[VIDEO] Now is the Time to Double Down on Lead Generation - Here's Why

Increased search traffic and decreased competition continue to drive lower than average lead costs in online real estate advertising. 

CINC clients saw an average decrease of 47% in lead cost from 2019 to 2020. CINC's Client Marketing Team posted record-breaking lead costs in all lead categories including:

• Google Buyer Leads
• Facebook Buyer Leads
• Google Seller Leads

Dan Lott, CINC's Vice President of Client Marketing, and Harry Kierbow, CINC's Senior Director of Paid Social Media Marketing, recapped 2020 and discussed emerging trends for 2021 in online real estate advertising and told agents what they should be doing now to amplify their online marketing efforts.

See the full reply below:

Traditional Trends, Supercharged by New Behaviors

"We're seeing the same seasonal trends we always see, just supercharged by the fact that more people are at home and less companies are competing for ad space," CINC's Kierbow said. This, coupled with CINC's best-in-class ad targeting and optimizations, yielded significant decreases in lead costs across the US and Canada.

CINC clients saw an average decrease of 47% in lead cost from 2019 to 2020. Buyer lead cost decreased in more than 95% of Core-Based Statistical Areas in the US from 2019-2020. Seller lead cost decreased in more than 57% of Core-Based Statistical Areas in the US from 2019-2020. CINC continued to post industry-leading lead cost numbers across the board.

Google buyer leads ended the year with their lowest average 12-month cost per lead ever of $3.82. Google seller leads did the same, coming in at an average cost of $10.01. Facebook buyer lead cost also set a new record at $2.99 per lead across the US and Canada.

Trends Expected to Continue Well Into 2021

What's driving these changes? Larger audiences with more time on their hands to search for homes online as well as increased interest in purchasing a home combined with a decrease in overall competition as many companies have lowered their online lead generation budget or have paused ads completely for the time being.

The charts above show CINC's average Facebook buyer cost per lead and cost per thousand impressions since Q4 of 2019, as well as a year-over-year comparison of January 2020 and January 2021. The expected seasonal fluctuations still occur, however, the ending cost is lower due to the impacts of COVID-19. In short, ad budgets are driving more impressions than ever, which is resulting in increased lead flow. Lead costs are down almost 20% year-over-year in January.

What Should I Do?

Now is the time to double down on online lead generation. CINC recommends realtors diversify spending across multiple sources (Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram) to generate as many high quality leads as possible.

Leads from search engines tend to have a shorter timeframe to buy than leads from social, while social leads carry a higher percentage of valid contact information and lower average cost in most markets. "Diversifying your spend across multiple networks allows you to capture leads across all stages of consideration," said Kierbow. Once captured, the CINC CRM helps nurture these leads until they are ready to purchase.