There are a lot of moving pieces when it comes to real estate marketing. You’ve got to be on social media, you’ve got to have killer listings, and you need a strong website. But one tactic that is often overlooked is remarketing ads.
Chances are, you’ve been remarketed to before. You know, when you’re innocently browsing the internet and then all of a sudden an ad for the website you were just on or the product you were just looking at pops up? That’s remarketing! Remarketing is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to reach people who have already shown an interest or engaged with your business. And when it comes to real estate, it can be extremely effective.
Think about it – someone visits your website, spends some time looking at listings, and then leaves without taking any further action. A few days later, they see an ad for one of your listings pop up on their Facebook feed or as they’re watching a video on YouTube. It catches their eye and they click on it, which takes them back to your site. This time, they take the plunge and contact you about setting up a showing. See how that works? Remarketing ads are a great way to keep your business top-of-mind with potential clients. In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about remarketing.
How Does Remarketing Work?
When you use remarketing, you’re essentially placing a “cookie” on someone’s computer. This cookie allows you to track when that person visits other websites. Then, if you’re running a remarketing campaign, your ad will follow them around the web, appearing on other sites that they visit. The goal is to remind them of your business and what you have to offer so that when they are ready to buy or sell, they’ll think of you first.
Why Use Remarketing Ads for Your Real Estate Business?
There are several reasons why you should consider using remarketing ads as part of your real estate marketing strategy:
- They’re cost-effective: For the most part, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, so you’re not wasting money on ads that no one sees.
- They’re targeted: You can target people who have already shown an interest in what you do, so you know that your ads are reaching people who are more likely to use your services.
- They’re quite easy to set up: You can use Google Ads, Meta, Microsoft or even LinkedIn Ads to set up your remarketing campaign in just a few minutes. Using a couple of these tools will be extremely effective as it will allow you to create that omnichannel experience. Plus, there are plenty of tutorials and support available if you need help.
- Increase Your conversions
- Stay top of Mind
Types of Remarketing Audiences
Pixel-Based Remarketing
Pixel-based remarketing is the most common type of remarketing. It involves placing a pixel on your website, which is a piece of JavaScript code that tracks people as they browse the web. When someone visits your website, the pixel tracking them will drop a cookie on their browser, which allows you to show them targeted ads when they visit other websites or online platforms. For example, if someone visits your website and looks at a listing but doesn’t contact you, you can use pixel-based remarketing to show them an ad for that listing the next time they’re browsing the internet.
- Website Engagers
- Video Viewers
- Content Downloaders
- Blog Article Readers
- Social Media Page Engagers
List-Based Remarketing
This is based on a list of contact information you’ve collected in your database. In a nutshell, list-based remarketing allows you to target your ads to people who have interacted with your brand and provided their contact details. This could include people who have signed up for your newsletter, attended a webinar, downloaded some gated content or even made a purchase in the past. By targeting these individuals, you can create a more customized and relevant advertising experience that is more likely to lead to conversions. Additionally, customer list remarketing can help to build brand loyalty and customer retention. By staying top of mind with your audience, you can keep them coming back for more. So if you’re looking for a way to take your marketing efforts to the next level, customer list remarketing is definitely worth considering.
Social Media Engagers
- YouTube video viewers
- Social Media likes and follows.
Where can you run the ads?
Google Display Network
Google Ads Display Remarketing allows you to retarget visitors who have visited your website with personalized banner ads while they browse websites that are part of the Google Display Network (GDN). GDN is an ad network that includes billions of websites across thousands of different categories, including news sites, video sites, blogs and e-commerce stores. This is one of the most powerful advertising networks for real estate agents because it allows you to target customers based on their interests and online browsing behavior including whether they’re currently researching properties to buy. This means you can advertise to people who are actively searching for homes or even those who are already looking at real estate listings. You’ll also see better results if you use remarketing lists that include recent visitors to your website or other high-value leads such as clients who have signed up for email alerts or viewed specific properties. The more relevant the list, the better your ads perform!
YouTube Remarketing
YouTube remarketing ads can be effective for a number of reasons. First, they allow you to target a specific audience that is most likely to be interested in your firm or service. Second, they give you the opportunity to present your ad in a format that is more engaging and visually appealing than other types of advertising. Finally, remarketing ads on YouTube can be customized to target specific viewers based on their previous interactions with your brand. As a result, they offer a high degree of flexibility and can be adapted to meet the needs of any business.
You can target specific demographics, interests, and even locations. This allows you to tailor your message to a specific audience, making it more likely that they will take action.
Meta Remarketing (Facebook and Instagram)
Remarketing on Facebook and Instagram for real estate is a highly effective way to reach potential home buyers and sellers. By targeting ads to people who have already visited your website or interacted with your brand (liked Facebook page/followed your Instagram profile), you can have a much higher chance of getting them to take action. And because it is such a large platform, you can reach a huge audience with your campaigns. If you’re not already using this powerful marketing tool, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to help you close more deals.
Email Remarketing
Initially one of the earlier forms (OGs) of remarketing, email remarketing is a great way to keep your business top of mind with your past clients and customers. By sending them periodic emails with relevant information about your business, you can stay connected with them and remind them of the value you provide. And, since email is such a personal form of communication, it’s also a great way to build deeper relationships with your clients and customers. Email remarketing for real estate agents is especially effective, since the real estate market is always changing and people are always looking for new homes. By staying in touch, you can be the first agent they think of when they’re ready to make a move. Email remarketing is easy, affordable, and effective – so there’s no reason not to give it a try!
LinkedIn Remarketing
LinkedIn remarketing allows companies to target ads to users who have previously visited their website. For example, if someone visits your website and then goes on LinkedIn, they might see an ad for your company. LinkedIn remarketing can be a great way to keep your company top-of-mind with potential buyers or sellers. Plus, if you’re a developer or builder looking to attract more brokers for your project, you can layer on company targeting or job title targeting to your remarketing lists. If you’re not using LinkedIn remarketing, you could be missing out on a valuable marketing tool. If you’re looking for a way to take your marketing efforts to the next level, LinkedIn remarketing is well worth considering.
Microsoft Ads Remarketing
Microsoft Audience Network Ads are the best way to reach your audience on the Microsoft family of sites and apps, including MSN, Outlook Live, CBC Sports, Fox Business and more. With their Netflix partnership, this can be a game changer with regards to reach. The two companies have partnered to provide a new advertising solution that will allow advertisers to reach consumers through Netflix’s streaming service.
Google Search Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
RLSAs allow you to create lists of users who have previously visited your website and advertise to them with search ads as they perform searches on google.com or google.ca. This allows you to bring back customers who may have forgotten about your business. For example, they may be searching for a competitor. Here you can have a more tailored messaging to try to get them back to the site.
Retargeting Ad Formats
Banners
Display banners are images that are placed on websites, in apps or within emails. They can be static or animated, and they provide a good way to get your brand in front of people who aren’t actively looking for it. Display banners tend to be more effective than other types of ads because they’re more visible and appear more frequently.
Video
As more people watch videos on their phones, tablets and computers, the popularity of video ads has increased. Video ads are more engaging and give you the opportunity to tell a compelling story about your business. It can be served on video platforms such as YouTube or in social media feeds such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
Remarketing Best Practices for Real Estate
Ensure Your Audience Segments Are Large Enough
The size of your target audience is an important consideration when you’re planning a marketing campaign. If your audience isn’t large enough, you won’t have any impact. But how do you know if it’s big enough? It’s best to have an existing audience of at least 1,000 people before you spend any money on paid advertising. If you’re just starting out and don’t have an existing audience, it’s okay — just know that it will take longer to gain traction with paid advertising.
Tailor your messaging to Your Audience
The key to successful remarketing is to create targeted campaigns that are relevant to the person’s interests and stage in the buying cycle. By doing so, you can increase the chances of conversion and build long-term relationships with your customers. After all, you wouldn’t use the same approach to market to buyers looking for condos as you would to market to house hunters. By taking the time to understand who your target audience is and what they’re looking for, you’ll be able to create more effective marketing campaigns that are more likely to resonate with them. Whatever you do, make sure your messaging is relevant and engaging, and you’re sure to see better results from your remarketing efforts.
Set frequency limits
Ad frequency is the number of times a user sees an ad during a given period of time. Advertisers often want to show their ads as often as possible in order to maximize reach and increase brand awareness. However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. If users see the same ad too many times, they can start to feel annoyed or even resentful. Limiting ad frequency can be a great way to improve the user experience while still getting your message across. By limiting the number of times each user sees your ad, you can avoid over-exposing them and reduce the risk of them becoming annoyed or turned off your service. At the same time, limiting ad frequency can also help to improve click-through rates by making sure that users only see relevant ads. Ultimately, limiting ad frequency is a good way to strike a balance between effective advertising and a positive user experience.
Explore Omnichannel Remarketing to Increase Reach
The goal with omnichannel remarketing is to reach customers wherever they are and remind them of your services. Whether it be across social media, YouTube, email or the display network, each interaction should be consistent and provide value to the potential customer. By providing a consistent message and experience across channels, you can build trust and loyalty with customers. If done correctly, omnichannel remarketing can be a powerful tool for driving leads and sales for your business.
Getting Started
Ensure proper tagging is in place
In order to remarket to users, you first need to ensure that the necessary remarketing tags are in place. Each advertising platform has its own global tag or pixel that can be implemented across the entire site to collect information on user behaviour.
Identify the platforms where you would like to run the ads
As mentioned above, there are several channels where you can run remarketing ads. The channels you use will depend on your goals but 2 of the most popular in the real estate space are Google Ads (Search, Display, YouTube) and Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram). Whichever platform you choose, make sure that you create targeted ads that are relevant to your audience.
Create remarketing lists/audiences
There are several tools where audience segments can be created. This will depend on the type of audiences you would like to create.
- Advertising platforms such as Google, Meta, LinkedIn and Microsoft allow us to create audiences segments based on pages a user visited on our site (visited penthouse page in the past 30 days) or engagements with our social media pages and content (ex: buyer’s guide downloaders, page likes, video views).
- Analytics tools and Data Management Platforms such as Google analytics and Adobe Audience Manager allow us to create more advanced audience segments based on user activity on the website.
- First-Party Customer Data (CRM): we can also upload legally collected customer data such as email lists to our advertising platforms to retarget users.
- Call Tracking Audiences: some call tracking solutions also allow you to create audiences based on certain phrases that may have been spotted during a call. Ex: customer inquired about penthouses but did not yet purchase.
Create compelling ads
Just because someone has already visited your site doesn’t mean they’ll automatically convert when they see your ad. You need to create ads that are relevant and compelling enough to get people to take action. Use a variety of creatives (banners, videos, articles, etc.) to keep your audience engaged.
Create & Launch campaigns
Once all of this is set up, you can proceed to launching you campaigns. And don’t forget to test, test, test. As with any marketing campaign, it’s important to test different elements of your remarketing campaign to see what works best. Try different ad copy, images, and call-to-actions to find out what works best for your audience and your business goals.
