Real Estate Google Ads Benchmarks

Real estate Google Ads performance splits sharply by campaign objective. Vendor acquisition campaigns (targeting 'free property valuation', 'sell my house', 'estate agent fees') typically see CPAs of £40-120 per valuation booked — but a single instruction won can generate £3,000-15,000+ in commission, making this the highest-ROI campaign type for estate agents. Buyer campaigns have lower CPAs (£25-60) but lower instruction value. **'Near me' and hyperlocal terms dominate mobile.** Searches like 'estate agents in [neighbourhood]' and '3 bed house [postcode area]' now account for 55-65% of high-intent real estate clicks on mobile devices. Agents without granular location targeting at neighbourhood level — not just city level — are systematically overpaying for irrelevant traffic. **Portal competition defines budget floors.** Rightmove and Zoopla spend heavily on generic buyer-intent terms, driving CPCs for broad searches to £2-5. However, they cannot efficiently cover every hyperlocal long-tail search — this is where independent and regional agents win. CPC arbitrage exists in neighbourhood-specific and property-type-specific terms where portal bidding is absent or weak. **Vendor vs buyer campaign separation is essential.** Running both audiences in a single campaign forces Google's algorithm to find a compromise audience that is suboptimal for both. Separate campaigns with separate conversion goals (valuation booked vs viewing requested) allow Smart Bidding to find distinct user profiles for each objective — typically improving conversion rate by 20-40% for each objective independently.