PPC Campaign Optimization Tips for Real Estate Advertisers

The real estate market seems to be influenced mainly by two factors: economy and seasonality. For real estate advertisers, this means that sunnier perspectives are ahead. Regarding the economy, the National Association of Realtors just released a new survey, stating that “Existing-home sales continued to recover in the first quarter with gains recorded in 49 states and the District of Columbia, while 22 percent of the available metropolitan areas saw prices rise from a year ago.” (1)

In terms of seasonality, we’re heading into summer, which is traditionally the time when the market picks up. Research Economist Gregg Stratton wrote: “Sales in existing homes tend to spike in warmer months, June through August, and reach their nadir in colder months, December through February. On average, homes sales are approximately 80 percent higher during their peak in August than they are during their January trough.” (2) This seasonal trend is also reflected across all search engines with a strong start in 2011:

(3)

These are convincing arguments why now is the time to optimize your Microsoft adCenter account and review your search and content ads strategies, especially as mortgage rates are staying low, loans are becoming more liquid, and monetary incentives are available for home buyers.

Keyword strategies to help you take advantage of increased real estate traffic

The 10 largest real estate advertisers use a diverse keyword portfolio including campaigns for brand, sales and rentals. Here’s a snapshot which keyword categories drive most impressions and clicks (4):

Brand terms: Less experienced advertisers often neglect their own brand, assuming they appear on top of the organic listings anyway. Not true: A study dating back a few years found that “websites that are listed at the top of the organic search results and the paid listings will triple their click-thru ratio. Three times more people will visit your website if it is listed in both places because there is a "second opinion effect". (5)

Sale & Rental terms: Both the keyword lists for home sales or rentals are essential for any real estate advertisers and combine for more than 50% of all clicks. This is the area where to invest time to build out a robust list of long-tail keywords. Some recommendations can be found here.

Generic terms: Generic terms such as just “homes”, “apartments”, “real estate” are great for driving volume but obviously have low CTR. Still almost one third of all clicks are coming from these terms. They can be very powerful when using geo-targeting.

Localized terms: Most of the larger advertisers run national as well as localized campaigns. The keyword “condos” for example set up nationwide will likely drive a lot of traffic to your site but generate low conversions. But the same keyword used in a targeted state or metro area campaign will reach the right audience in the right place. However, if someone in Alaska is looking for his new home in Florida because of the geo-targeting he won’t see the targeted Florida ad. That’s why a non-targeted nation-wide campaign with localized keywords – in this example “Florida condos” – will reach all searchers regardless of their actual location. Yes, I know it’s a lot of work to set up 50 identical state campaigns, yet you should see great results by making the extra effort.

Foreclosure terms: Last but not least combine your keywords with the term “foreclosure’. Buying a house is typically the biggest investment people make in their lives and houses in foreclosure sell much cheaper. You can attract a significant part of the audience by including these terms, as 10% of all real estate queries contain the word “foreclosure”.

Search Optimization Check List:

Obviously the real estate vertical is highly competitive. When optimizing your account check the bullet points below:

· Place a competitive bid. Highest click volume and best CTR is typically seen in positions 1 to 3.

· When adjusting bids, don’t forget to adjust your monthly or daily budget as well.

· Bid on all match types. If you run on broad only, adding exact and phrase can greatly improve your CTR.

· Run ad copy tests and see what works best. Three ad copies per ad group are recommended to determine which copy performs well.

· Set up regular reports and analyze to identify where you are successful and where you are not profitable. Underperforming keywords and ad copies should be paused.

Increase your reach with Content Ads on Bing and Yahoo’s extended real estate network

People that buy or rent a house typically need a lot of other information: where do I find the best mortgage rate, which attorney should I choose, which moving company fits my needs, are there any storage solutions? By setting up content campaigns you can reach a huge online population that flocks to websites such as MSN Real Estate, Yahoo! Real Estate or syndicated partner sites to find the answers.

MSN Real Estate alone had 5,264 million unique visitors in April 2011 (6). Add another 12.187 million on Yahoo! Real Estate (7) plus all the traffic from high-quality partner sites on the syndicated network and you get an idea of the audience that will potentially see your ads.

Other than in search where your keyword matches the user’s query for Content Ads adCenter analyzes the content of a web page and determines its meaning. It then matches relevant keyword-targeted ads to display on the page.

Content Ads Optimization Check List:

To be successful with content ads your keyword strategy needs to be different than your approach towards search. Here are a few recommendations:

· Separate your content from search campaigns. Both campaign management and reporting will be easier.

· Start with a small keyword list of 50 to 100 keywords, using generic terms. The more your keywords reflect the themes on our publishers’ pages, the higher your chance of displaying there. Please download and review the complimentary keyword list for recommended real estate terms.*

· Ad copy should be more general to catch the attention of potential customers in browsing mode. Focus on making your brand known.

· Content ads have to compete for an average of only four positions (8-10 for search). This means your bid needs to be fairly more aggressive.

· Reporting is fundamentally important to understand which keywords and ad copy performs well. Next to all the reports you know from search for content ads the Publisher Performance report is very useful to determine on which websites you see most success.

Here’s an example what it looks like:

Based on the results you can use the website exclusion tool in adCenter to exclude websites where you do not want your ads to appear. In this case I would exclude the website in the last row, as CTR is very low but costs per click are the highest. Simply go to your campaign settings, enter the appropriate websites and click “Apply”.

Whether you run search and/or content campaigns in the real estate market, one thing should always be remembered: Buying or selling a home are amongst the most nerve-wracking experiences. Taking away some of the angst through a seamless experience on your website will benefit both your business and your clients.

I hope these tips and tricks will help you to successfully compete in the real estate vertical and save you some time, so you can enjoy the summer months ahead.

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* NOTE: Always review  and edit suggested keyword lists for applicability to your own campaigns prior to uploading.  Failure to do so could result in editorial disapprovals, a poor advertiser/user experience or both.

(1) National Association of Realtors Survey, released May 10 2011

(2) Seasonality, Home Sales and Home Prices, December 1 2010

(3) comScore Marketer: Term Profile, January 2010 – March 2011

(4) adCenter Reports, April 2011

(5) Balancing Paid and Organic Search Listings, Search Engine Guide

(6) comScore Media Matrix, April 2011

(7) comScore Media Matrix, April 2011