Real estate marketers are becoming more holistic in their perceptions of marketing effectiveness.

They are recognizing how less linear internet buyer behavior is online at the earliest stage of buyer decision making, partially due to an increasing trend of cross-device usage. Additionally, potential buyers are receiving multiple touch points from online campaigns prior to taking the next step. We don’t believe this is anything new but what’s new is the real estate marketing community is recognizing this trend and taking a more holistic perspective when making business decisions.

New ad formats across a variety of advertising platforms are improving the quality of leads.

Whether it’s phone integration, longer headlines, location options etc.. we’re seeing the response method impacting the lead quality when measured by the ability to have two-way conversations with prospective buyers.

Zillow will continue to be a dominating ad server for potential real estate buyers.

Zillow is now searched more than “Real Estate” on Google.

Tracking and analysis will continue to be the foundation for opportunities to improve digital lead generation.

There has been an increased complexity to implement the enhanced level of tracking needed to get performance metrics related to lead quality. However, more informed decisions are being made beyond basic CTR’s, Conversion Rates and Impression Share metrics.

The saturation rate of social media audiences is increasing

meaning audiences are becoming saturated more quickly than before. Therefore, you will need to come up with creative ways to keep your audiences fresh.

Both audience segmentation and ad testing will be critical

to the future success of strong real estate lead generation campaigns. Always be testing, even if it’s just a small % of your budget.

Mobile devices will continue to capture more visitors and the requirements needed on mobile sites are much different compared to desktop versions.

For example, we see mobile load time problems more prevalently than problems with desktop load time. We also see differences in navigation flow between desktop which should be considered for your mobile main navigation strategy.

Mobile devices are an important resource throughout the marketing funnel

with 43% of consumers using mobile for inspiration, 36% for comparison, 35% for advice, and 32% for purchase preparation. We’ve also been seeing an increased trend of mobile surpassing desktop as the main device website visitors are using. All searches combined, we’re already in a mobile-first world over desktop.

Approximately 74% of people first learned about their home online prior to purchasing.

Digital virtual tours are driving higher online engagement among real estate buyers due to the enhanced experience.