see how we rock out in New Orleans this February!