Did you know that 75% of home buyers choose the first realtor they discuss their requirements with? Just getting that first meeting can increase your chances of closing a deal manifold. But how exactly do you get that first meeting?
The answer lies in creating impactful real estate ads that position you as the go-to person for buyers’ needs. With 13.8% of a realtor’s website traffic coming solely from real estate ads, it’s time for you to hop on this bandwagon if you haven’t already started doing so. And the key to converting visitors to paying customers is to create house ads that turn heads and generate leads.
But don’t worry if you’re not the creative type, we’ve got your back. In this guide, we’ll take you through ideas for some of the real estate ads examples to help you launch your next paid ad campaign.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Real estate video ad ideas
Video advertisements are a powerful marketing tool, especially on visual platforms like Instagram where video posts and ads receive 38% more engagement than images. Here are some video ideas for creative real estate ads along with customizable templates that will help you get better leads in no time.
1. Create video introduction ads
If you’re just getting started with your real estate career or if you’re expanding into a new area or city, creating a real estate agent ad where you introduce yourself and your business is an excellent way to put your name out there so people start recognizing you. And creating real estate videos is a great way to make to introduce yourself and stand out from the sea of other potential realtors.
You can then run this intro video as a geo-targeted ad to reach the right people. Ensure that your video intro showcases your name, the locality you work in, your offerings, testimonials if you have them, and your contact details. This will help you get your business out in the public so potential customers start recognizing it.
Here’s an example of an excellent video introduction:
Click here to customize this template
Notice how the ad starts with a picture and the name of the realtor (who). Next, it shows the region (where) that the realtor works in. Next, there’s a list of services (why) they render. The video then has a slide where you can showcase testimonials from previous clients (why) if you have them. Finally, if a viewer likes what they see, they look at your contact information (how) and get in touch. The template answers almost all questions a viewer may have about you as a realtor.
2. Create video listing ads
When you think of listings, you default to picturing an image or a collage of a property’s images, with property and contact details are thrown into a footer. But remember, a ton of your competitors are doing that already. To stand out, you can simply create real estate videos to list your properties. You don’t need to jump through a lot of hoops to create one either. As long as you’ve got the property’s images, you can put them together to create an engaging video and run that as an effective real estate ad.
For instance, here’s what your listing could look like:
Click here to customize this template
Notice how the template states the price, area, and location of the property right off the bat. They are the most important details that people would want to know before looking at the actual property. Then, the template shows the inside of the property image-by-image. Here you can add a short one-liner copy to make it more attractive. Next, you can add a preview of the neighborhood in the template and list out positives about living there. Finally, the template has a slide where you can add your contact details for those who want to see the property in person.
Pro tip: Ensure you don’t use the same format for each listing. Mix things up, try different InVideo templates to create videos that are not only stunning to look at but also help you convert. For instance, we have another template for a listing of a luxury property that you can use to create luxury real estate ads for your property.
3. Advertise your open house events
Open houses are old-school, but they’re still effective in generating new leads… provided people show up. When not enough people know about your open house, it can quickly turn into a snooze fest. The poor turn up at an open house can also be off-putting for potential buyers that did show up. So, what can you do to create real estate ads that work for your open house?
Create immersive houses ads, inviting prospects to your open house. You need to add details about the property and the asking price to your ad. These details are key to a great open house ad. And while they can often appear too much when put on an image ad, a video allows you to spread those details across different frames to make it more digestible. You should also push your open house ads on Facebook to get more traction. Check out this article for some more real estate Facebook ad ideas to grow your brand.
Here’s a template that can help you create an attractive open house video:
Click here to customize this template
The template starts with an image of the property and the details about the open house. It also allows you to add in a few glimpses of the property and some text where you can reveal the pricing, location, area, and other qualities. It’s crisp and quickly provides viewers with the details they need. You can also add your contact at the end in case a viewer has any preliminary questions for you.
Is your business booming? Then you probably have a couple of open houses lined up over the next month. Instead of creating a separate real estate ad for all open houses, you can advertise your open house schedule in a single video ad.
4. Create an instructional video ad
Give your audience a reason to engage with you. Make them the center of your content creation efforts and ad campaigns. That is what makes good real estate ads. Say a potential buyer is considering buying a house. They’re still giving it some thought and have a ton of questions. They see your video ad explaining how to improve your current house’s value with upgrades to get the best price for it. They’re likely to engage with it and ask questions. Even if their question isn’t about upgrades, they’ll be more comfortable reaching out to you with questions and potentially hiring you to buy their new home.
Here’s an example template you can use:
Click here to customize this template
The template starts with your branding and then has five frames where you can add an image or a short video illustrating a tip. You can also add text for each tip while keeping it short and tight. The background track is upbeat, so that should help keep viewers engaged, but if you prefer, you can change the track to your liking.
You can also take a more direct approach to provide value to your audience. You can run real estate ads that guide a buyer or seller about things they can expect while buying or selling a house.
5. Create short buyer’s or seller’s guides
Educate your audience about what they’re proactively looking for. Step into a home buyer’s (or seller’s) shoes for a moment, and try to think about the questions they may have as they assess the possibility of buying a new home. Answering their questions and queries can make for great real estate ads. For instance, your buyer likely wants to know the costs associated with buying a new home before they go ahead and start working towards it. Here’s an example that you can use to educate potential clients about expenses associated with buying their new home:
Click here to customize this template
Notice how the template also talks briefly about each potential expense. This will give your viewers some context, especially if they’re unfamiliar with a certain expense that’s specific to first-time home buyers. However, be sure not to over-explain. Too much text can be bad news for engagement.
6. Create a market update ad
What’s happening in real estate? Is now a good time to buy or sell? What’s the market outlook over 3, 5, or 10 years? Sharing industry updates instills confidence that you’re always on top of what’s happening in the real estate ecosystem. The purpose of these real estate ads isn’t necessarily to generate leads but to establish you as an expert in the area. You can think of them as real estate agent ads instead.
Market updates are especially relevant in a disrupted environment. As the pandemic continues to impact economies, demand and prices fluctuate and make buyers and sellers nervous. Here’s a realtor ad example of what your market update can look like:
Click here to customize this template
The template starts with the month for which you’re sharing an update and the relevant region. Updates are time-sensitive, so this is a good starting point. Next, you add the statistics that give your viewers an overview of the prevailing market conditions. You can also insert some text for giving context if you prefer, but keep it brief. The template ends with a slide that shares your contact information and encourages viewers to speak with you about any real estate questions they may have.
7. Celebrate your wins
People like to work with successful people. They don’t want to try out the new realtor in town, they want someone who knows the market inside out and has the network to sell or find houses as per their needs. So, whether you sold a suburban condo or a beach house, make it known to your audience that you’re making things happen out in the market. Show them that you’re helping your clients buy and sell houses and also showcase that you helped them get a better deal.
If you recently sold a house, then creating a celebratory video is a great real estate agent ads example. Celebrate your win with your audience and here’s a template you can use for your next video ad:
Click here to customize this template
It’s the perfect, crisp template that lets you show your customers' happy faces with a relevant background track. All you need to do is add the images, edit the text, and your new real estate video is good to go.
8. Advertise client testimonials for social proof
Showing your wins goes a long way, but what’s even more impactful is having clients share their experience with your services. Video testimonials are super effective in creating this impact because your audience can get a holistic picture of how your clients feel about you.
To create video testimonials you can reach out to past clients and get them to share a snippet of them speaking about your services or share written testimonials. You can then compile the testimonials to create real estate ads that put the message forward. For instance, this is what your testimonial ad video can look like:
Click here to customize this template
The template lets you add video footage of testimonials. Once you’ve done that, add some supporting text. The special effects and music are already added, but you can change them if you prefer. Hit export and your new real estate is ready to be posted.
However, if you don’t have client footage, you can create a slideshow of your top testimonials for your video ad campaign using the following template:
Click here to customize this template
Instead of videos, this template allows you to add testimonials as text. The testimonials could be from your website or a website like Zillow. The template has all the elements (the star rating, text box, client name, etc.) set up for you so don’t have to take screenshots of the testimonials and use those. The ready-to-use elements ensure design consistency and make your job easier.
9. Create ads around social media trends
From the Vogue Challenge to the Google Earth trend, Tiktok trends come and go by quickly. But while they’re still around, they give you a unique opportunity to grab your audience’s attention with what’s hot. You can use this to your advantage while creating ads.
Such social media ads are likely to give you a lot of traction since it’s something that people are familiar with and thereby more likely to engage with. In most cases, putting together a trendy piece of music or footage would require you to do a lot of leg work. But we’ve got templates that make it a cakewalk.
If you want to get in on new trends and create reels to run on your ad campaign, just use one of our templates, edit the text, and boom! You’ve got your next video ad within minutes. Here’s an example of a trending template that you can easily convert into a compelling real estate ad:
Click here to customize this template
You might want to check the copyright policy on the trending audio track however before you use the video as an ad. In case the trending audio is copyrighted you can go ahead and choose from InVideo’s audio library to find the perfect music for your video.
To get a better understanding of how you can market your real estate business on social media besides creating ads, check out this blog.
Real estate Image Ad Ideas
Video is in. TikTok is unstoppable, YouTube has become a behemoth, and Instagram has revealed its verdict that images are old news and video is the real deal. But does that make image ads useless?
Not entirely.
Yes, stats confirm that video, by and large, reigns supreme in the marketing world. However, that doesn’t make image ads obsolete. As Jason Hsiao explains, the performance of your ad, whether video or image, depends on the content of the image.
“In the end, it turned out that videos don’t always perform best, and images don’t always perform best either. It really depends on the content,” writes Jason.
Don’t rule out image ads, instead work on making them effective. Keep text content to a minimum, clarify the intent by communicating the result of clicking the image to the viewers, and beautify your ads so it pulls attention on a viewer’s busy news feed.
Following are some examples of image-based real estate ads you can take ideas and inspiration from as you create your next image ad.
1. Add a compelling image and copy
Images don’t need a ton of text. And that’s exactly why you need a compelling copy in your caption. The image’s job is to get a viewer’s attention, but the copy will give them a snippet of information they can expect to find on the page they’ll land on after clicking the ad—it’s about matching the intent.
For instance, notice how this real estate ad by Champagne & Parisi Real Estate uses attractive imagery of the property to invoke interest and adds laser-sharp copy to go with:
This brief image ad not only piques the interest of a potential buyer looking for a property, but also gives them almost all of the information they’ll need including the square footage, price, and contact details.
2. Advertise social proof
88% of customers trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations. If you’re not advertising your success, you’re leaving money on the table. When a potential buyer or seller reads a testimonial about how top-notch your services are from someone else, they’re much more likely to feel confident about hiring you as their realtor.
The great thing about testimonials is you can use them across platforms. For instance, if you’ve received a review on Yelp, you can still use it to create a real estate Instagram ad or even a real estate Facebook ad quickly and easily. That’s exactly what one of Joseph Speakman’s real estate ads does:
Take a look at this great real estate Facebook ads example. Joseph took his RateMyAgent review and repurposed it as a Facebook ad for real estate. For a potential buyer based in Columbus viewing this ad, Joseph is now a trustworthy realtor they can turn to for a property transaction or just for some advice.
3. Share tips and tricks
Now, when we talk about tips and tricks, it shouldn’t be something that people can find simply by Googling. Your aim should be to answer a common question that your audience has, but is rather difficult to answer.
Tricky, right? That’s precisely why it’s valuable.
For instance, here’s what Daves Real Property advertised:
Go ahead and try Googling if it’s a good idea to have a ladder for your top kitchen cabinet. No luck? That’s what makes this ad valuable to the audience. When you answer their questions, you’ll earn their trust as an experienced realtor who’s knowledgeable about the industry.
4. Answer why someone should hire you
In most cases, you should keep your image ads low-text. However, sometimes, people like hearing stories. While you still shouldn’t put a ton of illegible text on your images, you can always make good use of the caption.
Your target audience is likely also looking at ads from realtors who you compete with. They’re viewing you and your competitor’s ads because they want to learn something about you before making the first contact. When they see a listing ad, they can’t tell apples from oranges. But you can differentiate yourself through an ad that directly answers why someone should hire you.
For instance, look at how Brad McRae discusses his strategy as well as a story about how his strategy helped a client in his real estate ad:
The image doesn’t tell you much. It’s just Brad standing on the balcony. It’s the caption that steals the show. Now, a lot of people will argue that people won’t read the caption but that’s not the case at all. Captions have been shown to increase the viewership of an ad by 12%.
5. Create educational ads
Another way to establish yourself as an expert is by educating your audience. If you don’t want to make your ad text-heavy, link your ad to a blog post or another resource that discusses a matter at length and add a CTA at the end of the post.
For instance, here’s how Laura McCarthy Properties advertises her real estate business:
She links the ad to a blog that talks about down payment fraud.
Pro Tip: This type of advertising is typically geared towards establishing a brand rather than generating leads. You might not get a ton of calls from this ad, but people will start to recognize you as a trusted realtor and you’ll be top-of-mind when they’re ready to buy or sell.
6. Promote a lead magnet
First-time buyers are often overloaded with information when they’re researching how to buy their first home or piece of real estate. You can use this as an opportunity to drive them towards your business by creating a free resource that answers their questions. This is called a lead magnet.
When you create and promote a lead magnet like Sotheby’s International Realty has done in this ad below, people find it easier to trust you because you’re providing them valuable information for free. Ads with lead magnets typically get higher conversions as well and are mostly used to get sign-ups that you can later use to build a better connection with your prospects.
If you want to help your customers get familiar with the process, publish a guide and advertise it. Add a CTA at the end to let it work as a lead generator. You can also redistribute the buyer’s guide across your marketing channels, including social media.
7. Advertise offers
Got an offer on your services? Spread the word with paid ads. Offers don’t mean much for your business unless they generate revenue. For that to happen, you need to tell your audience you’ve got some attractive offers they might want to check out.
For instance, Sonia Avitia from Woods Bros Realty advertises her offer providing free cleaning service when you list your house with her so it’s ready to sell:
The ad is a great way to generate leads, especially for someone who’s just getting started. You’ll still, of course, need to provide excellent service. But you’ll be able to get your first leads rolling in faster, because hey, who doesn’t like freebies?
Offline Ads
Digital ads are all the rage, but are offline ads gone for good? Well, you still see newspapers saturated with listings, don’t you? Here’s the thing: offline ads are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.
Offline ads are still a preferred method of advertising by many traditional realtors and firms for a variety of reasons. Firstly, in a number of countries across the world, print media still has amongst the widest reach – meaning that it can help you reach potential clients who might not be very active on social media. Plus print still holds certain credibility, which means that many people still trust the listings and ads that come on here more than other mediums.
Following are some offline ad ideas you might want to use for advertising your real estate business.
1. Old-school cool newspaper ads
One of the oldest ways of advertising for realtors, newspapers have been around forever. They still continue to be one of the best ways to advertise your real estate business. The good thing is, you can easily stand out by simply paying for a larger ad.
Think about it for a moment. On Facebook, you might need to jump through some hoops trying to create top-notch content and coming up with a catchy caption. In a newspaper ad, you can still do those things. However, it’s easier to get noticed because you can just pay for more estate on the page.
If you’ve got plenty of listings though, you can even buy a section of the newspaper as Roche Realty does:
2. Go big with billboards
Billboards aren’t the best place for listings, but they’re excellent for branding. If you’re only just getting started in a new area, it’s always a great idea to put your face out there so people know your name and what you do.
The chances of them calling a new realtor by getting their number off a billboard are slim, but a billboard ad isn’t a lead gen tactic, it’s a branding tactic. Your only goal: To get your name out there. Even if you’ve been working in an area for a while, it’s unlikely that everyone there knows you, and that’s where billboards can help.
For instance, here’s a good example of what your billboard could look like:
Notice that the billboard only states the realtor’s name, company, contact, and the fact that she’s a realtor; no listings.
3. Put out flyers
Flyers are a low-cost alternative to tactics billboards, but more importantly, they’re a great way to communicate details about a listing. Don’t take a hands-off approach to design a flyer though. Don’t use a Word template and call it a day. Download a professional-looking template and add graphics to make it engaging & eye-catching.
Be sure to provide all the relevant information that a potential buyer will need to know in order to decide whether they’re interested in the property. Fortunately, flyers allow a lot more room than a Facebook ad so you can add a healthy combination of images and text in there.
Here’s a good example of a flyer designed for a rental listing:
Notice how it puts the most important information at the top in big-sized fonts, but still add three more sections: an overview, details about the property, and the benefits. It answers almost all questions a potential buyer could have, and they’ll finally use the Get in Touch section to give you a call if they’re interested.
4. Personalize your ads with direct mail
It doesn’t get more primitive than direct mail, does it? But this traditional advertising tactic has stood the test of time. It’s a low-cost, no-fuss advertising tactic that allows you to put a tangible piece of advertisement in your potential customer’s hands.
Even though direct mail advertising is considered old-fashioned, people still use yellow papers and postcards to advertise their real estate business. And as it turns out, a USPS study found that 85% of consumers read through their mail, which allows you the unique opportunity to send over a print ad that will get your potential customer’s attention.
However, direct mail doesn’t necessarily have to be fancy. If you’re a new realtor in town, sending a postcard to your audience can be a far more personalized way of saying hi instead of putting yourself on a billboard. Here’s an example of what your postcard could look like:
But don’t be afraid to get creative. Add some comedy or use images generously. Direct mail is more personal, so feel free to show some personality that people would be able to connect with.
Set the Wheels in Motion for Your Real Estate Business
Paid real estate ads can bring an impressive number of leads for your business (read: bury you in leads). However, you need to power through the noise and claim your audience’s attention with creativity to optimize your ROIs. Also, don’t overlook offline ads. There’s great potential in using print ads for your business. Ideally, you’d want to hit the sweet spot between digital and traditional advertising mediums to optimize your real estate ads spend and ROI. It will also allow you to diversify your ad channels and reach a more diverse group of potential customers.
When it’s all said and done, you’re most likely to derive the best ROI from video ads. Create video ads that offer value and are aesthetically appealing. You can always use our real estate video templates to do so. And to learn how you can use our templates you can check out this video and go to our YouTube channel for tips and tricks to ace your video ad creation game.
This post was written by Arjun and edited by Adete from Team InVideo
