Who it is for
PPC for estate and letting agents: the searches the portals do not own
Google Ads for an estate or letting agent works when it stays away from the searches the portals have already won and goes after the three that bring instructions: a homeowner wanting a valuation, a landlord wanting a managing agent, and a business or relocating tenant looking for an agent by name or by patch. We manage Google Ads for agents from the Growth tier at £399 a month, flat, with the radius drawn around the streets you would actually drive to and the phone counted as carefully as the form.
What to bid on
Three campaigns, and the one we deliberately do not run
Listings searches go to the portals. Everything else is where an agent's ad budget earns its fee, and each of the three has its own campaign, budget, page and definition of a lead.
- 1
Valuations
"House valuation", "how much is my house worth", "sell my house", "estate agents" plus the town. Tight radius, presence targeting, a landing page that books the valuation in the first screen. Lead: a valuation booked with an address in the patch. This is where most of a sales agent's budget goes.
- 2
Landlords and lettings management
"Letting agents", "property management", "managing agent fees", "guaranteed rent" plus the area. Wider radius, because the landlord may not live near the property. Lead: a landlord enquiry naming a property. The page carries your fee structure, your redress scheme and client money protection membership, and what management includes.
- 3
Brand and patch
Your own name, and the name of the estate or village where you dominate, when other agents are bidding on them. Small budget, exact match, judged on whether the impression share on your own name stays high. Skipped entirely if nobody is bidding against you.
- 4
Not run: listings
"3 bed house for sale" plus the town. Answered by the portals above the ads, at no cost to the searcher, showing your own listing anyway. We say no to this campaign in the first reply and the reasoning is on this page so you can disagree with it in writing.
Radius
A patch is a list of postcodes, not a circle on a map
Google's default for a local business is a radius around an address, which for an agent means paying for valuation searches from the wrong side of the river and missing the estate two miles further out that you sell half of. We target the postcode districts you actually list in, set to presence so the searcher has to be there rather than interested in there, and read the Search Terms report every week for the towns that leak in through close variants. A branch that opens a second office gets a second campaign, not a bigger circle.
Lettings management runs wider, because a landlord in Manchester with a flat in your town is a good lead, and the search term carries the property's location more often than the landlord's. The two campaigns therefore have different location settings, different budgets and different pages, and neither is allowed to borrow the other's budget on a busy day.
Seasonality and the phone
The budget follows the market, and the phone is counted
Instruction searches move with the year: spring, then the weeks after the summer holidays, then a lull before Christmas; lettings in a university town move with the academic calendar. The account's daily budgets move with them, up when impression share is being lost to budget in a busy month and down when the searches thin out, and every move is in the change history and the report.
Most valuation requests from an ad are phone calls, made from the kitchen table in the evening or from a viewing at the weekend. Call reporting counts them and their length; the schedule follows the hours the branch answers, and where the branch does not answer on a Sunday the ads say “book online” and the page lets them. Which calls became valuations, and which valuations became instructions, comes back from you monthly and goes into the account as the number the bidding learns from. The mechanics are in the call tracking guide.
The page and the rules
What a valuation page needs, and what a lettings page must show
The valuation page: the booking form or the number in the first screen, what happens at the appointment and how long it takes, who will come, your fee or how it is set, and proof that is yours, such as recent sales in the patch with the sellers' permission or the number of properties under management. Not stock photographs of front doors and not a promise of a price.
The lettings page carries what a landlord checks before ringing: your redress scheme membership and client money protection scheme, which letting agents in England and Wales are required to hold, your management fee structure, and what management includes. Ad copy stays inside the CAP Code, so a “guaranteed rent” headline is only used where the guarantee is real and its terms are on the page. Every ad goes to you for approval before it runs.
Judging it
Cost per valuation, then cost per instruction
The report leads with valuations booked by campaign and postcode district, the cost per valuation, and once you tell us, the share that became instructions and the cost per instruction against your average fee. For lettings, landlord enquiries and the properties they brought under management. Clicks and impressions are on the second page.
The page the click lands on decides most of the cost per valuation, which is why the landing page service is part of the Growth tier for agents. Where an agent is spending under a thousand a month on a single valuation campaign, the small business page explains how the Starter tier handles it and when even that is not worth it.
Related
Where this connects
PPC for trades and local services
The other radius-led, phone-led sector.
Landing pages for PPC
The valuation page and the landlord page, built to book.
Pricing
Growth for a branch with sales and lettings; Starter for one campaign.
Get a quote
Your patch, your branches and your average fee; the plan in reply.
Questions from estate and letting agents
Why not advertise our listings on Google?
Because a person searching for a three-bed house in your town is answered by the portals, which sit at the top of the results and list your properties anyway. Paying per click to send that person to your own listing page competes with a site you already pay to be on. The searches worth paying for are the ones the portals do not answer: a valuation, a landlord looking for a managing agent, a tenant looking for a specific agent's applications page.
What is a lead for an estate agent?
A valuation booked, with an address inside your patch. For lettings, a landlord enquiry with a property in it. Those are counted as conversions; a page view of the valuation page is not, and a form from a tenant asking about a listed property is counted separately so the bidding does not learn to chase it.
How tight should the radius be?
As tight as the area you would actually drive to for a valuation, set as presence rather than interest, and often as a list of postcodes rather than a circle, because a circle around a town centre includes the villages on one side and misses the estate on the other. Lettings management can run wider than sales, because a landlord does not need to be local.
Is there seasonality?
Yes, and the budget follows it. Sales enquiries rise in spring and after the summer holidays and fall before Christmas. Lettings in a university town peak around the academic year. The account does not run the same daily budget in January and May; the report says what moved and why.
What does PPC for an estate agent cost with you?
A flat fee by spend band: £249 a month up to £1,000 of spend, £399 up to £3,000, £599 up to £8,000. A single-branch agent running a valuation campaign and a landlord campaign is usually on Growth. One agent per patch on the monthly plans, so we are never bidding against you for your own valuations.
Do you build the valuation landing page?
Yes, or fix the one you have. It needs the form or the number in the first screen, what happens at the valuation, who comes, your redress scheme and client money protection details for lettings, and proof that is yours: recent sales in the area with permission, or the number of properties under management. Not stock photographs of doors.
Tell us your patch and what an instruction is worth. The reply has the fee and the three campaigns.
If the account is already running, add the customer ID and the reply also shows how much of last quarter went on listings searches the portals answered for free.