Almost half (46%) of realtors say their highest quality leads come from social media, compared to MLS (30%) and relationship management (26%). And yet, 24% of realtors spend less than $50 a month on lead generation.
But given that 96% of home buyers look for listings online and 80% of sellers contact only one real estate agent before hiring them(!), you should really up that budget.
Relax: you don’t need to spend thousands on ads. You just need to know the real estate Facebook ads formulas that work, and try them for yourself.
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13 great real estate Facebook ad examples
1. Show a floor plan
When I was looking for a house, I had a few specific, deal-breaker layout requirements. I would scroll to the end of a listing’s photos to check the floor plan first, then go back and see the other photos.
Am I weird? Probably. Are there other weirdos like me out there? Definitely.
Floor plan ads aren’t just for new construction projects. Try a Facebook ad about your latest listing’s floor plan, especially if it’s unusual or interesting.
Source: Silversaw on Facebook
Why it works:
- Instantly captures the attention of buyers who know what they want.
- Effective ad format for new construction presales.
2. Call out a pain point
Instead of talking only about the property, try getting super specific for a certain type of buyer or seller. Figure out what their biggest struggle with buying or selling is, then create an offer around that.
This company knows downsizing can be overwhelming and physically demanding for seniors, so they created an all-in-one service for them.
Source: Rosie’s House on Facebook
Why it works:
- Your most successful ads aren’t the ones that reach the most people. They’re the ones that reach the right people.
3. Push your latest listing
Yep, this Facebook ad is exactly what you think it is. Nope, there’s no top secret strategy here: Advertise your latest and/or coolest listing.
Think of it this way: Not every commercial airs during That Big Annual Game. Not every campaign needs to be a potential Oscar nominee, okay?
Go with a single image or carousel ad. Facebook even has a special real estate Facebook ad format for properties. These Facebook ads are the “bread n’ butter” of real estate social marketing.
Source: Guarantee Real Estate on Facebook
Why it works:
- Buyers want to see listings. Especially millennials, who spend about 14 hours a week looking at house listings on social media.
Bonus: How about saving a ton of time advertising your new listings and open houses on Facebook? With Hootsuite, you can easily create paid Facebook ads from your existing Facebook Page posts in minutes.
Check out how to make real estate Facebook ads with Hootsuite:
4. Highlight recently sold listings
For seller’s agents, this is your equivalent of the above real estate Facebook ad example. Feature one recently sold listing, or choose a few examples from the same zip code, and briefly touch on a factor you had to overcome to sell it.
Source: Rick Moore Realtor on Facebook
Why it works:
- Positions you as a neighborhood expert.
- Shows your capabilities, rather than telling.
- Opportunity to show off your problem solving skills for difficult-to-sell listings.
5. Brag (a bit) about awards
Did you hit the top 1% of sales this year? Have you won any other award, like an honorary recognition from your city or community organization?
Use it to (modestly) show off how great you are. Of course, don’t brag too much and risk turning people away. Use your good judgment to figure out where that line should be.
This ad is especially effective with the addition of “2012” because viewers instantly understand the positive connotation of winning this award for over 10 years and form an instant subconscious judgment of, “They must be good.”
Source: Leeds Real Estate on Facebook
Why it works:
- Inspires trust.
- Develops your reputation, especially if the award was specific to a type of property, client, or location.
6. Brag (a bit)
Did your last listing sell in 24 hours? For $100,000 over asking? Within your client’s super tight timeline? Or some other extreme or unusual achievement?
Client testimonials are great, but pointing to real results you’ve achieved are undeniably effective, too.
Source: Umer Farooq on Facebook
Why it works:
- Nothing demonstrates your capabilities better. As the expression goes, “The proof is in the pudding.”
7. Promote a video tour
Video is the new default on social media nowadays, with the popularity of video-first formats like Reels growing 50% year over year.
Facebook knows video ads bring in tons of eyeballs. They constantly add new features to further improve video ad conversion rates. Why? Because the more results you get from ads, the more ads you’ll buy, and the more profit Facebook will make.
Two recent changes are especially powerful for video ads: Making in-feed videos play automatically and the new video views objective. Facebook claims these changes have led to increased reach and lower video ad costs — both good things for you.
Source: Curtus Collins on Facebook
Why it works:
- Video tours capture attention right away.
- Videos the king of the Facebook algorithm.
8. Offer a free home valuation
First-time and experienced sellers both know the market is always changing. Those considering a move may take you up on your offer to appraise their home.
Bonus: Find out how to target your ads super effectively, including to people who may want to move soon, at the end of this article.
Source: Tasha Carnes-Perez on Facebook
Why it works:
- Can be targeted to specific groups of people based on demographics, location, or interests.
- Leads who fill out the form tend to be highly qualified.
9. Post a candid Reel from your latest listing
Polished video tours make effective ads, but you don’t always need a perfectly designed asset. Record yourself walking through a home and talking about your favorite features. Or show off just one part of the house, like the lush backyard oasis on a hot summer day.
Being in front of the camera may feel awkward at first but showing up casually and authentically is important for building your brand, and it’s what people want to see more of.
Source: Home Sale Hardy on Facebook
Why it works:
- The old marketing expression — “People buy from people they know, like, and trust” — is still true. Candid video lets people see your personality.
10. Create a neighborhood guide
If you specialize in a certain city or have several listings in the same neighborhood, create a blog post or page on your website about that area.
Include facts buyers would find interesting, such as the population, average age ranges, any great restaurants or attractions nearby, how walkable it is, and more.
Source: Kathy Zajac Real Estate on Facebook
Why it works:
- Buyers imagine their dream life, thanks to your lively neighborhood description, and see your listings as the way to get there.
- Attracts people already interested in moving there.
- Very effective when combined with advanced location targeting.
11. Promote listings in a specific neighborhood
Facebook’s new properties ad format also allows carousels, so you can feature multiple listings within one ad. You could advertise a group of either luxury or affordable properties aimed at a specific type of buyer lead, or feature several in the same neighborhood.
This is an easy way to target your real estate Facebook ads by location without having to create a dedicated neighborhood guide.
Source: Sheri Dettman & Associates on Facebook
Why it works:
- Highly effective when combined with advanced Facebook ad location targeting.
- Higher chance a buyer will like at least one listing, resulting in clicking through to see it.
12. Share a testimonial
For most people, buying or selling a home is the largest transaction they’ll ever make. That’s probably why 36% of sellers ask friends and family for realtor recommendations.
Sure, your Facebook ad isn’t the same as Aunt Marg saying, “Call Mike!” across the table at family dinner. But simply seeing that someone somewhere was happy with your work goes a long way toward getting strangers to trust you and reach out.
Plus, these ads are easy to make: Collect client testimonials in a document. Create a social media template, swap out the copy, save the image, and upload it as a Facebook ad.
Source: Caleb Wilkerson on Facebook
Why it works:
- Reviews and testimonials are powerful for every business, but especially for “big ticket” services like real estate.
Bonus: Make testimonial ads even easier with Hootsuite’s Canva integration. Pull up your template, customize, and insert it into your post without ever leaving Hootsuite Composer.
You can even choose a template by image size, including Facebook ads:
13. Focus on lifestyle
“This is a house, it has 3 bedrooms, and a roof, and…” Yeah, buyers deep into their search may gloss over the generic details after a few weeks. Listing ads are important, but try changing things up by creating real estate Facebook ads focused on the lifestyle around the home, versus the home itself.
Is it close to Disneyland? Are there 4 coffee shops within walking distance? Are the world’s very best tacos a mere 5 minutes away?! These are the things people care about.
I can almost smell the forest and picture myself dipping my toes in the pond after reading this listing aimed at nature lovers:
Source: Premier Real Estate Services on Facebook
Why it works:
- Allows people to visualize themselves living in that home and neighborhood, taking advantage of those amenities.
Bonus: Get the Facebook advertising cheat sheet for 2022. The free resource includes key audience insights, recommended ad types, and tips for success.
Facebook ads for real estate best practices
Optimize for mobile
Your ads should look great across all devices, but it’s especially important to ensure they’re mobile friendly. 76% of buyers use a mobile device — phone or tablet — to look for listings and agents, with Millennials doing so twice as much as older generations.
First off, ensure you’re using the correct Facebook ad image size. Then, consider mobile behavior.
For example, 85% of mobile users watch videos with the sound off. Ensure you have captions for any spoken content (which also makes your content more accessible), or create video ads that don’t rely on sound to get your point across.
Run A/B tests
As with sales strategies and home staging, trends on social media change, too. Don’t be afraid to try out different types of Facebook ad content, or style of images or videos, to find out what works best for you.
The easiest way to try something new is to A/B test your Facebook ads. Create one ad the way you normally would, then create another version of it with one thing different.
Why just one thing? Because if you change too much at once, and the new ad converts higher than the regular one, that’s great… but you won’t know exactly why the new ad worked so well.
For an A/B test, try changing these things. Remember to test just one at a time.
- The caption copy
- Text in the actual Facebook ad
- Your brand voice
- Visual style or layout
- The call to action
- Who you’re targeting
- Your budget
Check our complete social media A/B testing guide for a step-by-step process to follow.
Track results
How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? Cliché and true.
Tracking your growth over time is vital to figuring out what works to bring in the best results. It’s also motivating as heck to visually see your progress over time.
What should you track? First, the basics:
- Follower count
- Average engagement rate
- Leads
And for Facebook ads, the basics are:
- Impressions
- Reach
- Clicks and/or leads generated
- CPC (cost per click)
- CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)
- ROAS (return on ad spend)
- Conversion rate
Finally, how do you keep track of all this?
You can either remember to log in to Meta Business Suite and click around the various analytics reports to find the numbers you need to know… or find everything you need instantly inside your Hootsuite dashboard.
Hootsuite Analytics brings all your social profiles together (including Facebook ads if you’re an Enterprise user) so you can see an overview of the most important metrics across all your accounts in one place. You can also dive deep into a specific account or create your own custom reports that auto-update 24/7/365 while you’re out serving your clients.
Wondering how often to track your analytics? What each metric means? How to turn analytics numbers into real strategic improvements?
Find out all that and how to incorporate social media analytics into your routine.
Use automation
The best thing social media can do for your business is bring you real estate leads. But the best thing you can do is spend as much time as possible with your clients. Automating your social media tasks allows you to do both.
Think you don’t have time to learn deep Facebook ads strategies, or manage campaigns? Not to worry: Hootsuite does it for you.
Besides planning, scheduling, and publishing all your social media content, Hootsuite can automatically create Facebook ads from your existing content. Yep, this is the absolute easiest way to get started with Facebook ads for real estate.
The Hootsuite Auto Boost feature automatically identifies and boosts posts that meet specific criteria. Check it out, and how to set up automatic Facebook ads in 6 minutes:
If you’re ready to take charge of your own ad campaigns, try Hootsuite Social Advertising. Create custom Facebook ad campaigns — plus Instagram and LinkedIn, too — and see the analytics, ROI, and results of both your organic and paid content together.
Finally: one place to do everything you need to on social media, and instantly see how it’s working. *exhales in tranquility*
Try advanced targeting
If you’re ready to get nerdy, Facebook ad targeting can save you a ton of money. By targeting your ads, you’ll reach less people, but you’ll only be paying to reach the ones you want.
Fair warning: Targeting Facebook ads is tricky if you’re new to social media advertising. If you’re a beginner, I’d recommend using Facebook’s automated targeting options, or let Hootsuite auto-boost your Facebook posts.
Real estate Facebook ad targeting options include:
- Age range
- Gender
- Income
- Location (country, state, or city)
- Behavior targets, such as people interested in or who follow real estate related Facebook Pages, such as Realtor.com, MLS, or many other options
Ready to dive into targeting? Find out how in our complete guide to Facebook advertising.
Hootsuite is a realtor’s BFF with all the content scheduling, publishing, and analytics tools you need combined with automatic Facebook ads and campaign management — across all your social accounts, all in one place.
Get new clients and close more deals with Hootsuite, the #1 social media management tool for real estate agents.