Case Study

How a Real Estate Team Generated 203 Buyer and Seller Leads in 60 Days With Google Ads

Full-funnel Google Ads plus automated CRM follow-up for a Southeast real estate team

Google Ads CRM Automation Real Estate Buyer Lead Gen Seller Lead Gen
Business Type
Real Estate Team / Brokerage
Location
Southeast United States
Team Size
6 Agents
Campaign Duration
60 Days
203
Total Leads Generated
$38
Average Cost Per Lead
6
Closings in 60 Days

Paying Premium Prices for Leads They Had to Fight Over

This six-agent Southeast team had been buying leads from Zillow and Realtor.com for over two years. The monthly spend was significant — individual leads priced between $200 and $400 each — but the real cost was invisible: every lead they purchased was simultaneously sold to four to six competing agents in the same market. By the time the phone rang, the prospect had already been contacted by multiple agents and the competitive advantage was gone before the conversation started.

The team had no dedicated landing pages for their paid traffic. When they attempted to run their own Google Ads, all clicks went to a generic IDX property search page with no lead capture form, no offer, and no reason for a visitor to identify themselves. Traffic evaporated with nothing to show for the ad spend.

Even when leads did come in through Zillow, there was no automated follow-up system in place. New leads were logged into a shared spreadsheet and assigned to agents manually. Internal tracking showed that 70% of inbound leads were never contacted within the first 24 hours — a critical window in which buyer and seller motivation is highest and competitors with faster systems consistently won the relationship.

Core Problems Identified
  • Paying $200-$400 per shared lead on Zillow and Realtor.com, competing with 4-6 other agents simultaneously
  • No dedicated landing page — paid traffic driven to generic IDX search with zero lead capture
  • No automated follow-up — 70% of leads never contacted within the critical 24-hour window
  • Zero lead ownership — all lead data and relationships controlled by third-party portals

A Complete Owned Lead Engine Built in 5 Steps

01
Owned Lead Generation via Google Ads
We built and launched dedicated Google Ads campaigns targeting high-intent buyer keywords (homes for sale, buy a house, new listings near me) and high-intent seller keywords (home value, sell my house, list my home). Rather than competing for Zillow impressions, the team now owns their own search real estate. Every click lands on a page they control, and every lead belongs exclusively to them with no third-party sharing.
02
Separate Buyer and Seller Funnels
We built two distinct landing pages — one for buyers and one for sellers — each with a specific offer tailored to where that prospect is in their journey. The buyer funnel offered a free list of off-market homes and new listings in their target neighborhoods. The seller funnel offered a free, instant home value estimate. Splitting the funnels eliminated message mismatch, increased form completions, and gave the team a clean segmentation of every lead from the first touch.
03
60-Second Lead Notification
The moment a prospect submits a form, the assigned agent receives an SMS notification within 60 seconds. The notification includes the lead name, contact information, the funnel they came from (buyer or seller), and any qualifying details from the form. Speed-to-lead is one of the highest-leverage variables in real estate conversion. This system moved the team from a 70% miss rate within 24 hours to an 82% contact rate within the first 5 minutes.
04
8-Week Automated Nurture Sequence
Not every lead is ready to transact immediately. We built separate 8-week email nurture sequences for buyer leads and seller leads, each delivering relevant content at the right cadence. Buyer nurture emails included market reports, neighborhood guides, mortgage rate updates, and listings alerts. Seller nurture emails included comparable sale data, market timing insights, and seller preparation checklists. The sequences keep the team top-of-mind through a typically 30-to-90-day decision cycle without manual agent effort.
05
Meta Retargeting for Non-Converting Visitors
Site visitors who clicked a Google Ad but did not submit the form were added to a Meta retargeting audience automatically. Dynamic retargeting ads on Facebook and Instagram kept the team visible with social proof messaging, testimonials, and a secondary offer. This retargeting layer captured a meaningful portion of traffic that would otherwise have been lost entirely, reducing the effective cost per acquisition across the full campaign.

60 Days. 203 Leads. 6 Closings. Full Ownership.

203
Total leads generated in 60 days
$38
Average CPL vs $200-$400 Zillow cost
6
Closings attributed within 60 days of launch
47%
Of leads engaged the automated nurture sequence
82%
Of leads contacted by an agent within 5 minutes
100%
Owned leads — zero shared competition on any lead

Results reflect this specific campaign. Individual results vary based on market, budget, and competition.

The biggest shift was owning the leads. On Zillow we were competing with 5 other agents before we even picked up the phone. Now every lead is exclusive. That changes your entire follow-up psychology.

Real Estate Team Principal — Southeast United States

Questions About Real Estate Lead Generation

Yes. Ad Boost works with individual agents, teams, and brokerages across buyer lead generation, seller lead generation, luxury markets, and investor audiences. We build separate funnels for each lead type so your campaigns stay focused and your CPL stays low. Whether you are a solo agent or a 20-person team, the core system scales to your volume and market.
Cost per lead for real estate Google Ads typically ranges from $30 to $120 depending on your market competitiveness, the keywords you target, and the quality of your landing page. Highly competitive metro markets trend toward the higher end; secondary markets often achieve CPLs in the $30-$60 range. The team in this case study achieved a $38 CPL in a moderately competitive Southeast market with well-optimized buyer and seller funnels.
The core difference is ownership and exclusivity. Leads you generate through your own Google Ads campaigns belong exclusively to you. Zillow leads are shared with multiple competing agents simultaneously, so you are always in a race to call first. Owned leads also give you full control over follow-up speed, messaging, and nurture automation. And because you own the lead data, your list grows in value over time rather than being locked inside a third-party platform.
Yes. Ad Boost builds separate buyer and seller landing pages as part of every real estate campaign. Each funnel has a distinct offer, messaging, and conversion path so you are not sending buyer traffic and seller traffic to the same generic page. We handle copywriting, design, form integration, and CRM connection. You do not need a web developer or a separate landing page tool.
Most campaigns begin generating leads within 24 to 48 hours of launch. Google Ads can show your ads the moment the campaign goes live. The first week is typically a data-gathering phase; performance optimizes further in weeks two through four as the algorithm learns your best-converting audience segments. The real estate team in this case study had their first lead within hours of launch and hit consistent daily lead volume by the end of week one.
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