The vendor who is ready to sell costs thirteen times the vendor who is only wondering what the place is worth. There are a lot more of the second kind.
What your clicks actually cost, which searches are wasting money, and what your cost per appraisal looks like. Fifteen minutes, and you keep it either way.
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A thirteenth of the price, and the appraisal that sits at the top of every listing you have ever won.
Sell my house is the most expensive click in this industry at $33.86, and there are 590 of them a month. Property valuation costs $2.67 and there are 74,000. Every agent bids on the first because the intent is obvious. The second is the same homeowner three months earlier, before they have chosen anybody, and it is the search that produces appraisals.
Average cost per click across Australia, from Google Keyword Planner. What your account pays will differ with location, competition and quality score. The gap between these rows is the argument, not the exact figures.
The expensive end is expensive because the intent is unmistakable. Somebody typing sell my house has decided, and every agency in the suburb is bidding for them. It is a very small pool being fought over very hard.
The bottom row is the whole opportunity. Property valuation is not a weaker version of the same search, it is the same person earlier in the process, and an appraisal is how this industry has always converted that person. It costs a thirteenth as much.
Three numbers, and only the last one decides anything. It is the same chain our Brisbane digital marketing agency works through in every industry, only the dollar figures change.
We work it right to left. What a job is worth sets what a lead can cost, which sets what a click is worth bidding.
Cost per click is the easiest number to improve and the least useful one. Bid on cheaper searches and it drops immediately, whether or not those searches ever turn into work. That is why we will sometimes tell you to pay more per click rather than less.
Google Ads is the fastest of the three and the only one you pay for by the click. Here is what the other two do, and where the expensive clicks eventually stop.
THE SLOW ASSET
Suburb pages that actually rank, recent sales published properly, a Google Business Profile per office, and a review process after every settlement. Slow to arrive, and the only thing that eventually takes the expensive vendor clicks off your bill.
THE FAST LEVER
Campaigns split by what the person actually wants, so appraisals never compete with rent roll growth for the same budget. Negative keywords so you stop paying for real estate jobs, agent licence courses, rentals available and the enormous volume of people browsing listings. Form and call tracking, because an appraisal request arrives both ways.
THE ONE MOST AGENTS SKIP
The cheapest reach available, and the channel that actually builds a personal brand. Vendors do not choose an agency, they choose an agent, and that decision is made over months of seeing somebody sell things nearby.
We start from what a listing is worth in commission, not what a click costs. An agency chasing listings and one building a rent roll cannot afford the same cost per click. Google Ads does the fast work, SEO eventually takes the expensive clicks off your bill, and Meta Ads is where an agent becomes a name people know. We will tell you if one is not worth running.
Not a strategy document. These are the three campaigns we would build first for a Brisbane agency, and what each one is actually for.
Built around “property valuation”
74,000 searches a month at $2.67 a click. This is the largest and cheapest search in the industry and it is the appraisal, which is how agents have always won listings. The page needs an instant estimate, then a real appraisal booking, in that order. Ask for the listing on that page and you lose them.
Built around “property management”
$14.26 a click on 3,600 searches, plus rental property management at $16.13. A managed property is recurring revenue for years and a listing when the owner eventually sells, which makes it the most undervalued campaign in this industry. The page needs your management fee, plainly.
Built around the searches we exclude
Real estate jobs, agent licence courses, rentals available, houses for sale, property listings, and the enormous number of people browsing rather than transacting. This industry has more browsing traffic than almost any on this hub and it will spend your budget quickly.
Send us access to your Google Ads account and we will come back with what it is wasting, which searches are costing you the most for the least, and what we would change first. Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you keep it either way.
Two clicks can cost the same and be worth completely different amounts. That gap, not the click price, is what decides whether an account works.
Under three dollars for the click and 74,000 people a month asking what their place is worth. Not all of them are selling this year. Enough of them are that the appraisal has been the foundation of this industry for decades, and it is available here at a thirteenth of what the ready vendor costs.
Your Google Business Profile, suburb pages, and local listings optimised so customers in your area find you first.
Technical fixes and service-focused SEO that make your site easy for Google to understand and trust.
Build your reputation through reviews, with monthly reports tracking rankings and leads from organic search.
Thirty three dollars and change for the click, and 590 searches a month for every agency in the city to fight over. The intent is perfect and the pool is tiny. Run it, and understand that it is the smallest and dearest corner of your market rather than the whole of it.
Site speed, crawlability, schema markup, and Core Web Vitals sorted so Google can index and trust your site.
Service pages and suburb landing pages written to rank and convert, not just fill space.
Backlink building and on-page optimisation that compounds month over month.
Three things come up in nearly every Google Ads account we audit for an agency.
Sell my house and its variants take the whole budget because the intent is obvious. It is 590 searches a month at $33.86 against every agency in the suburb, and it ignores the 74,000 people asking the earlier question.
Property valuation at $2.67 with 74,000 searches. Same homeowner, a few months earlier, before they have met anybody. An appraisal is how agents have always converted that person, and almost nobody is buying the click that starts it.
Property management at $14.26 gets treated as an afterthought because a management fee looks small next to a sales commission. It is recurring for years and it produces a listing when the owner sells, which most accounts never account for.
Its own campaign, its own budget, its own page with the fee on it. A rent roll is an asset with a valuation attached, and buying doors through search is usually cheaper than buying a rent roll outright.
An enquiry count treats an instant valuation and a booked appraisal as the same event. One is an email address and the other is an agent standing in a lounge room, and only the second one has ever won a listing.
Cost per click, then cost per appraisal booked, then cost per listing won. On a lag long enough to be honest, because the valuation somebody requested in March is the listing you win in September.
We start with what a listing is worth in commission and work backwards to what a click can cost.
A managed rental and a house sale cannot carry the same cost per click, and neither can an agency that converts one appraisal in three against one that converts one in ten. We work out your commission per listing and your appraisal conversion rate first, because together they set what a click can be worth.
Appraisals, ready vendors, property management and buyers each get their own campaign, budget and landing page, so the tiny expensive vendor pool never absorbs the budget meant for the appraisals that feed it.
Search terms reviewed weekly and negatives added, because this industry attracts an enormous volume of browsing, rentals and careers traffic. Then monthly reporting on cost per appraisal booked and cost per listing won.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
If nobody in the office will chase a valuation request the same day, do not run the appraisal campaign. That lead is early and it goes cold faster than a ready vendor does. And if your agents will not publish a fee or an estimate, the cheapest campaign on this page is closed to you.
Fast answers, clear decisions.
Spend, leads and trends at a glance.
Your data, your accounts.
Budget goes to what converts.
4+ years average client retention.
Specialists across each platform.
Volume and price. Sell my house has 590 searches a month at $33.86 with every agency in the suburb bidding. Property valuation has 74,000 at $2.67. It is the same homeowner a few months earlier, and an appraisal is how this industry has always converted that person.
Some of it, and that is the honest catch. At a thirteenth of the price you can afford a lower conversion rate. The thing that makes it work is the page: an instant estimate first, a real appraisal booking second. Ask for the listing straight away and you will prove yourself right that the traffic is no good.
Agency fees usually work one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold. Percentage models get expensive as you scale and quietly reward the agency for spending more of your money. Ask which model an agency uses and why before you ask for a number.
Yes, with a modest budget and clear eyes. The intent is perfect and the pool is 590 searches a month. It is worth a presence. It is not worth being the entire account, which is what we find in most agency accounts.
Because a managed property is recurring for years and becomes a listing when the owner sells, and almost every account treats it as an afterthought because the fee looks small next to a commission. Buying doors through search at $14.26 a click is usually cheaper than buying a rent roll.
Enough to hold position on appraisals consistently, since that campaign has real volume behind it and a long payback. The vendor terms have a natural ceiling at 590 searches a month, so there is a limit to what they can absorb regardless of budget.
It depends entirely on your appraisal conversion rate, which is why we ask for it before quoting anything. Two agencies with identical cost per appraisal will have very different cost per listing. We report both, on a lag long enough to be honest.
Three places, in this order. The whole budget on the ready vendor terms. Browsing traffic, which this industry generates more of than almost any on this hub, people looking at listings and rentals with no intention of hiring an agent. And valuation requests nobody follows up the same day.
Build the appraisal campaign and the page behind it. In nearly every agency account we audit, property valuation is either unbid or pointed at a contact form, which wastes the largest and cheapest search in the industry.
We look at what it is wasting, how much sits on the ready vendor terms, whether appraisals are being bid on at all, whether property management has its own budget, and what your cost per appraisal and cost per listing look like. You get it in writing and you keep it either way.
