Solved: Property Agent Campaign Failing - No Leads

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! I had a look over the situation you described. Spending over $500 without a single lead is incredibly frustrating, I've seen it happen before and it's almost always a sign that something fundamental in the strategy is off. It's rarely about a single platform update like Andromeda, so let's put that thought aside for now.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on this. The good news is that this is almost certainly a solvable problem. It's not about the colour of your landing page or whether you use an opt-in or a VSL. The issue runs a bit deeper, and it's rooted in your offer, your targeting, and the overall value you're presenting to potential clients. We need to stop tweaking the engine and check if we've put the right fuel in the tank first.

We'll need to look at your offer before we blame the algorithm...

Right, let's get one thing straight. It's very tempting to blame a big, mysterious algorithm update when campaigns go sideways. But in my experience, 99% of the time, the problem is much closer to home. You've spent over $500 testing different landing pages, which tells me you're focused on the mechanics of conversion. But you can have the most beautifully designed, fastest-loading landing page in the world, and it won't matter a jot if the people arriving there have no compelling reason to stay.

The number one reason campaigns fail is the offer. Your offer is the core promise you're making in your ad. What are you actually offering people in exchange for their click and, ultimately, their contact details? If the answer is "a list of properties" or "a video about our agency," you're dead in the water. That's not an offer; it's a brochure. Nobody wakes up in the morning excited to sign up for a brochure.

You need to frame your service as the solution to a specific, urgent, and expensive problem. Let's think about this in the context of a property agent. People don't just 'buy houses'. They buy a solution to a life problem.

• -> A growing family isn't looking for "a bigger house"; they're looking for a safe street in a top-rated school district before their eldest starts school in September. Their pain is the fear of missing the deadline and compromising their child's education.
• -> A couple approaching retirement isn't looking to "downsize"; they're looking to unlock the capital from their large family home to fund a comfortable retirement without the stress and uncertainty of the selling process. Their pain is financial anxiety.
• -> A young professional isn't just looking for "a flat in the city"; they're looking for a smart investment that puts them on the property ladder and cuts down their commute, so they can get two hours of their life back every day. Their pain is wasted time and feeling left behind financially.

Your offer and your ad copy must speak directly to one of these pains. Instead of a generic ad, you need something that resonates deeply. You need a message they can't ignore because it feels like you're reading their mind.

Let's use the 'Problem-Agitate-Solve' framework. You don't sell property viewings; you sell a solution to a life crisis.

Before (Your current approach): "Looking for a property in [Your City]? Click here to see our latest listings. We have beautiful 2, 3, and 4-bedroom homes available. Sign up for our newsletter!"

After (A pain-based approach): "Worried you'll miss the deadline for the [Top School] catchment area? The best family homes are often sold before they even hit Rightmove. (Problem) Every week you wait, prices in the area creep up, and another family could snap up your dream home. (Agitate) Get our free 'Catchment Area Hotlist' - a curated list of 5 off-market properties perfect for families, sent to your inbox instantly. (Solve)"

See the difference? The first is a boring announcement. The second is an urgent, valuable solution to a specific, emotional problem. This is what gets the *right* people to click. It pre-qualifies them. Someone without kids won't care. Someone not looking in that specific area won't care. But the exact family you want to attract will feel like you've thrown them a lifeline. This is the foundation. Without a strong, pain-solving offer, all the landing page tweaks in the world are just rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

I'd say your Ideal Customer Profile is a Nightmare, not a Demographic...

This brings me to the next critical flaw in most campaigns I see: the targeting. You mentioned getting a 1.8% CTR and "good impressions." Honestly, these metrics are borderline meaningless on their own. It's easy to get clicks. It's hard to get clicks from people who are actually in a position to become a client. I could run an ad with a picture of a cute puppy and get a 5% CTR, but it wouldn't sell a single house.

You're likely using broad, demographic-based targeting. Things like "Age: 30-55", "Location: [Your City]", "Interest: Property, Rightmove, Zoopla". This seems logical, but it's a trap. It lumps your perfect client—the family desperate to get into that school catchment area—in with thousands of other people who are just casually browsing, daydreaming about their lottery win, or are simply nosey neighbours. You are paying Meta to show your ads to non-customers.

You need to stop thinking about demographics and start thinking about their 'nightmare'. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. The job isn't to find "people"; it's to find the pain.

Once you've defined that nightmare (e.g., "fear of missing school deadline"), your targeting becomes much sharper. How do you find these people on Meta? You layer interests and behaviours that correlate with that specific life stage.

• -> Instead of just "Property", you could layer: Interests in "Parenting blogs" + "Primary school" + Behaviours like "Engaged Shoppers" + Life Events like "Anniversary within 30 days" (suggests a stable relationship).
• -> Or for the downsizers: Interests in "Retirement planning" + "Gardening" + pages for "Saga Holidays" or "National Trust" + Age 55+.

This is where the real work is. It's not about finding a magic interest. It's about building a composite picture of your ideal client's life and translating that into the options Meta gives you. The more specific you get, the higher your cost per click might be, but the quality of that click will be infinitely better. You'd rather pay £3 for a click from a genuinely motivated buyer than £0.50 for six clicks from people who are just browsing. The latter is how you spend $500 with nothing to show for it.

Here’s a simple flowchart to help you diagnose who your real ICP is. Don't just think about what you sell; think about what problem you solve.

You probably should delete your 'Opt-in' form...

Now, let's talk about your funnel. You've tried an opt-in page, then you removed it and sent people straight to a Video Sales Letter (VSL). This is a classic case of tinkering with the wrong part of the process. The problem isn't the format (opt-in vs. VSL); it's the value exchange. Both of your approaches are high-friction and low-value from the prospect's perspective.

Think about it. A stranger on the internet asks you for your email address and phone number. In return for what? A vague promise of "seeing some properties"? Or asks you to sit and watch a video? Why would they? Their time and their privacy are valuable. Your current offer isn't respecting that. You're asking for their details before you've given them anything of real, tangible value.

The "Request a Demo" button is the most arrogant CTA in B2B marketing, and its equivalent in real estate is the "Sign up to see listings" form. It presumes the prospect has nothing better to do than get sold to. You need to flip the script entirely. Your offer's only job is to deliver an "aha!" moment of undeniable value that makes the prospect sell themselves on you.

You must solve a small, real problem for them for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing. For a property agent, this means creating a high-value, downloadable asset—a "lead magnet"—that directly addresses the 'nightmare' you identified earlier.

Here are some examples of high-value lead magnets for different property ICPs:

• For the 'School Catchment' Family: "The 2024 [Suburb] School Catchment Guide: A Free PDF Comparing House Prices vs. Ofsted Ratings."
• For the 'Downsizer' Couple: "Free Calculator: Instantly Estimate Your Home's Current Value & See How Much Equity You Could Unlock."
• For the 'First-Time Buyer': "The First-Time Buyer's Checklist: 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Getting Your First Mortgage. (Free PDF)"

These offers work because they provide immediate, tangible value. They solve a small piece of the puzzle for the prospect right away. They position you as an expert and a helpful guide, not just another salesperson. You run your highly-targeted ads directly to a simple landing page that offers one of these free resources. Once they've downloaded it and gotten value, then you can start a conversation with them via an email nurture sequence or a follow-up call. You've earned their trust. Untill you've done that, you're just another piece of noise in their feed.

When you structure your campaigns, you need to think in terms of the marketing funnel. Right now, you're treating everyone like they are at the Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu), ready to buy. But most people you reach with ads are at the Top of the Funnel (ToFu)—they're problem-aware, but not solution-aware yet. You need seperate campaigns and messaging for each stage.

You'll need to understand what a property lead actually costs...

Finally, we need to talk about expectations. Even with the perfect offer, targeting, and funnel, leads aren't free, and they're definately not cheap in a competitive market like property. The goal isn't to get the cheapest lead possible; it's to acquire a client profitably.

Your cost per lead (CPL) is a function of two main things: your Cost Per Click (CPC) and your Landing Page Conversion Rate (LPCR).

CPL = CPC / LPCR

In a developed country for a high-value service, your CPC could easily be anywhere from £0.50 to £1.50 or even higher for very specific, high-intent audiences. Your landing page conversion rate for a good lead magnet might be between 10% and 30%. Let's do the maths.

• Best Case Scenario: £0.50 CPC / 30% LPCR = £1.67 per lead.
• Worst Case Scenario: £1.50 CPC / 10% LPCR = £15.00 per lead.

So, a realistic range for a lead (someone downloading a PDF) is probably somewhere between £2 and £15. But this isn't a qualified client yet. This is just the start of a conversation. I've seen campaigns for high-ticket local services go much higher. I remember one campaign we ran for an HVAC company in a competitive area, and they were paying around $60 per qualified lead, which for them was profitable. On the other hand, one of our best consumer services campaigns was for a home cleaning company which got leads for £5 each. Property will likely fall somewhere in the middle, leaning towards the more expensive end because of the high value of a final sale.

Your spend of $200-$250 per attempt is actually quite small in the grand scheme of things. At a potential CPL of $20, that budget would only be expected to generate around 10-12 leads. At a CPL of $50, you might only expect 4-5 leads. Getting zero suggests the core strategy is wrong (as we've discussed), but it's also important to have a realistic budget to properly test a campaign. You often need to spend enough to get 50 conversions for Meta's algorithm to properly optimise.

To help you get a better feel for the numbers, I've built a small interactive calculator below. You can adjust the sliders for your estimated click cost and landing page conversion rate to see what your potential CPL might be. This should help ground your expectations in reality.

Here is the main advice I have for you:

To pull all this together, you need a fundamental shift in your approach. Stop tweaking the small stuff and focus on getting the big strategic pieces right. Below is a table summarizing the core problems and the actions you need to take to fix them.

Following this framework is a lot more work than just changing the heading on a landing page, but it's the only way to build a predictable and scalable lead generation system for your property business. You need to stop thinking like a traditional agent and start thinking like a direct response marketer.

This is obviously just a high-level overview based on the info you've provided. Implementing this correctly—from writing the ad copy that speaks to the pain, to crafting the perfect lead magnet, and setting up the campaigns with the right technical settings—involves a lot of expertise and testing. It can be a real minefield if you've not done it before.

If you feel like this is the right direction but you'd like an expert to help navigate it, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a proper look at your campaigns together, audit your strategy, and give you a clear, actionable plan. Sometimes a second pair of expert eyes is all it takes to turn things around.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh