Today I may not surprise you just once, but twice.
About ten days ago or so, I came across a slightly shocking piece of information.
As you may know, I am also a bit of a fitness nerd, and I stay up-to-date with all things exercise and nutrition.
What I found was pretty shocking. Let me explain.
If you want to lose fat or weight, at some point you may need to count calories and keep an eye on the different nutrients.
Many nutrition trackers exist now to help you with that, but you can also do it manually by taking note of the nutrition labels on food products.
As you may know from friends, it’s not easy to lose weight (fat) using this method.
Changing the lifestyle and habits (and resolving underlying reasons for a high food intake) is not easy.
But now, I also learned about another reason that may be even more crucial.
Did you know that the FDA allows for a margin of error of 20%?!
So the food suppliers are allowed to state food XYZ has 500 calories, while in reality, it’s 600. That’s the same data those calorie tracking apps use (ouch).
So as someone trying to lose some pounds, you may be proud of succeeding in getting the right amount of calories because you rely on this information.
Yet, in reality, you still overshoot by about 20%.
Now, Where Is the Link to Lead Gen Success in Real Estate?
Just recently, I took over a Facebook Ad campaign and a Google Ad campaign for a real estate broker client. Before, he worked with a different digital marketer.
So, this client was sure he paid about $5 per lead for the Facebook campaign this marketer ran for him. That was what the digital marketer reported before.
But when I first started to analyze the campaigns that have been running so far, I soon found out I had to bring him some not-so-good news.
The tracking and measurement were pretty off.
Why?
The Real Estate Marketing Funnel Was Organized This Way…
1) Facebook lead campaign for Instagram and Facebook Messenger lead (targeting sellers)
2) A chatbot answering messages immediately and forwarding special questions to a sales representative
3) If there is further interest, the sales representative sends a link to a registration form
The reporting error happened already in 1).
So the $5 cost per lead wasn’t actually a cost per lead.
Why?
People using the messenger app engaging with a Facebook Lead Ad can barely be called leads.
They are slightly better than likes and comments. I sometimes call them “premium comments.”
So I would put them into the category of “engagement.”
The actual lead conversion happened in 3).
When some of them registered on my client’s website filling out the form.
Fortunately, this was already tracked with a Facebook Pixel.
So I could add the actual conversion to the report as an extra column and could get the actual cost per lead.
And, well, like the calorie situation earlier, just a bit different, the actual cost per lead was of course higher.
More than double, to be exact.
Should you also need help finding out where you may leak marketing dollars in your real estate lead funnel, take a look at this service I’m offering.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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