Real Estate Retargeting Ads: More Leads for Realtors
A potential buyer visits a real estate website, browses a few listings, and then leaves without making contact. This is a common scenario in the industry, where long decision cycles mean buyers and sellers often explore multiple options before taking action. Enter real estate retargeting ads.
Our helpful guide breaks down how retargeting works, why it’s particularly effective in real estate, and how to craft campaigns that bring potential buyers and sellers back to your site.
What Are Real Estate Retargeting Ads?
The challenge for real estate professionals isn’t just attracting traffic, it’s keeping potential clients engaged until they’re ready to make a move. Retargeting ads for real estate offer a strategic way to re-engage these high-intent visitors, keeping your brand top-of-mind and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Unlike traditional ads that cast a wide net, retargeting is precise, delivering tailored messages and imagery to users who have already interacted with your site. When executed well, retargeting ads can significantly improve lead generation and nurture potential clients through the decision-making process.
How Retargeting Ads Work
Effective retargeting relies on tracking technology, often using a pixel or cookie that follows a visitor after they leave your site to wherever else they spend their time online. This allows businesses to show ads to those same visitors as they browse other websites, social media platforms, or even YouTube. For realtors, this means staying in front of potential clients without relying on them to return on their own.
Why Retargeting Ads Matter for Realtors
Like most big ticket items, real estate purchases don’t happen overnight. Buyers explore listings for weeks (sometimes even months) before committing, while sellers often research agents long before listing a property. A well-placed retargeting ad brings them back at the right moment, reminding them of the listings they viewed or prompting them to schedule a consultation.
A strong retargeting strategy also doesn’t just keep your brand in front of prospects: it builds credibility. Retargeting ads ensure that when prospects are finally ready to take action, your name is the one they remember. Seeing a familiar name repeatedly signals reliability, reinforcing that you’re a trusted professional in the real estate market.
Real-World Example
A homebuyer spends time on a realtor’s website browsing properties in a specific neighborhood but leaves without reaching out. Over the next few days, they start seeing ads featuring those same listings, along with a message: “New homes just listed in {Neighborhood}. Schedule a private tour today.” This targeted approach increases the chances of the buyer returning to explore further.
By using retargeting effectively, real estate professionals can create a persistent yet unobtrusive presence, ensuring that when a lead is finally ready to act, they know exactly who to call.
What Platforms Are Best for Real Estate Retargeting Ads?
Retargeting is a strategy, meaning it’s not confined to a single advertising platform. In real estate, where you retarget matters just as much as who you retarget. When it comes to retargeting ads, choosing the right platform can make or break your campaign’s performance. Not every retargeting tool fits every listing, price point, or buyer persona. For example, a luxury condo buyer browsing on LinkedIn doesn’t behave the same way as a first-time homebuyer scrolling through Instagram.
Each platform offers unique advantages based on your audience’s behavior and your campaign goals. Below, we break down the best platforms for retargeting in the real estate space and when to use each.
Facebook & Instagram (Meta) Ads
Facebook and Instagram are highly effective platforms for retargeting in any real estate space. These channels offer strong visual appeal, making them especially valuable for nurturing leads who have already engaged with your listings or website. The format is flexible, whether you’re using single images, carousels, video walkthroughs, or Stories, and it fits naturally into how people consume content during their daily scrolling.
Google Ads: Display & Performance Max Campaigns
Display ads are the go-to for any real estate retargeting because they let you stay in front of prospects long after they’ve left your site. These ads work especially well with visually-driven content like property photos, virtual tours, or branded messaging.
However, Performance Max campaigns are also a great option for brokerages or agents with multiple listings, as these campaigns let Google’s algorithm do the heavy lifting. Performance Max combines Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discover placements ensuring that you reach users across multiple touch points while they browse online.
YouTube Ads
YouTube is another excellent platform for retargeting ads and building brand awareness, and really can leverage the emotional and personal side of real estate. Video helps buyers imagine themselves in a space and builds trust in the agent behind it. YouTube can be highly effective when you have engaging videos to promote, especially for luxury or high-value properties.
Microsoft Ads (Bing)
Microsoft Ads’ audience skews slightly older and more affluent, which may align with many real estate buyers and sellers as the average age of purchasing real estate has increased drastically. Microsoft Ads also has similar campaign types to Google Ads, including Video, Display, and Search, making it a great extension of any retargeting strategy.
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn is not the go-to platform for residential listings or high-volume rentals. However, this platform is ideal for B2B-oriented real estate marketing or higher-ticket B2C decisions involving corporate relocation or executive housing. It can be highly effective for retargeting professionals involved in commercial real estate, real estate investing, property development, or relocation services.
How to Segment Audiences for Higher Conversions
Not all website visitors have the same intent. Some are first-time buyers casually browsing properties, while others are serious sellers looking for an agent. A one-size-fits-all approach to retargeting won’t be as effective as segmenting audiences based on behavior.
Audience Segments for Real Estate Retargeting
- Buyers Who Viewed Listings: These users need follow-up ads featuring the properties they browsed, similar properties, price drop alerts, or a CTA encouraging them to book a tour.
- Sellers Who Visited the ‘Sell Your Home’ Page: Retargeting ads could highlight free home valuation tools or testimonials from past sellers.
- Past Clients and Referrals: Retargeting isn’t just for new leads. Former clients can be reminded of your services for future moves or to send referrals your way.
- Users Who Visited a Contact Page, But Didn’t Convert: These users showed intent, but for some reason stopped short of reaching out. Use ads that provide urgency or incentives by reminding them of the listing they were interested in, offering a virtual tour, or highlighting how quickly homes in that area are selling.
- Location-Based Visitors: Out-of-state users may be relocating or in early research mode. Consider promoting relocation guides, neighborhood amenities, or offer “moving to {city}?” messaging to build trust and local authority.
Example Retargeting Strategy Using Audience Segmentation
A realtor in a competitive market noticed that potential sellers were researching agent services on their website but not reaching out. By running retargeting ads on Google Ads and Meta that showcased success stories with messaging such as “Sold Over Asking in 7 Days!” they saw an increase in seller inquiries.
Create High-Converting Retargeting Ads
Creating high-converting retargeting ads in real estate comes down to relevant messaging, strong creative, and timing. The most effective ads align closely with a user’s previous behavior, whether they browsed a listing, explored seller resources, or started filling out a contact form.
Key Elements of Effective Real Estate Retargeting Ads
When creating retargeting ads, be sure to use high-quality visuals that reflect what the user engaged with and pair them with a clear call to action. Adding urgency, social proof, or limited-time incentives can also help re-engage hesitant prospects.
- Compelling Ad Copy: Address the user’s pain points and offer a solution (for example, “Your Dream Home is Still Available. Let’s Set Up a Tour”).
- Engaging Visuals: High-quality images and videos of homes, personal branding photos, or before-and-after transformations for sellers.
- Strong Call-to-Action (CTA): “Schedule a Showing,” “Claim Your Free Home Valuation,” or “See New Listings in Your Area.”
Timing is also key, so be sure to deliver your ads while interest is still fresh. The goal is to meet people right where they left off and make taking the next step easy and obvious.
A/B Testing for Optimization
Testing different versions of retargeting ads helps identify what resonates best with your audience. Realtors who test ad variations, such as featuring a home’s interior vs. exterior, often find that one performs significantly better than the other. Use these insights to help inform future ad formats and messaging.
Real-World Example
A real estate agent running retargeting ads tested two versions: one with a CTA to “Schedule a Call” and another to “Get a Free Market Analysis.” The market analysis ad saw 40% more engagement, leading to more qualified leads.
Setting Up a Retargeting Strategy Without Wasting Money
Retargeting is effective, but without careful planning, it can quickly drain an advertising budget. Smart targeting and budget control are key.
Budgeting and Targeting Tips
- Prioritize High-Intent Visitors: Focus on users who visited multiple pages or spent a significant amount of time on the site, or those who almost submitted a form.
- Exclude Those Who Have Already Converted: No need to retarget leads who have already scheduled a consultation.
- Adjust Bids Based on Lead Value: A seller lead may be worth more than a casual buyer browsing listings, so bid accordingly.
Avoiding Common Retargeting Mistakes
- Ad Fatigue: Showing the same ad too often can annoy potential leads. Setting frequency caps ensures they don’t feel overwhelmed or frustrated.
- Generic Messaging: Retargeting ads should always feel personal and relevant based on user behavior. Someone who viewed luxury vacation properties should see different messaging than someone looking at starter homes.
Make Retargeting Work for Your Listings
Retargeting is one of the most powerful tools available for realtors looking to turn website visitors into leads. By segmenting audiences, creating compelling ads, and optimizing strategy through testing, real estate professionals can keep their brand top-of-mind and significantly increase conversions.
The key is to stay relevant without being intrusive, providing the right message at the right time to bring potential buyers and sellers back when they’re ready to take action.
How Bytes.co Can Help
Need stronger ad creative? Smarter audience segments? A website that doesn’t leak leads? We can help with all of that. Real estate digital marketing is what we do best, and if you’re ready to see what a better strategy looks like, we’re ready to show you.
