Anyone in the real estate space knows how challenging marketing can be. Competition is steep, stakes are high, and gaining trust is difficult.
In real estate the paid advertising aspect of marketing cannot be ignored. If your leads are not able to find you online, then how are you going to convince them to buy or rent one of your listings? I’m typing this post from my new condo, and reflecting on the process of moving into a new home, the entire whirlwind started with Google.
The issue is, small real estate firms do not have the time to manage a complex AdWords account. Adjusting bids, writing compelling AdWords copy, identifying negative keywords, and ensuring your account is structured optimally for each season and promotional offer is just a bit overwhelming for most.
Sarah Foxen, CEO of Residensportalen, knows this far too well. Residensportalen is one of the largest rental agencies in Sweden, yet the company has just three employees! To say they are strapped for time and resources is an understatement. “As a smaller business, we have a limited budget; account structure and correct bidding is critical,” says Sarah.
Sarah Foxen, CEO of Residensportalen
This is why Sarah’s team turned to WordStream Advisor. Not only did they not have time to manage their account in the state it was in, but they also lacked a glamorous budget. Luckily, with help from the WordStream team Residensportalen was able to produce results! Curious to learn how? Keep on reading…
Getting Their AdWords Account in Order
I bet the majority of readers understand the overwhelming feeling of inheriting or digging through your own disorganized AdWords account. Letting your account fall into disarray is incredibly easy to do, even for the neatest of freaks. Sarah was no stranger to a messy account. In fact, this was one of the many things that drove her to WordStream.
“WordStream helped us clean up an old, messy and unstructured AdWords account and that made all the difference,” says Sarah. “WordStream has helped us put order in our accounts and now the software helps us keep it clean. Getting through the clutter was one of our main challenges before starting with WordStream.”
Using WordStream Advisor Tools to Manage a Small Budget
Like many real estate marketers, Residensportalen is working with quite a small budget. Prior to working with WordStream Advisor, Sarah was quite frustrated by the fact her small budget was not yielding results.
Sarah found that the tools within WordStream Advisor allowed her to better manage her budget and get rid of the keywords and ads that weren’t working, and therefore wasting money. For instance, QueryStream allows her to look through the keywords and phrases searchers are typing into Google, identify any irrelevant searchers, and block wasted clicks that are costing her money.
“We spend quite a lot of time analyzing QueryStream and position,” says Sarah. “Sometimes we need to slash and burn in order to work within our budget restraints.”
Reprioritizing Time Spent On AdWords
Time is money when working with a team of just three to run one of the largest rental firms in Sweden! Sarah can’t waste it, and tools like the 20-Minute Work Week ensure that she won’t.
“WordStream has saved us a ton of time!” says Sarah. “The 20-Minute Work Week is a good kick in the butt to do the minimum in our accounts. However, since we have gotten such great results after switching to WordStream, we spend more time than that. Good results create more time to focus on it.”
This makes sense, right? When seeing good results, why wouldn’t you dedicate more time to maintaining a well-working machine? You might be wondering what those results were like so without further or do, let’s discuss…
The Results
The numbers say it all when it comes to seeing success, which is why Sarah is quite happy since coming onboard with WordStream Advisor.
“After 30 days on WordStream, our spend is at 25% of when we began and conversions have tripled,” says Sarah. “We experienced a record month of sale our first month on WordStream!”
Impressive, right?
Sarah had some interesting wins as well. “We tweaked one ad and got a 14% conversion rate!” she says.
More Than Just Software
To conclude, Sarah found that the success her business has had with WordStream is not just from using WordStream’s suite of tools; rather the relationship she has formed with her WordStream Customer Success Specialist has proved to be an even bigger value add for her.
“Our Customer Success Specialist was the happy surprise that we did not realize that we got when signing up,” she says. “We bought software and got invaluable human assistance.”
These stories make us very happy here at WordStream! If you have one to share, let us know.