More people search Google for real estate information than any other site, hands down. It’s way larger than Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com combined for real estate related searches (need to check that, but pretty sure). So you can’t ignore advertising here, but let’s face it; you’re good at selling homes, and you don’t know much about internet marketing and adwords optimization. Here are some reasons why you can’t manage this yourself.
#1 You will lose thousands of dollars realizing quickly that you’re in over your head. Companies specialize in these services and are far better at it than you, from keyword management and optimization, to PPC bidding for the right stuff and at the right times, to testing and creating the most optimal landing pages to send interested buyers and sellers to.
#2 You aren’t responding to the leads fast enough. You are generating leads throughout the day (and night), but you aren’t always available to respond and if you don’t get back to internet leads asap, they forget all about you and they are gone. Real Statistic from somewhere: Calling a lead within 5 minutes of their inquiry vs 30 min increases the chances of you working with them 300%. After 30 minutes, the chances of reaching the lead go way down. You need to make sure you can handle the leads coming in. You need an ISA (Inside Sales Associate) or partner that can field calls and respond to online inquiries within minutes. Real Stat from NAR (National Assoc of Realtors): 45% of online leads never receive a response from an agent. They are literally never contacted.
#3 You don’t have the budget a larger company has. By merging your budget into a larger Google AdWords manager, they can drive the costs down overall, just like buying in bulk. So you’ll always pay way more for that Click than just having a big company manage the same keywords for you.