I wanted to share with you a conversation that I had with an estate agent today about their Facebook advertising and the fact that they're seeing some really good results with their Facebook advertising, but not actually generating any leads. This estate agent said to me that they are spending a lot of money, they're getting a lot of reach, they're getting a lot of engagement, their ad is getting seen by a lot of people and they’re really pleased with that. They're also driving a lot of people to their website, but it's just not generating conversations.

This is a common problem I hear a lot from agents doing Facebook advertising. A lot of the time it's because they're not using certain Facebook objectives. One of the objectives which we teach agents to use is the lead objective using the lead form. This is an extremely powerful way to generate leads, and when I talk about leads, I'm talking about conversations. You know, it's vital in our industry that we are having conversations because more conversations normally calls for more business. With the lead form, you can actually “gate” any content that you're putting out on Facebook and I suggest that you mix a lead objective into your advertising campaigns. And the lead objective will allow you to literally put an advert out there like a single property or property carousel or even an E-guide for vendors or landlords and we can “gate” that content all within Facebook. If you wondering what “gate” means; it means that we can say, “Okay, if you want to see that property, you want to get through to our website, or if you want to get a copy of that guide, you've got to supply us with your name, number and email address.”

With a lead advert, Facebook will provide you with the form all within Facebook. So, when they see the advert and they click “learn more” or “download”, it flips over and there's a form and Facebook will auto-populate their data into the form. So their name, email address and telephone number will all be filled in automatically, they don't even have to type and you can imagine a mobile phone that can be quite difficult. Lead forms are really powerful, very high converting adverts. They are very slick and very quick because they don't have to leave Facebook and you don't need a specialist landing page. There are so many agents who aren't using these lead adverts!

Another thing agents want to know about lead adverts and lead forms is, “Will people actually click on the lead form or submit their details?” Well, the answer is yes! We are getting leads as low as £1 per lead. And that's name, telephone number, email address of people who have seen a property on Facebook. Also, don't forget, they still get to see the ad that your lead form is attached to! Another benefit of the lead form is filtering the really serious people from the non-serious people so that those leads that then come through to you are of decent quality because non-serious people won’t go as far as to fill out the lead form. You can then make those telephone calls to your leads and get in front of people. You might even get in front of people who perhaps are really early in the process of thinking of moving but at least you're going to have those conversations with them before any other agents from your area do!

So, it's really powerful to have those conversations! First of all, because you can ask them a range of questions, can you help them find a property but also you can ask them about their own property, have they had it valuated? It's really these early conversations that make it so powerful. You get all their details and are able to start conversations, while at the same time still getting your content out there. You can streamline the process as well and use really powerful things like Zapier which you can set up so each lead is sent to you by email individually, just like Rightmove and Zoopla.

So have a think about it. Are you using lead adverts? Facebook is all about starting conversations and starting interest in our properties and brand. It’s a little bit less about selling properties and booking viewings on Facebook, that will happen in time through the leads you generate on Facebook, through the conversations you have. You will of course get people who will call up to book viewings and buy a property who have seen them on Facebook, but the key way to use Facebook advertising is to look at this as starting conversations.

I hope that helps with any questions as always, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Thank you