Lead generation is a critical piece of the puzzle for real estate investors who depend upon transactions.

Without leads, you can’t do deals.

Without deals, you don’t get paid.

It’s just that simple.

Right now, the competition for leads is heating up in a major way. In most big cities, inventory is getting extremely tight. Big investment companies are spending huge dollars to generate seller leads.

So if you’re a little company, how can you compete?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Just keep reading and we’ll tell you more about how to capture huge value from PPC… without spending any time on it.

Here’s 5 Lead Generation Secrets of PPC that Most Real Estate Investors Don’t Understand:

#1 – Google isn’t the only game in town.

Sure, the search giant has become the world’s largest recipient of advertising dollars, and roughly 2/3 of searches happen on Google. We’ve seen their PPC rates growing really fast as investors are buying up the bid rates on their network… but for the most part, investors are ignoring the 1/3 of the traffic that happens across the other networks.

When we help clients generate leads, we’re reaching across 99% of the places that people search. Often we find that the cost per click is way lower on non-Google networks, and in some locations the cost savings per lead is big.

#2 – Beware your bidding tool.

Investors who are bidding thru AdWords (and other tools like it) are often just throwing money away in unexpected places. Let’s be realistic here.

Did Google get to be the world’s largest advertiser by designing a tool that helps you save money, or one that makes them money?

I’m not accusing them of any kind of fraud, just pointing out that when you use the bidding tool that’s designed by the advertiser, you should expect to pay more. Good PPC management will pay for itself many times over – and bidding software is a key piece of PPC management.

If you choose your bidding tool well, you’ll be able to get higher Value per Conversion. That’s a metric that most investors don’t consider – but they should. A good bidding tool is an important piece of the PPC puzzle.

#3 – Even the best software doesn’t make good decisions.

Too many investors make a huge mistake with PPC: They set it and forget it.

I’m sure Google loves this… they must make a huge amount off of campaigns that aren’t continually adjusted. We constantly find new ways to improve our results for our PPC Service – constant improvement is incredibly important to us, so we don’t ever take a passive approach to anything… including PPC.

PPC is one of those areas of life where a little healthy skepticism is a good thing. I’ve been in marketing and real estate for going on two decades, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned – it’s that you can’t always trust what people tell you when there’s money involved.

If you blindly trust that Google’s software is helping you optimize your ad costs, then you’re probably wasting a lot of money on other forms of marketing too.

On PPC, you’ll definitely get the best results by taking a proactive approach to managing your campaigns. That can be time consuming and confusing, especially when you’ve got a million other aspects of your business demanding your attention. .

#4 – Quality ads convey your competitive advantage.

What if you could change your ad and double its conversion rate?

You’d get twice as many leads from the same ad – just by improving the quality.

So what’s gonna improve the quality of your ads?

First, make sure that your ad is specific so you’re not getting the wrong kind of traffic. “Get a Cash Offer Now” is compelling, but do you want people who need to sell a car clicking on your ad (and costing you money)?

Second, try to differentiate yourself. Everyone seems to be saying “we buy houses” – can you deliver a cash offer in minutes? Are you local and family owned? Are you an Expert Community Resource?

Figuring out how to set yourself apart from your competition is one of the most important things that any business owner can do – and it heavily relates to your content marketing strategy.

For example, we know that most companies aren’t focused on data-driven lead generation for real estate investors. Lots of companies are great at selling marketing products to small businesses owners, and they’ve just relabelled existing website templates and changed some titles to make them “built for real estate investors”. So be careful which company you go with.

What’s your competitive advantage, and how can you use it to improve the quality of your ads?

#5 – PPC results depend upon conversion.

Too often real estate investors will dump a lot of money into a PPC campaign without getting results, and they don’t know why. They’ll even tell other investors that PPC is a waste of money, instead of figuring out how to improve.

PPC is just a targeted source of traffic – in order to become a lead, you have to send that traffic to a page that converts well. There’s a lot of people out there who say that you can’t send a PPC campaign to a home page, that it’s gotta go to a lead page… and that’s not necessarily true. We’ve seen results with both, depending on the type of lead.

What’s critical is that the ad matches the offer.

For example, lots of high-traffic foreclosure keywords are informational (they’re not looking to get a cash offer), so it makes sense to connect a foreclosure keyword to an offer of a Free Report.

Just make sure that you’re constantly testing to improve your conversion rates. Never give up, just focus on getting better. 🙂

PPC certainly isn’t the only form of lead generation that’s out there, and it’s not the cheapest, either.

Costs right now are hovering somewhere around $40-80 per quality lead in most competitive markets, and cheaper in those that are off the beaten path. You can usually get leads for free from Craigslist, if you know how to work it right.