Have you been ignoring one of the cheapest forms of real estate leads because you felt they weren’t worth your time or energy?
Sure, Facebook leads are cheap; so are empty water bottles, candy corn, and piles of loose dirt. If something doesn’t provide value for you, the price doesn’t matter.
Many agents believe that when it comes to real estate leads, Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) leads are a better investment than Facebook leads.
However, Conversion Monster’s research suggests that with consistent long-term follow up, Facebook leads outpace Google PPC in Opportunity Rates.
According to Constant Contact, Facebook real estate leads only cost their customers $2.44/lead. Based on the data Conversion Monster collected about the success rate of those leads, that’s a price point that makes Facebook leads an absolute steal.
The Process
We conducted a study of over 1.5 million leads from Conversion Monster customers of 1-3 years. The leads were split into three categories: Inquiry (Zillow, Realtor.com, etc.), Google PPC, and Facebook. Some of the results were what you would expect, but some were very surprising in terms of which leads were the most effective and which leads turned into hot leads the fastest.
Conversion Monster calls real estate lead registrations in under five minutes and qualifies them. If the lead is determined to be a hot lead*, they are live transferred to an agent, and count as an “opportunity” for the purposes of this research. If they are not a qualified hot lead, they go into a nurturing protocol where we attempt to contact them 76 times (through calls, texts, emails, ringless voicemails) over the next year.
In addition, we nurture leads long term until they are ready to transact. This long-term nurturing system has allowed us to collect considerable data about when leads turn into opportunities and which lead sources are most effective.
*Our process of qualification to a hot lead relies on a prospective buyer/seller answering 6 questions, the most important of which are “Are you ready to buy/sell in the next 6 months?” and “Are you working with another agent?”
The Results
According to the results from 1.5 million+ leads, the Inquiry leads (leads submitted through real estate-specific platforms such as Zillow and Realtor.com) had the highest Opportunity Rate, converting 25.56% of the time. That is an unsurprising result. After all, these are unforced registration leads, creating higher quality opportunities.
The surprising result is that we transferred over 18.26% of the leads as hot opportunities, while the PPC leads were only transferred 14.26% of the time. Facebook leads didn’t just come close or tie the PPC leads, they won comfortably!
Facebook Leads Work in the Short Term and Long Term
That may not be your initial perception of Facebook leads, so here is some more data for you. Based on the 1.5 million lead sample, the Facebook leads performed better than the PPC leads on the first call, with a 5.46% Opportunity Rate vs. the PPC Opportunity Rate of 4.65%.
In fact, when judging by how many calls it took to turn into a hot lead, PPC leads only outperformed Facebook leads on Calls 3-through-5. On every other number of calls, from Call 1-to-30+, the Facebook leads had a higher opportunity rate.
The place where Facebook leads prove to be gold is with consistent and long-term follow up. 22.5% of our Facebook lead conversions became hot leads after five calls were made, which is nearly a quarter of the total hot leads. Five-plus calls is far beyond the 1.5 calls that the average real estate agent makes to a lead.
While Facebook and PPC leads have reasonably similar chances to turn into a hot lead, a strong nurture plan is what makes Facebook leads pull ahead as the superior source.
You’re in it for the long haul when it comes to real estate, and a consistent stream of hot leads is the best way to market-proof your business. Facebook leads, with some persistence and patience, can create a pipeline of leads that pay dividends as far as you’d like to take your business.
