Real Estate Industry Advertising Benchmarks for 2022
Not sure where to start with online advertising? Or, if you’re running ads, how can you tell if your campaigns are dialed up to ELEVEN—or falling flat?
We’re here to help educate you on some of the terms and benchmarks around online advertising so you can make your message “one louder” and set your online presence apart from the crowd.
Defining the Benchmark Terms
If you’re running real estate online advertising campaigns and want to know if you’re on track with the competition, look at industry benchmarks to answer the following questions:
- What’s a good conversion rate for real estate advertising?
- What’s the average click-through rate for real estate ads?
- What’s a good cost per lead for real estate advertising?
Here, we’re providing industry-average metrics for search, display and social ads across four key real estate vertical subcategories:
Click-Through Rate: CTR is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown. Clicks ÷ impressions = CTR. For example, if you had 5 clicks and 100 impressions, then your CTR would be 5%.
Cost Per Lead: Cost per lead (also known as cost per action, cost per conversion, or cost per acquisition) tells you how much you spent in order to get someone to complete a desired action (fill out a form, call you, or make a purchase).
Conversion Rate: While cost per lead measures how much you SPENT to get someone who clicked on your ad to contact you in some way, conversion rate tells you just how many people who clicked on your ad actually converted (filled out a form, called you, or made a purchase).
Cost Per Click: CPC bidding means that you pay for each click on your ads. For CPC bidding campaigns, you set a maximum cost-per-click bid (or simply “max. CPC”) that’s the highest amount that you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad.
1. Benchmarks for Search Ads (Google Search Results)
With a high average click-through rate across all subcategories and a low average cost per lead, the data shows that paid search is a winning advertising strategy for the real estate industry.
Average Click-Through Rate: 3.71%
Average Cost Per Lead: $75.94
Average Conversion Rate: 3.93%
Average Cost Per Click: $1.17
Average Monthly Spend: $1,212
2. Benchmarks for Display Ads (Image or Banner Ads)
Display advertising is a natural fit for real estate industry businesses looking to increase awareness with potential buyers or renters in their areas. Because display advertising is a top-of-funnel strategy focused on getting your business in front of people across the web and less about driving leads, it doesn’t typically have the highest conversion rates or click-through rates.
Average Click-Through Rate: 1.08%
Average Cost Per Lead: $84.77
Average Conversion Rate: 0.80%
Average Cost Per Click: $5.05
Average Monthly Spend: $500
3. Benchmarks for Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube is a highly effective strategy for real estate. Just ask the 77% of real estate agents who use social media as part of their marketing—or the almost 50% who say social media results in their highest-quality leads.
Average Click-Through Rate: 2.03%
Average Cost Per Lead: $46.53
Average Conversion Rate: 10.68%
Average Cost Per Click: $0.82
Average Monthly Spend: $750
Download the Lead Calculator
If you want to understand the correlation between how much you spend and expected leads based on industry-standard benchmarks, download our Lead Calculator.
Want to learn more about online advertising and how it can help your business? Give us a call.
Data Sources
This data was pulled from a sample of 2,690 North American-based LOCALiQ client accounts in the real estate vertical who were running search advertising, display advertising, and/or social media advertising between March 1, 2020 and April 25, 2021. Each subcategory includes at minimum 10 unique active clients. “Averages” are technically median figures to account for outliers. All currency values are posted in USD.
