Real estate lead generation · Vendor and appraisal leads · Agents and agency offices
Real estate leads costed by the listing won, not the appraisal request.
A vendor lead is a homeowner who might sell. Portals sell you their attention, lead sellers sell you their contact details, and Google sells you the moment they search for an agent. Each source costs something, and each turns into signed authorities at a different rate. We run real estate lead generation on Google, Meta and local search, build appraisal funnels for the suburbs you list in, and cost every source, portal leads included, per listing won.
30 min · No pitch · Senior operator on the call
Engagement intake, currently open
8,100
Monthly Australian searches for 'real estate agents near me', with top-of-page bids of $5.31 to $48.09. Keyword Planner, October 2026.
4,400
Monthly searches for 'how much is my house worth', at $1.07 to $3.86 a click: plenty of owners, most of them early. Keyword Planner, October 2026.
Per listing won
How every source is judged: portal profile leads, bought seller leads, Google, Meta and your own database.
How we run marketing for real estate agents
Four principles for vendor lead generation.
Principle 01
The listing is the result, the appraisal is a step
Appraisal requests are easy to count and easy to inflate. What pays is the signed authority and the commission behind it. Every source is followed from first enquiry to appraisal booked, appraisal attended and listing won, so a source that fills the diary with owners who were never going to sell stops getting budget.
Principle 02
Curious owners and ready owners search differently
Keyword Planner shows 60,500 monthly searches for 'property valuation' at $1.21 to $5.74 a click, and 590 for 'sell my house' at $11.82 to $51.19 (October 2026). The first group is mostly curious and months away. The second is choosing an agent now. Cheap valuation traffic goes into a nurture funnel of estimates and suburb updates, dear agent-selection traffic goes straight to an appraisal booking, and the two are never averaged into one cost per lead.
Principle 03
Portal leads have a price too
Seller enquiries from a portal profile feel free, but the subscription, the profile upgrades and the time it takes to respond all cost something. realestate.com.au's own Enriched Seller Leads product shows agents how many agencies a vendor is engaging with, a reminder that you may not be the only agent they call. Portal leads sit on the same scorecard as everything else: cost per listing won, by suburb.
Principle 04
Your database is the cheapest source you own
Past vendors, buyers who also own, landlords and open-home visitors already know your name. A market update with a reason to talk turns some of them into appraisals for the cost of sending it, provided they agreed to hear from you. The Spam Act requires that consent, your identity and an easy unsubscribe in every email and text.
Deliverables
What real estate lead generation from us includes.
01
Appraisal funnels for your suburbs: an estimate or suburb report for owners at the early stage, a direct appraisal booking for owners ready to choose an agent, and a follow-up sequence that moves people from the first to the second.
02
Google Ads on agent-selection searches, such as real estate agent plus a suburb, sell my house and compare agents, with valuation searches bid separately and for less.
03
Meta campaigns in the suburbs you list in, run from the agent's or the agency's own page, with lead forms that ask about timeframe and property type before anyone calls.
04
Your CRM connected (VaultRE, AgentBox, RexPlus, MyDesktop, Eagle, HubSpot or similar), so appraisal booked, appraisal attended and listing signed are recorded against the source and sent back to Google Ads and Meta as conversions.
05
A source scorecard for portal profile leads, bought seller leads, Google, Meta, signboards and your database, showing cost per appraisal and cost per listing won by suburb every month.
06
Database campaigns: market updates and appraisal offers to past vendors, buyers who own and landlords, sent only to people who agreed to hear from you, with an unsubscribe in every message.
07
Local search: a Google Business Profile for each office, a page for each suburb you list in with recent results, and answers to the questions owners ask before choosing an agent, written so Google and AI assistants can cite them.
08
Ongoing management by senior operators, with budgets moved weekly on cost per listing won and each decision written into a log the agency keeps.
Who this is for
- Principals and listing agents who want more vendor appraisals in particular suburbs
- Agencies paying for portal upgrades, bought seller leads or ads, and unsure which ones win listings
- An agency CRM where appraisals and listings are recorded
- Someone in the office who will log the source of every appraisal
Who it isn't
- Looking for buyer leads for a listing (that is the property's own campaign, run through the portals)
- Wanting cold-calling lists or door-knocking scripts
- Judging success on cost per appraisal request alone
- Looking for listing photography or daily social posts (that stays with your team or a specialist we recommend)
How we work with real estate agents
Tracking to the listing first, then the lead generation.
If your CRM cannot already say which source produced each listing, that comes first, because every comparison on this page depends on it. If it can, we go straight to running the campaigns. Both are quoted in one written proposal after the free audit call, as a fixed fee for the agreed scope, and never as a percentage of what you spend on Google, Meta or the portals.
Optional · Two weeks
The two-week diagnostic
Read-only. We trace a quarter of vendor enquiries from each source, portal and bought leads included, through to appraisals and listings, and write up cost per listing won by source and suburb.
Step 01 · Twelve weeks
The measurement rebuild
Source capture on every form, call and portal enquiry, the CRM connected to Google Ads and Meta, appraisal and listing events sent back, and the source scorecard. Fixed scope, paid in instalments.
Step 02 · Ongoing
Ongoing lead generation
Appraisal funnels, Google Ads, Meta and local search run week to week against cost per listing won, with each decision written into a log you keep.
Franchise offices with a group marketing program can run this alongside it. If the numbers say our fee would not pay for itself at your spend, we will tell you before you commit to anything.
Where to go next
Related services and neighbouring industries.
Related services
Real estate marketing →
The full program for agencies: measurement, vendor campaigns, portal spend and local search.
Property developer marketing →
Off-the-plan launches, measured from registration to contract.
Lead generation agency →
The same approach for B2B and service businesses.
Google Ads management →
Agent-selection searches, bid against listings won.
Facebook ads management →
Suburb campaigns run from your own page.
Related industries
- Mortgage broker marketing →
- Mortgage broker lead generation →
- Marketing for tradies →
- Law firm marketing →
- Marketing for accountants →
- Dental marketing →
- NDIS provider marketing →
- Childcare marketing →
Cities we work with agencies in
SydneyMelbourneBrisbanePerthAdelaideNational (remote)
Run your numbers
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 about real estate leads.
How do I get leads for real estate?
From five sources, which cost very different amounts per listing. Your own database of past vendors, buyers who also own and landlords. Portal agent profiles, where owners request appraisals from the agents they shortlist. Google, when owners search for an agent or a valuation. Meta, where suburb campaigns reach owners before they start looking. And bought seller leads from companies that run the ads and pass you the enquiry. The useful work is not adding sources but measuring them: tag each appraisal with its source and count the listings each one produces.
Where do real estate agents get most of their leads?
We know of no reliable public figure that splits Australian vendor leads by source, and agencies differ widely. What realestate.com.au says about its own seller leads is useful: owners request appraisals from Agent Search, agent profiles, sold property pages and off-market pages, REA verifies their phone number, and current profiles, recent reviews and prompt sold data help agents receive more of them (customer.realestate.com.au, checked 1 October 2026). Your own answer is in your CRM if the source of each appraisal is recorded. If it is not, start recording it this week; a quarter of your own data will tell you more than any industry average.
Is it worth paying for leads?
When the cost per listing won is lower than what a listing earns the office, and lower than your other sources. Seller leads are priced per lead: GetListings, for example, advertises packs from $79.80 per lead including GST, run as ads from the agent's own Facebook page (getlistings.com.au, checked 1 October 2026). Whether that is cheap depends on two rates: how many leads book an appraisal, and how many appraisals list. At one appraisal per five leads and one listing per three appraisals, an $80 lead costs $1,200 per listing won. At one in ten and one in four, it costs $3,200. Those rates are illustrations; measure your own for a quarter before deciding.
How much should I pay per lead?
Work back from the listing, not forward from the lead price. Take what a listing earns the office after the agent's split, decide what share of it you will spend to win one, then multiply by your lead-to-listing rate. For example, if a listing leaves the office $10,000, you will spend 10 percent of that to win one, and one lead in fifteen lists, your ceiling is about $67 a lead. An office that converts appraisals well can afford to pay more per lead than one that rarely does, which is why the same lead pack is good value for one agency and poor value for another.
What is the difference between a seller lead and an appraisal lead?
A seller lead is any owner who has shown some intent to sell: someone who asked for an online estimate, downloaded a suburb report or requested an appraisal. An appraisal lead is narrower: an owner who has asked an agent to assess the property, usually in person. Appraisal leads are closer to a listing and cost more to win. Record them as separate stages in the CRM, because a pipeline full of estimate requests looks busy and lists slowly.
Do Google Ads work for real estate agents?
For vendor leads, yes, when the campaigns separate intent. Keyword Planner shows 8,100 monthly searches for 'real estate agents near me' at $5.31 to $48.09 a click, 260 for 'best real estate agent' at $9.16 to $71.40 and 170 for 'compare real estate agents' at $12.86 to $132.10 (October 2026). Those owners are choosing an agent now. 'How much is my house worth' (4,400 searches at $1.07 to $3.86) is cheaper and earlier. Run them as separate campaigns with separate landing pages, and judge each on listings won, not clicks.
Do Facebook ads work for vendor leads?
They can, in the suburbs you work, with the ad running from your own page so the owner knows who they are dealing with. Meta reaches owners before they search, which suits appraisal and suburb update offers. The trade-off is intent: an easy lead form brings curious owners, so ask about timeframe and property type in the form, call within minutes, and keep the rest warm with suburb updates. Score the campaign on listings won, because a cheap lead that never lists costs more than it looks.
What are the rules on prospecting calls, emails and texts?
Three to know, and this is general information. If you call a number on the Do Not Call Register, you need that person's consent (ACMA). Telemarketing calls are limited to 9 am to 8 pm on weekdays and 9 am to 5 pm on Saturdays (ACCC). Marketing emails and texts need consent, must identify you as the sender and must make it easy to unsubscribe, and you remain responsible for consent on any list you buy (ACMA). If you buy leads, ask how each owner agreed to be contacted and keep that record. Check your state's real estate rules too.
What can a vendor ad claim?
Only what you can back up. Under the Australian Consumer Law, a claim must be true and have reasonable grounds at the time you make it, and that includes claims about the future, such as the price you expect to achieve. Rankings and records, such as top agent in a suburb, need a source and a date the reader can check. Testimonials must be the genuine views of genuine clients. A free appraisal has to be free. The ACCC's advertising guidance covers each of these, and your state regulator may add more. This is general information, not legal advice.
How much does real estate lead generation cost?
Three costs: the media (Google, Meta and any portal upgrades), any leads you buy, and the management fee. For management, Australian agencies usually charge 10 to 20 percent of ad spend, with the percentage dropping as spend climbs, or a flat retainer, commonly $1,500 to $3,000 a month for small accounts and $3,000 to $8,000 for mid-sized ones. Ours is a fixed fee for the agreed scope, never a percentage of what you spend on Google, Meta or the portals, quoted in writing after the free audit call. If your spend is too low for that fee to pay its way, we will say so on that call.
What agency fees look like 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
Bring a quarter of appraisals by source and suburb.
It starts with a free 30-minute profit audit, run by a senior operator. Bring three months of appraisals with where each one came from, the listings they became, and what you spent on each source, portals included. We will show you your cost per listing won by source, what an appraisal funnel would change, and whether your spend can carry our fee. You leave with written findings, whether or not we work together.