How do I target landlords on Google Ads?

Your step-by-step guide

Posted under Lead generation Prospecting Estate Agents Google

Did you know, each year online advertisers waste $37 billion on ads that miss their target. Yes – that’s $37 billion dropping straight into Google’s coffers for no return. As a Letting Agent, do you use Google Ads? How sure are you that your precious marketing spend isn’t contributing to Google’s windfall?

In this article, we’ll show you how to:

  • Research your Target Audience
  • Conduct Keyword Research
  • Create Campaigns tailored for Landlords
  • Create your Ads
  • Monitor, review and improve your Ads
  • Use Google Ad Management Services

Table of contents

  1. What is a Target Audience?
  2. Conduct keyword research
  3. Your Google Ads Campaign Strategy
  4. How to Create your Google Ads
  5. Monitoring and reviewing your Google Ads
  6. Google Ads policies

How to target landlords with Google Ads

The key is to begin by researching your target market. Succeed in this, and you’ll be well on the way to achieving a successful ROI on your Google spend.

What is a Target Audience?

snippet of a persona of a landlord

Your target audience is the group of people most likely to be looking for your Letting Agency services. A clearly defined target audience of Landlords will form the foundation of every marketing strategy you undertake. Are you looking for Commercial Landlords or Residential Landlords? If it’s the latter, are you aiming for Landlords of HMO properties or single occupancy properties? Which geographical area are you targeting?

You need to divide your various target audiences into distinct categories. The more specific you can be with each one, the more successful you’ll be with your Ad campaigns.

Here are seven steps that will help you better identify who your target audience is.

  1. Analyse your current Landlord client base
    Look at your current Landlord list. What are their portfolios like? What kind of properties do they own? What kind of tenants do they have?
  1. Conduct Market Research and identify property trends
    What does it tell you about the gaps in service provision? Are these gaps that you could fill?
  1. Analyse your competitors
    Find out who they are targeting and how they’re carrying out their marketing. Are they using Google Ads? How well do their ads seem to be worded and targeted?
  1. Create Personas
    Creating personas can be effective in the property sector, but probably only where your target Landlord is an individual rather than a company. Try to build up a picture of the typical Landlord – their motivations, their lifestyle, their attitude towards property and letting. You might do this by connecting with them on social media or analysing relevant surveys.
  1. Define Who Your Target Audience Isn’t
    Successfully identifying who your target audience isn’t can save you £000s in advertising spend. In the case of property, you might decide that individuals below the age of 25 are not part of your target audience.
  1. Continuously revise
    As you gather more data and find out more about your target audience, you’ll gain an increasingly accurate understanding of who you should be aiming your Ads at. To achieve as near perfect a picture as you can, you’ll need to keep carrying out the same analysis. Never stand still. Your market won’t, so neither should you.
  1. Use Google Analytics
    Google Analytics will give you a vast array of data about visitors to your site. Use this information to identify key insights. Examples include the channels your target audience is coming from and the type of content they engage and connect with the most.

Conduct keyword research

Keyword research will form the basis of any digital marketing campaign. You’ll use the results of your research to develop your strategy for blogs, web page SEO and Google Ads.

What are keywords?

Keywords are a word or phrase that an individual uses to carry out a search in a search engine. Having identified your target audience, developing your keyword research strategy should be the next step in creating your Google Ads campaign.

How to do your keyword research?

Your task is to find out what words Landlords are entering into Google when they’re looking for the kind of service that your Letting Agency offers.

Begin by putting yourself into the shoes of your Landlord clients and think about the kind of words they might enter into Google. Why not ask a handful of your Landlord clients what word they might use when searching for a Letting Agent. Examples you come up with might include:

  • Let out my property
  • Letting agents near me
  • Landlord management services
  • Property management in [area]

Next, try entering one of these terms into the Google search bar. As you enter each character, you’ll notice a list of possible alternatives appearing below. These will give you an idea as to the kind of similar searches people make. Note down all these search terms.

At this point, you need to start using a Keyword Research Tool. There are many available – some are free, others paid for. The Google Keyword Planner is free and should be perfectly adequate. You’ll need to set up a Google Ads account before you can use the Keyword Planner.

snippet of google ads keyword planner searching for a term

You’ll also need to prepare an excel spreadsheet to store your keyword data. This will have to include column headings, such as Keyword, Monthly Search Volume and CPC (Cost Per Click).

User intent

Google is more sophisticated than ever before in the way it interprets users’ search behaviour. These days it identifies ‘user intent’ – what the user was trying to achieve when doing the search. It does this by analysing the connection between the words in the search – or their context.

User intent can be informational, transactional or navigational. Here’s an example of each:

  • Informational - What are the new tax rules for landlords?
  • TransactionalHMO Letting agents near me
  • Navigational Smith & Jones Letting Agents Bedford – where the searcher is simply trying to locate a company.

Google Ads that you place, as a Letting Agent, might well perform better if you include words that support an intent that’s transactional. You might use the phrase –

‘Looking for a Bedford HMO Letting Agent?’

Conducting in-depth keyword research

    1. Enter one of those keywords from your brainstorming session
    2. Look through the list and select the checkbox of the keywords you want to use
    3. Copy/paste the resulting data into your spreadsheet

Your Google Ads Campaign Strategy

For your Google Ads campaign to be successful and cost-effective, you need to develop a strategy and structure. You might decide to structure a Campaign to attract Landlords of HMO properties. Within that campaign, you might choose different Ad Groups – for example, one for Landlords of HMO Properties in Brighton and one for Landlords of HMO properties in Lewes.

Here are the steps to take when you create your campaign:

  1. Create a new campaign and choose your goal
    For each campaign, decide on your goal. You’ll find alternative goals to choose from in Campaigns/New Campaign. This will help you decide the best campaign type to reach your intended audience.
  2. Select a campaign type
    This will determine where your Ads are seen. As you’ve already selected a goal, you’ll see the options for the best campaign types to achieve it. Next, you’ll be taken to a new page to select your settings, set up ad groups and create your ads.

How to Create your Google Ads

This is where you’ll use the data you’ve collected to create the Ads that will give you the best chance of achieving your goals. Your Google Ads will be divided into two parts – the headline and the description.

How to write your Google Ad Headline

snippet of google ads headline option section

You’ll need three headlines for each of your Google Ads. To catch the eye, each one needs to be brief and punchy. You have just 30 characters with which to persuade the reader to read the main part of your Ad.

Your three headlines need to work as a team – the second and third adding to the previous one.

  1. HMO Property Letting Agent
  2. Efficient, Reliable, Personal
  3. Get In Touch Today!

These three headlines work well because they clearly explain what you provide, the benefits of your service, and there’s a Call To Action too.

Notice also how the first letter of each word is in upper-case. Research shows that this is always more effective.

How to write your Google Ad Description

You need to write two descriptions. These need to be carefully worded to make your Google Ad appear irresistible.

The character limit is 90 characters. Here’s an example of a description you might use –

HMO Landlords – Save Money With Brighton’s Most Experienced HMO Specialist Letting Agent.

This description works because it:

  • identifies who the Ad is aimed at – HMO Landlords
  • highlights the benefit of dealing with this Letting Agent – Saving Money
  • identifies two key features with the words experienced and HMO Specialist

It also connects well with the headlines.

Monitoring and reviewing your Google Ads

It’s one thing to set up your Google Ad Campaigns – but just as vital is monitoring and reviewing them. You need to know how well they’re working, and you need to be prepared to constantly tweak them to make them more effective. You do this within your Google Ads account by, first of all, setting up and monitoring Conversion Tracking. This will enable you to measure your ROI – Return On Investment. You’ll be able to check your Quality Score and test the effectiveness of each campaign.

Google Ads policies

It’s important to remember that, for very good reasons, Google has strict Ad policies. Break these, and you’ll soon find your account suspended. Find out about these policies here.

Agent Extra – for Google Ads Specialist Support

Here at Agent Extra, we use our years of Google Ads experience and know-how to create and manage Google Ad campaigns for estate and letting agents throughout the UK. Find out how to make your Google Ads campaigns work for you. Contact us today.

If you are looking for other avenues and methods for targeting landlords, check out our article on 40 ways to find landlords.

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