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Online lead generation - my experience so far

JimWhitelaw

JimWhitelaw

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I`ve been running an online-only ad campaign to generate leads from motivated sellers. I thought I`d take a few moments to share what I`ve experienced so far. Here`s a quick rundown on what I`ve done and what`s been working.

I had my house buying site (http://mrhousebuyer.ca) ready before the LeGrand seminar and started promoting it in earnest shortly after. I`m running ads on facebook as well as keyword ads with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft ad networks. The ads and keywords are almost exactly the same. After about two weeks, I`m starting to see some patterns emerge in the campaigns.

  • Facebook - Clickthru rate of 0.011%, 305 clicks @ $1.07 ea.
  • Google - Clickthru rate 0.56%, 13 clicks @ $3.49 ea.
  • Yahoo - Clickthru of 2.12%, 11 clicks @ $3.39 ea.
  • Microsoft - Clickthru of 1.1%, 6 clicks @ $0.74 ea.
    From that, I`ve received 11 leads (forms filled by sellers). Most are suspects so far, one is worth some followup. So I`ve spent just over $400 on ads for those 11 leads. ($400 will send out about 250 yellow letters, right? 11 leads from 250 letters would be a 4.4% response rate, perhaps a little low for that type of campaign).

    Some thoughts on my results to date:
  • The Google and Yahoo advertising looks way too expensive to me. I`m not an expert on keyword advertising, but those costs per click seem out of line. Not sure how to fix that. If I bid lower, my ad position drops and so does the clickthru.The overall numbers are very low. Part of that is that all of the campaigns are targeted to a specific small locale (Alberta) where possible - so I`m not advertising to an audience of billions to start with.The number of daily impressions on Facebook peaks during the week and falls off dramatically on the weekends. (This tends to support a theory I have that Facebook`s user base is mostly made up of people stealing time from their employers. "Checking my facebook" at work is the new "taking a smoke break" except for smokers, who probably do both. But that`s another topic.
    )Interestingly, the number of clicks from Facebook stays the same on the weekends - much higher clickthru rate on weekends than weekdays.I`m starting to see more organic Google search traffic on the site - that is, visitors that found the site because it came up in Google search results, not because they clicked on my ad. That`s good, because it`s free and I`ve done essentially nothing to optimize the site other than try not to commit any sins that would get the site punted from search results.
I think the next step should be to put some referral and conversion tracking in place so I can see which referrers are providing the highest quality of visitors. ie., Do more people coming via Google ads fill out the form than from Yahoo or FB? If so, they might be worth the premium cost. I`ll tune things a little bit, keep at it and report again in a while.

My main motivation for doing this is that once it`s up and running properly, it can operate passively. I don`t need to -DO- anything but wait for the lead emails to come in. I suspect that a well run online campaign could be more cost-effective than a yellow letter campaign, but I`m not seeing that yet. I don`t intend to do only online advertising, but this is where I wanted to start.

Any comments, suggestions or advice?
 
A company called me about my website claiming that I will be at the top 3 ad, and won`t pay per click. They have a monthly plan. I don`t know how true is these guys are offering. But it seems it`s better than paying per click at $3.00.
Also I would suggest to spent a solid couple hundred for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), this will be cheaper in the long run.

Good Luck

QUOTE (JimWhitelaw @ Nov 19 2009, 12:18 AM) I`ve been running an online-only ad campaign to generate leads from motivated sellers. I thought I`d take a few moments to share what I`ve experienced so far. Here`s a quick rundown on what I`ve done and what`s been working.

I had my house buying site (http://mrhousebuyer.ca) ready before the LeGrand seminar and started promoting it in earnest shortly after. I`m running ads on facebook as well as keyword ads with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft ad networks. The ads and keywords are almost exactly the same. After about two weeks, I`m starting to see some patterns emerge in the campaigns.

  • Facebook - Clickthru rate of 0.011%, 305 clicks @ $1.07 ea.
  • Google - Clickthru rate 0.56%, 13 clicks @ $3.49 ea.
  • Yahoo - Clickthru of 2.12%, 11 clicks @ $3.39 ea.
  • Microsoft - Clickthru of 1.1%, 6 clicks @ $0.74 ea.
    From that, I`ve received 11 leads (forms filled by sellers). Most are suspects so far, one is worth some followup. So I`ve spent just over $400 on ads for those 11 leads. ($400 will send out about 250 yellow letters, right? 11 leads from 250 letters would be a 4.4% response rate, perhaps a little low for that type of campaign).

    Some thoughts on my results to date:
  • The Google and Yahoo advertising looks way too expensive to me. I`m not an expert on keyword advertising, but those costs per click seem out of line. Not sure how to fix that. If I bid lower, my ad position drops and so does the clickthru.The overall numbers are very low. Part of that is that all of the campaigns are targeted to a specific small locale (Alberta) where possible - so I`m not advertising to an audience of billions to start with.The number of daily impressions on Facebook peaks during the week and falls off dramatically on the weekends. (This tends to support a theory I have that Facebook`s user base is mostly made up of people stealing time from their employers. "Checking my facebook" at work is the new "taking a smoke break" except for smokers, who probably do both. But that`s another topic.
    )Interestingly, the number of clicks from Facebook stays the same on the weekends - much higher clickthru rate on weekends than weekdays.I`m starting to see more organic Google search traffic on the site - that is, visitors that found the site because it came up in Google search results, not because they clicked on my ad. That`s good, because it`s free and I`ve done essentially nothing to optimize the site other than try not to commit any sins that would get the site punted from search results.
I think the next step should be to put some referral and conversion tracking in place so I can see which referrers are providing the highest quality of visitors. ie., Do more people coming via Google ads fill out the form than from Yahoo or FB? If so, they might be worth the premium cost. I`ll tune things a little bit, keep at it and report again in a while.

My main motivation for doing this is that once it`s up and running properly, it can operate passively. I don`t need to -DO- anything but wait for the lead emails to come in. I suspect that a well run online campaign could be more cost-effective than a yellow letter campaign, but I`m not seeing that yet. I don`t intend to do only online advertising, but this is where I wanted to start.

Any comments, suggestions or advice?
 
Jim, great feedback for the forum members!I am glad to see that you are drilling down with respect to your marketing. I had only just communicated the importance of doing this with another REIN member yesterday.

To cut a long story short, I said..."Know Your Numbers".

If you track your marketing effectively, you should know EXACTLY what your marketing costs are for each lead you generate, and for each property you transact on.

Just because the phone rings a 1000 times, it does NOT mean your marketing campaign is effective. Its how many deals you actually transact on that REALLY counts!



QUOTE (JimWhitelaw @ Nov 19 2009, 12:18 AM) I`ve been running an online-only ad campaign to generate leads from motivated sellers. I thought I`d take a few moments to share what I`ve experienced so far. Here`s a quick rundown on what I`ve done and what`s been working.

I had my house buying site (http://mrhousebuyer.ca) ready before the LeGrand seminar and started promoting it in earnest shortly after. I`m running ads on facebook as well as keyword ads with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft ad networks. The ads and keywords are almost exactly the same. After about two weeks, I`m starting to see some patterns emerge in the campaigns.

  • Facebook - Clickthru rate of 0.011%, 305 clicks @ $1.07 ea.
  • Google - Clickthru rate 0.56%, 13 clicks @ $3.49 ea.
  • Yahoo - Clickthru of 2.12%, 11 clicks @ $3.39 ea.
  • Microsoft - Clickthru of 1.1%, 6 clicks @ $0.74 ea.
    From that, I`ve received 11 leads (forms filled by sellers). Most are suspects so far, one is worth some followup. So I`ve spent just over $400 on ads for those 11 leads. ($400 will send out about 250 yellow letters, right? 11 leads from 250 letters would be a 4.4% response rate, perhaps a little low for that type of campaign).

    Some thoughts on my results to date:
  • The Google and Yahoo advertising looks way too expensive to me. I`m not an expert on keyword advertising, but those costs per click seem out of line. Not sure how to fix that. If I bid lower, my ad position drops and so does the clickthru.The overall numbers are very low. Part of that is that all of the campaigns are targeted to a specific small locale (Alberta) where possible - so I`m not advertising to an audience of billions to start with.The number of daily impressions on Facebook peaks during the week and falls off dramatically on the weekends. (This tends to support a theory I have that Facebook`s user base is mostly made up of people stealing time from their employers. "Checking my facebook" at work is the new "taking a smoke break" except for smokers, who probably do both. But that`s another topic.
    )Interestingly, the number of clicks from Facebook stays the same on the weekends - much higher clickthru rate on weekends than weekdays.I`m starting to see more organic Google search traffic on the site - that is, visitors that found the site because it came up in Google search results, not because they clicked on my ad. That`s good, because it`s free and I`ve done essentially nothing to optimize the site other than try not to commit any sins that would get the site punted from search results.
I think the next step should be to put some referral and conversion tracking in place so I can see which referrers are providing the highest quality of visitors. ie., Do more people coming via Google ads fill out the form than from Yahoo or FB? If so, they might be worth the premium cost. I`ll tune things a little bit, keep at it and report again in a while.

My main motivation for doing this is that once it`s up and running properly, it can operate passively. I don`t need to -DO- anything but wait for the lead emails to come in. I suspect that a well run online campaign could be more cost-effective than a yellow letter campaign, but I`m not seeing that yet. I don`t intend to do only online advertising, but this is where I wanted to start.

Any comments, suggestions or advice?
 
Hey Jim,

Thanks for sharing that info!

On a related topic (advertising) - I just had the Calgary Herald refuse to run a classified ad I had submitted (for paper and online).

I sent in a short 4-line classified ad to place in the "Homes for Sale" section to build my buyer`s list for Lease Option home buyers (Seller Financing, No Bank qualiifying, Call me, etc.). The Calgary Herald emailed me back saying "we would not run the ad in our newspaper as it is direct competition to our business."

....Huh? I guess they only want ads from Realtors? In another section of the Calgary Herald they had a big ad promoting advertising homes for sale in their Real Estate Marketplace, but that ad had a big banner "Attention Realtors Only!"

I think newspaper classifieds are losing market share to online competitors "big time" - now I see why.

On another advertising topic - I haven`t seen anyone comment on it yet, but a recent article reported that Canada`s Competition Bureau has asked the Canadian Real Estate Association to loosen it`s restrictive access to the MLS system. This is huge news!! It could mean lower realtor commissions, easier access to use MLS by using discount brokers, and negotiations direct with sellers. This could be a major shake up in that part of the industry.
 
QUOTE (ChrisDavies @ Nov 20 2009, 02:37 AM) Since this seems like a good thread to ask (and I apologize for hijacking the thread), would people be interested in a free webinar to cover some of these topics? What else would you want to see covered?

Hi Chris, thanks for the input. Yes, I`m using Google Analytics. The site isn`t a canned site, I built it with wordpress, so should be easy to alter for tracking. What do you mean by a "lean" campaign? I`d definitely be interested in a webinar on these topics. I started doing web dev in `94 and owned a hosting company till about 2003. Since then I`ve been in software/project management and the video game industry. The tech doesn`t scare me, but most of my web skills are solidly grounded in web 1.0.
 
QUOTE (ChrisDavies @ Nov 20 2009, 04:37 AM) Since this seems like a good thread to ask (and I apologize for hijacking the thread), would people be interested in a free webinar to cover some of these topics? What else would you want to see covered?

Hi Chris;

I would definitly be interested in a webinar. I`m probably like most people, a lot of this is new to me and I need an intro to the concepts first more than anything right now. How does Google adwords actually work on a basic level. What`s the difference between optimizing your website for Google adwords and optimizing it to come up at the top on the basic google search and how it`s done basically. That kind of stuff.

May I suggest a "primer" webinar for newbies followed by a more advanced webinar for people who are already dabbling in it. Or maybe point us newbies to a really good compact online FAQ write up that gets us up to speed on the basics of web pages and Google hits/adwords.

Thanks;
John Soucie
 
Consider the thread successfully hijacked


We would be interested in the "noob" version of webinar that John mentioned just above - I think for Lynda and me one of the reasons we have back-burnered web site development and implementation is because it is SO vast and new to us, and I believe in the Do it once, Do it right motto (with minor tweaking only as required), vs. the Fire! Aim! Ready! method.

We talk at my work side about impressions and click throughs etc, but I have little understanding of it....

Jim W with your web experience, thanks for sharing, and it appears even then there are questions...

Looking forward to following this thread!


Thanks
Neill
 
Hi,

Interesting thread. I`m also interested in a webinar on the basics of this topic. Someone is developing a site for me right now however the more I get into it the more I fear I`m guilty of the Fire. Aim Ready method.

Thanks gk


QUOTE (neill @ Nov 22 2009, 12:32 PM) Consider the thread successfully hijacked


We would be interested in the "noob" version of webinar that John mentioned just above - I think for Lynda and me one of the reasons we have back-burnered web site development and implementation is because it is SO vast and new to us, and I believe in the Do it once, Do it right motto (with minor tweaking only as required), vs. the Fire! Aim! Ready! method.

We talk at my work side about impressions and click throughs etc, but I have little understanding of it....

Jim W with your web experience, thanks for sharing, and it appears even then there are questions...

Looking forward to following this thread!


Thanks
Neill
 
One of the mistakes people usually make is they create a website for their business that describes what they do on various pages, then they advertise it on adwords etc... These services try to keep the ads relevant to searchers while still making money so if they determine your site is more relevant your per click expense drops, if you are less relevant then it costs a lot more... The problem for us is search engine`s are not as intelligent as humans and so while they usually know when words are related (like pasta is related to spaghetti) I don`t believe they can draw the connection for a site saying "We Buy Houses" to the search term "Calgary Real Estate" which is obviously location specific and only vaguely connected to the word "houses"

What you need to do to bring your costs down is create landing pages that give your message but are worded to target your search terms without appearing to be written solely for the search engines... This page will act as a funnel to drive your traffic to your home page or other relevant page on your main website.
 
jseib makes a good point about the semantics of how people search when they`re in the types of situations you`re aiming for.

There`s a lot of keyword research required, and thinking about what it must feel like when you experience their problems. What`s it like when you take out that third mortgage from a pay-day loan company? When they start chasing you for payments? Get turned down for a 4th?

Is anyone trying display advertising beyond Facebook?
 
QUOTE (jseib @ Nov 25 2009, 06:58 AM) One of the mistakes people usually make is they create a website for their business that describes what they do on various pages, then they advertise it on adwords etc... These services try to keep the ads relevant to searchers while still making money so if they determine your site is more relevant your per click expense drops, if you are less relevant then it costs a lot more... The problem for us is search engine`s are not as intelligent as humans and so while they usually know when words are related (like pasta is related to spaghetti) I don`t believe they can draw the connection for a site saying "We Buy Houses" to the search term "Calgary Real Estate" which is obviously location specific and only vaguely connected to the word "houses"

What you need to do to bring your costs down is create landing pages that give your message but are worded to target your search terms without appearing to be written solely for the search engines... This page will act as a funnel to drive your traffic to your home page or other relevant page on your main website.

Wow, looking forward to Chris` webinar this Sun - I got as far as half-way through the first sentence, and then said "Whuuuuuuuuuut?"

How many web-page designers out there understand this side of things - not many, based on the opening sentence (the only part I do understand....
)
 
Update Dec 02/2009

Here`s some updated data on my campaigns. Over the past month, I`ve averaged about one lead every other day from the online campaigns. I have incorporated a few changes based on information from Chris Davies` webinar last Sunday and I`ve implemented conversion tracking so I can see which campaigns are bringing in the most valuable visitors. The new data for the past two weeks (only, not cumulative) looks like this:
  • Facebook - Clickthru rate of 0.01%, 237 clicks @ $1.27 ea.
  • Google - Clickthru rate 0.23%, 33 clicks @ $3.28 ea.
  • Yahoo - Clickthru of 1.88%, 10 clicks @ $3.46 ea.
  • Microsoft - Clickthru of 1.45%, 7 clicks @ $0.81 ea.So that`s not a huge change from the previous two weeks. From that, I`ve had eight people submit info to me. A couple have been worth following up on, a couple were trash (realtors plugging their listed properties - why I don`t know, surely they have more cost-effective uses for their time...) and the others were merely suspects.

    I`ve only had conversion tracking running for less than a week, so that data probably isn`t reliable yet, but here`s the data so far:
    • Facebook - Conversion rate: 1.09%Google - Conversion rate: 25%Yahoo - Conversion rate: 0%Microsoft - no data
    Now this I find interesting and I`ll be watching it closely. What this tells me is that the $300 spent on Facebook advertising, although it`s bringing in lots of visitors, is nearly ten times as expensive as the $108 spent on Google ads in terms of generating a real lead. I`m getting millions of impressions and hundreds of clickthrus from FB, but very few leads.
    Facebook: $300 / (237 * 0.01) = $126 per leadGoogle: $108 / (33 * 0.25) = $13 per lead
I will definitely keep a close eye on this particular metric over the next few days/weeks as more data accumulates.
 
Just wanted to say thanks I have been thinking of going through the process of pay per click and just the thread itself has been helpful
 
QUOTE (JimWhitelaw @ Dec 2 2009, 11:03 PM) What this tells me is that the $300 spent on Facebook advertising, although it`s bringing in lots of visitors, is nearly ten times as expensive as the $108 spent on Google ads in terms of generating a real lead. I`m getting millions of impressions and hundreds of clickthrus from FB, but very few leads.
  • Facebook: $300 / (237 * 0.01) = $126 per leadGoogle: $108 / (33 * 0.25) = $13 per lead
I will definitely keep a close eye on this particular metric over the next few days/weeks as more data accumulates.

That`s very similar to what I`ve seen in some other campaigns in other industries. While Facebook (and other display advertising channels) has it`s place, the reason Google works `better` is you`re dealing with people who have already expressed interest by doing the search (and asking the question), while with Facebook you`re trying to grab someone`s attention, distracting them from whatever else they`re doing. The cost per click is much cheaper, but you`re gambling on a chance to distract them.

Personally, I`d try to minimize the click-through rate, focusing on the conversions.
 
Click through rate can be minimized by using more targeted keyword such as "Edmonton house for sale" or "Edmonton Rentals" instead of just "Real Estate" or "Houses".
A decent website you can use to determine how many impressions (when someone searches a keyword and your ad comes up, this is an impression) each keyword or set of keywords get is:

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/#

What this does is allows you to determine how many people are using each search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN) to search a specific keyword per day. What Chris is talking about with increasing your conversions means that you want TARGETED keywords. That means the less people that search the keyword, the more targeted they are, and the more likely they will convert rather than waste your Pay per click money.
 
QUOTE (ChrisDavies @ Dec 6 2009, 02:37 PM) That`s very similar to what I`ve seen in some other campaigns in other industries. While Facebook (and other display advertising channels) has it`s place, the reason Google works `better` is you`re dealing with people who have already expressed interest by doing the search (and asking the question), while with Facebook you`re trying to grab someone`s attention, distracting them from whatever else they`re doing. The cost per click is much cheaper, but you`re gambling on a chance to distract them.

Personally, I`d try to minimize the click-through rate, focusing on the conversions.Yeah, that`s exactly what I`m seeing. When I dig in on the fb traffic a bit, I see that almost half of it is coming from apps/games pages. I like the ability to to a demographically and geographically targeted campaign, but for the purpose of this particular goal it`s not that useful. I think what I will do next is kill the fb ads, focus on tuning up the google adwords campaigns, then optimize for organic traffic. FB ads might be more useful if I was trying to build a subscriber list or potential buyer list or something like that.
 
A quick update - I did kill the fb advertising and achieved the objective I wanted - I reduced my cost significantly with no real decrease in the number of leads I`m getting. Good lesson learned, I now have a much better idea of what fb advertising is good for. It`s easy to get lots of impressions for cheap and I`d definitely use it again if I was running a brand-awareness / exposure type of campaign.

I stopped the online ads over the Christmas break and just restarted a week ago. I`ll provide an update when I`ve got some more data to present. Interestingly, after doing nothing at all previously I`m getting a majority of leads via Microsoft Ads this week. Weird. Probably too small a data sample to be meaningful, but interesting just the same.
 
Update: Here`s some new data from the last of Dec and first two weeks in Jan. I paused all my advertising for a couple weeks over Christmas. Dec 03 - Dec 18, 2009
  • Facebook: Clickthru rate 0.01%, 100 clicks @ $1.25 ea, 0 conversions
  • Google: Clickthru rate 1.12%, 30 clicks @ $3.39 ea, 4 conversions, conversion rate 14.81%
  • Yahoo: Clickthru rate 1.71%, 8 clicks @$2.94 ea, 0 conversions
  • Microsoft: Clickthru rate 1.67%, 7 clicks @ $0.76ea, 0 conversions
    For clarity, I`ve defined a conversion as someone filling out the inquiry form with info about a property for sale. Not seeing the "junk" ones I was earlier like listed properties, etc. There`s still a fair number of prospects, but when I call up the leads they are happy to hear from me and we generally have a good conversation - a couple of those could lead to some transactions in the future.

    I`m happy to say that one of the online leads from December has resulted in a solid deal. I have accepted offers for both my purchase and sale of a property with closing in a few weeks. Can`t wait to get that `shut up cheque` in my hands! That deal is paying for our family vacation in Europe this summer.


    Starting back up in January, I discontinued the Facebook and Yahoo advertising and worked on tweaking my Google ads a bit. I didn`t touch the Microsoft campaign at all, but for some reason it seemed to come alive and delivered some conversions.

    Jan 04 - Jan 17, 2010

  • Facebook: discontinuedGoogle: Clickthru rate 0.83%, 44 clicks @ $4.41 ea, 5 conversions, conversion rate 11.36%Yahoo: pausedMicrosoft: Clickthru rate 2.30%, 9 clicks @ $0.44 ea, 4 conversions, conversion rate 44.44%
My guess about the increase in Microsoft adcenter activity is that some number of people got new computers at Christmas and they came pre-configured to use Microsoft Bing as their search engine. That or the amount of traffic I generate is so insignificant that I don`t have a large enough dataset to draw meaningful conclusions and it`s just a big fluke.

So that`s running approximately one lead every other day at a cost of about $100/week. My goal for the next couple months is to get that to 2 leads per day for roughly the same cost.

Some things I will try next, in addition to tweaking the ads and keyword lists:

Another page format I want to try out for the website (actually a whole new site on another domain) that will put all info content and the lead form on a single page. I want to test if that design converts better than the multi-page site.

Specific landing pages for different categories of motivated buyers: facing foreclosure, disillusioned landlords, ugly house owners, etc and speak to them specifically on those pages and in the text ads and compare how they convert and what the quality of the leads are.
 
QUOTE (JimWhitelaw @ Jan 18 2010, 09:44 PM)

Hi Jim,

First of all thanks for your valuable market research.

Also, I wanted to respond so you don`t think you`re sending messages in an empty cyberspace.

Much appreciated,
 
I second that. Valuable info. Thanks for sharing.


quote name=`gwasser` date=`Jan 18 2010, 09:57 PM` post=`76438`]
QUOTE (JimWhitelaw @ Jan 18 2010, 09:44 PM) Hi Jim,

First of all thanks for your valuable market research.

Also, I wanted to respond so you don`t think you`re sending messages in an empty cyberspace.

Much appreciated,
 
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