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Have you ever wondered if your real estate marketing dollars are being put to good use?
Are the leads you’re getting high-quality?
Understanding Cost Per Lead (CPL) in real estate marketing is fundamental to streamlining promotional strategies. However, determining an accurate cost per lead for real estate takes some number crunching.
With the right CPL benchmarks in place, you can better divide marketing dollars toward campaigns that deliver high-quality prospects at a reasonable cost. Let’s look at what’s involved.
CPL is the total cost marketing your business incurs to get a new lead, which in real estate translates to potential home buyers or sellers asking about your services. The calculation of this figure can be complex, as it must account for the varied channels and campaigns employed.
Real estate professionals may sometimes grapple with attributing leads to the correct campaigns, especially in a multi-touch sales process.
It’s challenging to ensure that the leads generated are qualified and likely to convert into actual sales, thus reflecting the efficiency of their marketing spending.
To determine CPL, you first need to gather key data on your marketing costs and activity, including:
The total dollar amount spent on each marketing campaign for a set period (e.g., monthly)
Number of leads generated from each marketing source/campaign
Number of closed sales from the leads generated
Tracking this data over time provides insights into where your marketing dollars are being spent and the ROI for each channel.
Once you’ve gathered the needed marketing data, you can use a simple formula to calculate the cost per lead:
Cost Per Lead = Total Marketing Costs / Number of Leads Gained
So, for example, if you spent $3,000 last month on AdWords and generated 45 leads, your CPL would be:
$3,000 / 45 leads = $66.67 CPL.
But it’s not always that simple, or our article would end here! Your CPL can wildly vary because of factors like audience targeting and competitiveness.
For example, leads from organic search might have a CPL of $15 each, while paid social leads cost $45 per lead gained.
Seeing these discrepancies lets you shift your budget toward lower-cost, high-performing channels.
You may discover your real estate SEO strategies deliver leads at $20 each, making it a better channel than a paid search. Tracking by channel is key for optimizing marketing spend.
Many real estate professionals face the frustrating problem of heavy spending on lead generation while seeing minimal returns.
What lies behind this issue of high costs and low-quality leads?
Agents and investors often rely on unvetted leads from third-party sites, resulting in poor conversion rates when those leads cannot pan out.
Pay-per-click and social campaigns often target too broadly, wasting ad budget on the wrong audiences.
Weak organic search visibility provides little website traffic and fewer chances to capture prospects.
And without accurate tracking, there’s no visibility into which sources deliver qualified leads that convert.
The combination of these factors leaves real estate professionals stuck with sky-high costs per lead but little revenue growth or return on investment to show for their marketing efforts.
The good news is that optimizing lead generation approaches and leveraging expert help can help overcome these obstacles.
Let’s dig into the root causes behind high CPL and poor lead quality. To improve lead gen and CPL, begin by assessing the following:
What are your current lead generation challenges?
Which marketing channels deliver the best results?
Which marketing channels deliver the worst results?
What skills or resources do you lack to improve lead quality and conversions?
This self-evaluation will identify areas requiring optimization and surface any need for expert help.
Once you pinpoint which marketing channels drive the highest-quality leads at the lowest CPL, you can focus resources and budget on improving those areas.
So, how do you improve your cost per lead? Here are several proven strategies real estate professionals can use to reduce cost per lead:
Audit current pay-per-click campaigns. Include an in-depth analysis of keywords, ad placements, and targeted audiences. Make adjustments to improve ad relevance for motivated seller marketing. Expand reach through a similar audience and lookalike modeling on ad platforms.
Research competitor link-building and on-page optimization for organic search. You can identify gaps and add SEO enhancements, especially around earning backlinks and improving local search visibility.
Optimize website user experience, focusing on page speed, mobile optimization, and creating customized landing pages for geographic focus areas.
Install conversion-focused tools to capture more prospects. Redesign your site navigation to make lead capture forms more prominent. Develop targeted lead magnet offers, such as market reports for buyer and seller personas.
Taking an analytical approach and leveraging expertise to make high-impact changes in marketing initiatives can lower the cost per lead.
Managing digital marketing for real estate services on your own can be overwhelming. Partnering with professionals offers advantages like:
Increased visibility – Experts know how to improve search rankings and ad relevance.
Improved lead quality – Specialists nurture and qualify leads for targeting motivated sellers online.
Cost savings – Targeted ad campaigns reach ideal prospects for less.
Scalability – Marketing teams scale efforts to grow leads.
Higher Real Estate Marketing ROI – Conversions improve with optimized marketing strategies.
Deep analytics – Experts track key metrics like CPL to maximize performance.
Leveraging professional expertise pays dividends for motivated seller marketing and real estate lead generation.
Have you calculated your cost per lead recently?
Do you know which marketing channels deliver the most value? Are you equipped with the expertise needed to lower the cost per lead for real estate and improve lead conversion for real estate agents?
If not, it may be time to partner with a proven real estate marketing agency.
The team at PrimeLead Marketing specializes in generating qualified, motivated seller marketing and leads at a reasonable CPL through customized digital marketing solutions.
Their unique approach delivers tailored strategies to help real estate investors and agents grow businesses, save money, and maximize ROI.
Ready to stop wasting money on marketing? Prime Client Marketing can help you capture more motivated sellers today. Schedule a free consultation to learn how!
We commit to delivering world-class customer service and unparalleled marketing expertise tailored to the unique demands of real estate. With us, you’re not just a client; you’re a partner in a journey towards success.