Real estate marketing agency · Independent agents and agency offices
A real estate marketing agency scored on listings won, not portal clicks.
Marketing for real estate agents is dominated by realestate.com.au, Domain, and brand campaigns whose return nobody actually models. The number that pays the agent is the appraisal-to-listing rate and the commission per listing won. We are a real estate marketing agency that connects VaultRE, AgentBox, MyDesktop or your CRM back to the ad platforms, so the optimiser learns which campaigns produce appraisals that turn into signed authorities. Then our senior operators run your Google Ads, Meta and local search week to week against it.
30 min · No pitch · Senior operator on the call
Engagement intake, currently open
Independent + group
We work with independent principals and small agency groups (single office or multi-office).
Weekly
Vendor and buyer campaign decisions for the office, each written down with the reason behind it.
Fixed fee
For the agreed scope, and never a cut of what you spend on Google, Meta, REA or Domain.
How we run marketing for real estate agents
Four principles for real estate marketing.
Principle 01
Appraisal booked, not OFI sign
Brand awareness is the agency's favourite measurement and the bank's least favourite. The events that actually matter are appraisal requests, appraisals attended, listing authorities signed, and gross commission per listing won. We instrument the entire chain.
Principle 02
Vendor and buyer are different funnels
Vendor acquisition (selling appraisals) and buyer acquisition (matching properties to interested buyers) require different campaigns, different conversion events, and different cost expectations. Most real estate marketing collapses both into 'leads' and gets the unit economics wrong.
Principle 03
REA and Domain are paid channels too
realestate.com.au and Domain produce the bulk of buyer enquiries on listings and a meaningful share of vendor enquiries on agent profiles. They are not 'free organic'; the listing fees are real and the upgrade tiers (Premiere, Platinum) need to be scored against listings won, not impressions delivered.
Principle 04
Suburb-level economics matter
Median sale prices and commission rates differ five-fold across suburbs in the same metro. We segment campaigns by suburb cluster and only scale spend where the appraisal-to-listing rate and the commission per listing clear the acquisition cost.
Deliverables
What we run for the agency, from appraisal tracking to weekly management.
01
Appraisal-and-listing conversion tracking: form, phone call, walk-in, and CRM-logged appraisal events all unified through the measurement layer.
02
Agency CRM connection (VaultRE, AgentBox, RexPlus, Console, MyDesktop, Eagle, or HubSpot) with offline conversion uploads to Google Ads and Meta on appraisal and signed-authority events.
03
Suburb-cluster reporting: cost per appraisal and cost per listing won broken out by suburb. Campaigns that don't clear margin per suburb get rebalanced.
04
Vendor vs buyer funnel separation: different campaigns, different conversion events, different reporting tracks.
05
Call tracking with vendor-or-buyer capture so the office admin tags the call type at intake. Conversion data flows back to the ad platforms.
06
REA and Domain spend audit: which listings actually justify the Premiere or Platinum upgrade, which don't.
07
Reporting layer in Looker Studio that ties marketing spend to listings won and reconciles to the agency's settlements monthly.
08
Ongoing management of vendor campaigns on Google Ads and Meta by the senior operators who rebuilt the measurement, plus a per-listing recommendation on REA and Domain upgrades. Budgets move on cost per listing won, not impressions delivered, and each week's decisions are written down.
09
Local SEO and answer engine optimisation: a page for each suburb you list in, a Google Business Profile for each office, and content on recent sales and the selling process that Google and AI search can cite when a vendor asks who to call.
Who this is for
- Australian independent real estate agency or principal-led agency office
- Spending at least $5,000 a month on REA / Domain upgrades, Google Ads, Meta, or local print
- Agency CRM in place (VaultRE, AgentBox, RexPlus, Console, MyDesktop, Eagle, HubSpot)
- Office admin or sales coordinator who can capture vendor-or-buyer at point of enquiry
- Principal who wants the marketing spend justified against listings won, not impressions delivered
Who it isn't
- Solo agent pre-listings, still building a brand from scratch (the fee would cost more than it returns)
- Franchise office with mandated brand-marketing program (different shape of help required; we work alongside not instead of)
- Looking for property photography or daily social posts (that stays with your team or a specialist we recommend)
- Want ads run on enquiry counts without connecting the agency CRM
- Unwilling to update intake processes to capture vendor-or-buyer intent at point of call
How we work with real estate agents
Measurement first, then ongoing management. Scoped to independent agencies.
Most independent agencies and small groups start with the rebuild, because Google and Meta cannot learn what a listing is worth until the CRM tells them. If your CRM data already reaches the ad platforms cleanly, management starts straight away. Everything is quoted in one written proposal after the free audit call: no rate card, and never a percentage of your spend.
Optional · Two weeks
The two-week diagnostic
Read-only diagnostic across REA / Domain, Google Ads, Meta, the agency CRM, and the intake call flow. Written report with a prioritised fix list and a 60-minute walk-through. Quantifies how much listing-authority value the current setup is leaving on the table.
Step 01 · Twelve weeks
The measurement rebuild
Agency CRM connection, offline conversion uploads on appraisal and signed-authority events, call tracking with vendor-or-buyer capture, an REA and Domain spend audit, and a Looker Studio layer that reports listings won by suburb. Fixed scope, paid in instalments.
Step 02 · Ongoing
Ongoing management
Vendor campaigns on Google and Meta, local search, and the REA and Domain upgrade calls, run week to week against listings won. A fixed fee for the agreed scope, with a decision log the agency keeps.
Multi-office groups or franchises with $10M+ in commission revenue typically warrant the full PROFIT framework engagement as well. We will raise it on the audit call if it applies, along with whether your spend can carry our fee.
Where to go next
Related services and neighbouring industries.
Related services
Google Ads management →
High-intent vendor and buyer search beats brand impressions for most agencies.
Real estate lead generation →
Vendor and appraisal leads, scored on listings won.
Lead generation →
Build the inbound appraisal pipeline end-to-end.
Tracking audit →
Diagnose where appraisal-attribution is leaking.
Conversion rate optimisation →
Lift appraisal-to-listing rates without spending more.
Proof, with the working shown
We'd rather show you the maths than the buzzwords.
“Profit Geeks rebuilt our whole sales engine, and not just the ad accounts. They went after the systems sitting behind them too. Sales are up 140% and we've pushed past $25M. Honestly the bit I didn't see coming was the operation running leaner than it did back when we were half the size.”
“We were quietly bleeding about a thousand dollars a week and had no idea why. They found the leaks, sorted out the measurement and the offer, and now we'll do more than $10K in a single day. Same product. Completely different business.”
“We went from scraping together two installs a week to running four crews and fifteen-plus jobs a week, north of $10M turnover. The clever bit was they tied the scaling to what we could actually deliver, so growth never broke the operation. Booked jobs, not vanity leads.”
“After iOS, our Meta numbers stopped matching the bank, and we'd basically been writing the gap off as “just tracking.” Profit Geeks rebuilt our measurement server-side and reconciled it straight back to the P&L. Turned out about $1.42M of ad spend in year one had been working all along. They're the first team that showed me the maths instead of a dashboard.”
“We didn’t spend a dollar more on ads. What they did was fix how we counted a booked job versus a platform “conversion,” cut the wasted spend, and by week twelve our blended ROAS had more than tripled. Revenue went from $4.8M to $9.1M. Same senior bloke on every call too. No juniors, no relay race.”
Reasonable questions
What you're probably thinking.
01
We've been burned by an agency before.
Most of our intake has. The difference is structural. A senior operator runs your account, not a junior hidden behind a dashboard, and you leave the first call with written findings you own even if we never work together. No relay race, no account manager translating between you and the people doing the work.
02
How do I know it'll actually work for my business?
You don't yet, and neither do we until we've seen your numbers. That's why the first step is a diagnostic, not a contract. We've documented this in DTC and home services (the case studies show the full working) and run the same playbook in professional services. If the maths isn't there for you, we'll tell you on the call.
03
What if there's nothing worth fixing?
Then you've spent thirty minutes and walked away with a second opinion that cost you nothing. We'd rather say no than take on an engagement we can't earn, so we turn away intake that isn't a fit. There's no pitch and no follow-up sales sequence.
04
What does it cost, and what am I signing up for?
A fixed fee for the measurement rebuild, then a fixed fee for ongoing management, both quoted in writing after the call. No per-channel markup and no percentage of your ad spend. The same senior operators handle measurement, media and margin, and scaling is tied to your contribution margin, so spend only climbs when the numbers say it's working.
Frequently asked
Questions agents ask before hiring a real estate marketing agency.
What does a real estate marketing agency do?
It depends which marketing you mean, because an agency office has two kinds. Property marketing sells a listing: photography, copy, portal listings, signboards and the campaign around them. Agency marketing wins the next listing: vendor leads, appraisal requests, and the agent's profile in their suburbs. We do the second. Our senior operators run Google Ads, Meta and local search for vendor leads, measured on appraisals booked and listings won, while photography and listing campaigns stay with your team and the specialists you already use.
Real estate lead generationDo real estate agents pay for marketing?
For two different things. A property's own campaign is often paid by the vendor and agreed with them before it starts, which is why it sits outside most agencies' marketing budgets. The marketing that wins listings in the first place, from letterbox drops to Google Ads and the agent's portal profile, is the agency's own cost. That second budget is the one we work on, and the one that rarely gets measured against listings won.
How much should a real estate agent spend on marketing?
Rough heuristic: established independent agencies spend 4 to 8 percent of gross commission on marketing, with 50 to 70 percent going to digital (including REA / Domain spend). A $3M-commission agency is spending $120K to $240K a year, $60K to $170K on digital. New offices and post-merger growth campaigns typically run higher for the first 12 months.
How is real estate marketing different from regular small-business marketing?
The conversion is appraisal-to-listing, not lead-to-sale. The principal usually 'is' the brand, which complicates campaign architecture. realestate.com.au and Domain dominate both vendor and buyer discovery and operate as paid channels with their own auction dynamics. And suburb-level economics differ five-fold inside the same metro. The measurement work has to factor all of it.
What's the best paid channel for real estate?
Depends on what you're selling. Vendor acquisition responds best to high-intent Google search ('appraisal {suburb}', '{suburb} real estate agent') and to Meta brand campaigns built around the principal's profile. Buyer acquisition is dominated by REA and Domain on the listing itself. The mix depends on whether the agency is vendor-led or buyer-led; we model it together on the call.
What agency CRMs do you work with?
VaultRE, AgentBox, RexPlus, Console, MyDesktop, Eagle, and HubSpot are all routine. If your agency is on something less common (LockedOn, AreaSpecialist), we'll confirm on the audit call whether a direct connection is feasible or whether a Zapier middle layer is required.
Do you cover REA and Domain spend optimisation?
Yes. The rebuild includes an audit of REA / Domain Premiere / Platinum / Highlight upgrade decisions on a per-listing basis, and the reporting layer tracks which upgrade tiers actually correlate with sale-price uplift versus those that just move the impression count. Ongoing management keeps making that call listing by listing.
What about prospecting letters, postcards, and traditional outdoor?
We don't manage them, but the measurement layer captures their attribution where they're meaningful. For many independent agencies, letterbox drops and outdoor still bring in a real share of vendor appraisals, so they need to be tracked alongside the digital channels, not ignored.
Do you do SEO for real estate agencies?
Yes. Local search and answer engine optimisation run alongside the paid work: a Google Business Profile for each office, a page for each suburb you list in, structured data, and content on recent results and how selling works, written so Google and AI search tools can cite it. It is scored on appraisal requests and listings won, not rankings. Listing photography and daily social posts stay with your team or a specialist we recommend.
How much does a real estate marketing agency cost?
Agencies in Australia usually price management at 10 to 20 percent of ad spend, sliding down as spend grows, or as a flat retainer, commonly $1,500 to $3,000 a month for smaller accounts and $3,000 to $8,000 for mid-sized ones. We do not take a cut of anything you spend, on Google, Meta or the portals. Our fee is fixed for the agreed scope and quoted in a written proposal after the free audit call, and if your spend is too small for it to pay for itself, we will tell you then.
How agency fees work in AustraliaWhat you actually buy
We fix the measurement, then we run the account. It starts with a free call.
Which of these sounds like your week?
- Meta says one number, Google says another, the CRM says a third, and the bank says something else again.
- The leads come in and most of them are rubbish.
- Traffic is fine. Not enough of them buy.
- You cannot spend more without losing margin.
- Something is wrong and you cannot say what.
All five are the same job. We fix the measurement first, then the same senior operators run the spend against it. The free call is where we work out which part you need first.
00 · Free
Run your own numbers
Six calculators and an attribution reference. Work out your break-even ROAS, your CAC payback, and whether the spend is structurally profitable, before you talk to anyone. The calculators need no signup.
01 · Free · 30 minutes
The profit audit call
A senior operator looks at your real spend, revenue and attribution gap on a call. You leave with a written fix list you keep, whether or not we ever work together. No deck, no follow-up sales sequence. We reply within one business day with three times to choose from.
02 · Optional · Two weeks
The two-week diagnostic
Read-only. We change nothing in your accounts. Every tag, event and consent rule mapped and written up: 20 to 35 pages, every issue rated P0 to P3 with an engineering-day estimate, and a 90-minute walk-through on day twelve. Yours to hand to us, your own team, or your existing agency. About a third of clients run this first, then decide.
03 · The engagement · Ongoing
The rebuild, then we run it
The first twelve weeks rebuild the measurement server-side so the reports reconcile to the bank, and work the funnel where the leak actually is. From there the same senior operators keep running Google Ads, Meta and search, with budget, bids and creative decided weekly against contribution margin and the reasoning written down. If your measurement is already sound, management starts straight away.
What it costs
Four things set the number
- The size of your stack
- How many ad platforms are live
- The state of your CRM integration
- How many service lines and locations you run
Two things do not
- Your industry
- How much you spend on ads
Revenue only matters because a bigger business is usually a bigger scope. We do not price off a percentage of it. We charge for the work, not for what you look like you can afford.
How it is billedThe rebuild is fixed scope, paid in instalments. Ongoing management is a fixed fee for the agreed scope. Both are quoted in one written proposal after the call. No hourly billing and no percentage of ad spend.
Included at no extra costThe written playbook and decision log, yours to keep whether we run the account or your team takes it in-house.
What happens after you book
Three steps. No mystery.
Step 01 · Within 1 business day
30-minute audit call
A senior operator on the call. We look at your real numbers, spend, revenue, attribution gap, and tell you on the call whether the rebuild is worth doing for you and where it would start. No pitch deck.
Step 02 · Within 1 week
Written proposal
Fixed scope, fixed number, written up. The proposal names deliverables, timeline, the people involved, and the price. No hourly billing, no retainer drift.
Step 03 · Within 2 weeks
Engagement starts
Senior operators from day one. The measurement rebuild starts, we take over day-to-day buying on the channels we can measure, and the first working session lands. Inside two weeks of the call.
Next step
Built for principal-led agencies. Measured on listings won, then run week to week.
If your agency is paying REA, Domain, and Google but not seeing listings come in at the rate the dashboards suggest, the next step is a free 30-minute profit audit. Bring a month of marketing spend (digital and traditional), your suburb clusters with their median sale prices, and the agency CRM you use. We will tell you on the call what the rebuild would fix, how we would run the vendor campaigns, and whether your spend is large enough to carry our fee.