We recently had a BombCast guest who dove into the basics of creating Facebook ads for real estate agents. Justin Stutz ran his own ad agency and consults real estate agents; he really knows his way around Facebook Business Manager. We’re excited to share his bests tips and practices with you, as well as give you some real estate ad ideas!

“Advertising is really as simple as finding the right people and giving them the right message at the right time.” – Justin Stutz

1 Listing Announcements

Do you have a new listing ready to go? This is a great idea for an ad. When you post the listing announcement, add teaser information. The goal is to get the audience to click on your call-to-action button in order to learn more. You could A/B test with different house photos, different videos or different calls-to-action to see what drives the most clicks.

For listing announcements there are a few potential audiences. You could target based on price range. What age demographic or location demographic would most likely have the budget to afford the home? You could also target based on their home ownership status. You are able to target first time home buyers or people who are currently renting.

A while back, we got great advice from Jesse Peters on Listing Videos for our blog post 10 Tips, Insights and Tricks to Make a Killer Listing Video. Jesse uses these videos to do listing announcements on Facebook. You’ll notice he added a “Send Message” button as the call to action in his ad. This is a great way to start conversations with potential clients.

You can also announce your listing with a video tour! Try doing a selfie video of you walking everyone through the home. You can describe the home and tell everyone a story to keep them intrigued. You could also pay professionals to take a high quality tour video of the home. Make sure to add a call-to-action at the end, asking people to visit the listing on your website for more details.

Brian Ladd, one of our Top 50 Real Estate Video Influencers, has some great thoughts and ideas around listing videos! Watch the clip below for a beautiful example of a tour video:

2 Open House Invitations

Drive more traffic to your event with an Open House Invitation. A lot of real estate agents are using Facebook Events. Once you create an event, you have the option to use this event for your ad! In order to do this, you’ll choose “Engagement” as your marketing objective when creating the ad. You’ll then need to select “Event Responses”. Once you get to formatting your ad, you’ll be able to scroll and choose your Open House event!

Just because someone isn’t interested in buying doesn’t mean they aren’t a beneficial connection to have! When you create an audience, target people with the same zip code or people in the same neighborhood. If a neighbor sees the house for sale, they may recommend it to a friend. Or maybe they’ll see you’re doing a killer job with marketing and they’ll keep you in mind for the next time they buy/sell.

Here’s an example of an Open House event on Facebook from the Nathanson Brothers Real Estate Team! You’ll see that people have the option to say they’re interested and receive notifications on the open house. You’ll then have their Facebook contact information.

3 Community Videos

We’ve seen a lot of real estate agents and sales pros killing it with community videos. These not only pique the interest of people outside your sphere, but they establish you as a local expert and show that you are supportive of the community. Make ads with you community videos in order to get more brand/company exposure! When creating your community video ad, choose “Engagement” for your Campaign Objective. You’ll then want to choose “Post Engagement”. The goal of community video ads is to get more comments and connections!

The general town you live in as well as surrounding areas is good for geographic targeting. You can also target based on who you feature in your community videos. Are you highlighting a local yoga studio? A good audience would be their ideal customer – young-middle aged women in the area. Are you highlighting a delicious restaurant downtown? Target people who live downtown and whose interests include food.

We recently met with Real Estate Agent Ginny Lee Deptula on the BombCast and she’s been working hard on her community videos. Watch the clip below for an example of a great community video.

4 Educational Posts

Similarly to the Community Videos, you can use educational blog posts to establish yourself as a local expert! Pick a less known topic in regards to real estate and write a blog post towards that topic. You can create a video or image for the post and then run an ad using that content. Direct people to your website for more information on the topic.

Similar to the community video ad, select an audience that lives in your area. Another option is to target people who are in a stage of life where they may be looking to buy. Target just married couples or people just finishing up their college education. These people may be in a position to buy. You could also target people in the same industry as you if you are looking to become more of an industry leader.

Michael Meier is a pro at quick and compelling educational videos! Here’s an example of an educational content ad that he ran on his facebook page. You’ll notice he includes a great caption and a call-to-action!