Real Estate Marketing

What does real estate marketing involve for an agency?

Real estate marketing for an agency means winning more listings: being the agent an owner calls when they’re ready to sell or lease. That’s different from property marketing, which promotes a listing once you have it, mostly through realestate.com.au and Domain and usually funded by the vendor’s marketing budget. Agency marketing is your own money, so it should be judged on appraisals booked and listings won.

Plenty of “real estate marketing ideas” lists mix the two. Professional photos, video walk-throughs and premium portal placements help sell a property, and they help win the next listing indirectly because vendors see them. But they don’t put you in front of the owner three streets away who is quietly comparing agents. That owner is on Google, reading reviews and looking at who sold what nearby.

Our work is digital marketing for real estate agencies: Google Maps, SEO, Google Ads, websites, reviews and database email. Letterbox drops, signboards, newsletters and local sponsorships still work for many agencies. We’ll factor them into the plan, but we don’t deliver them.

Which marketing channels bring in vendor and appraisal leads?

The channels that bring in vendor leads are your database, Google Maps and reviews, SEO on suburb and appraisal searches, Google Ads on “sell my house” searches, and your portal profiles. The database is usually the cheapest source of listings. Ads are the fastest to switch on, and SEO and reviews compound over time.

Channel	What it brings	Cost type	Time to work
Past-client database	Repeat and referred vendors, landlords	Staff time and CRM software	Ongoing, years
Google Business Profile and reviews	Calls from “agent near me” and suburb searches	Mostly time	1–3 months
SEO (suburb and appraisal pages)	Owners researching agents and prices	Monthly retainer	3–6 months
Google Ads	Owners searching “sell my house” or “appraisal” now	Management fee plus ad spend	Weeks
RateMyAgent and portal profiles	Vendors comparing agents by name	Subscriptions and time	Ongoing
Social media	Profile and recall in your farm area	Time or ad spend	Slow for listings

Most offices underinvest in the first two and overspend on social. A database of past vendors, buyers who didn’t buy, and appraisals that didn’t list is where most next-year listings come from. A Google profile with few recent reviews loses the vendor before they ever reach your website.

For the organic side of this mix, including suburb pages and agent profiles, see our real estate SEO page.

How should agencies use Google Ads for “sell my house” and appraisal searches?

Run Google Ads on searches owners make when they’re ready to act: “sell my house [suburb]”, “property appraisal [suburb]”, “real estate agent [suburb]” and “how much is my house worth”. Send each click to a landing page for that suburb with your recent sales there and a short appraisal form. Exclude buyer searches, which the portals serve better.

What makes these campaigns work:

• Suburb-level ad groups. “Sell my house Carlingford” should land on a Carlingford page, not your homepage. Vendors want proof you sell in their street, not a generic brand pitch.
• Negative keywords. Exclude “for sale”, “rent”, “buy” and “jobs” so you don’t pay for buyers, tenants or people looking for work as an agent.
• Call tracking. Many vendors phone rather than fill in a form. Track calls from the ads, or you’ll undercount what works.
• Expect competition from agent-comparison sites. Referral and comparison platforms bid on the same appraisal terms. Your edge is local proof and a fast response, often within the hour.
• Count listings, not leads. An appraisal request is only worth something if it becomes a listing presentation. Feed that back into which suburbs and keywords get budget.

More detail on campaign setup is on our Google Ads service page.

How do database, email and RateMyAgent reviews win listings?

Your database wins listings by keeping you in front of past clients and near-misses until they’re ready to sell, and reviews win them by being what vendors read when they compare agents. Both are cheap compared with ads, but both depend on consistent effort over months.

Database and email. Most agency CRMs, such as Rex, VaultRE or AgentBox, can segment by suburb, property type and last contact. Useful sends include suburb sales results, a yearly “what your home might be worth” check-in for past buyers, and a follow-up to appraisals that didn’t list. Under the Spam Act, the ACMA requires consent to send, accurate sender details, and an unsubscribe option that’s actioned within 5 working days.

Reviews. Ask at the moment of most goodwill, usually settlement for vendors and lease signing for landlords. RateMyAgent and portal reviews matter because vendors compare agents there. Google reviews matter because they affect your Maps visibility. A single request message with both links, sent by the agent rather than an admin address, usually gets the best response.

Portals. Keep agent and agency profiles on realestate.com.au and Domain current with sold results, reviews and a clear bio. Vendors often find an agent’s name on a signboard and look them up on a portal before they call.

What are the rules on advertising price in each state?

Price advertising rules differ by state. NSW and Victoria have underquoting laws that ban “offers over” style pricing and cap price ranges at 10%. Queensland bars agents from giving a price guide for auction properties. WA requires advertised prices to match what the client authorised. The Australian Consumer Law applies everywhere, including section 18 on misleading or deceptive conduct and section 30 on false or misleading representations about land.

State	Key rule	What it means for your ads and pages
NSW	Underquoting rules under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002	Your estimate must be reasonable and in the agency agreement. Ranges can’t be wider than 10%. No “offers over”, “offers above” or “$500,000+”. Court fines of up to $22,000, plus loss of commission. New laws are expected to start towards the end of 2026.
Victoria	Underquoting rules enforced by Consumer Affairs Victoria	Advertised prices can be a single figure or a range of up to 10%, and can’t be qualified with “offers above”, “from” or ”+”. The Statement of Information is now the Property Price Statement (from 1 October 2026; 16 October 2026 for auctions and fixed-date sales). Penalties exceed $50,000.
Queensland	Section 216 of the Property Occupations Act 2014	For auction properties, agents must not disclose a price guide, the reserve or a likely winning bid. A price range can be given to a portal only to set search filters, with the prescribed statement on the listing.
WA	Real Estate and Business Agents and Sales Representatives Code of Conduct 2016	Rule 23: don’t advertise a price or terms the client hasn’t authorised, or a property without written consent. Rule 26: an opinion of market price must be in writing, with reasons and comparable sales where available.
All states	Australian Consumer Law	No misleading claims about price, sales results, rankings (“No.1 agent”) or reviews.

This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. These rules change, as NSW and Victoria both show in 2026. Check the current rules with your principal, your state’s fair trading regulator, or your industry body before a campaign goes live.

For digital marketing this matters in places agents don’t always check. Google Ads headlines, suburb landing pages, social ads and email subject lines are all advertising. A “Homes in Brunswick from $1.2m” ad headline would breach Victoria’s ban on “from” pricing if it promoted a Victorian listing, and an old “offers over” price left on a page in NSW is still a published advertisement.

How much should a real estate agency spend on marketing?

Set your agency marketing budget from your listing target and what a listing is worth, not from a percentage you heard at a conference. Typical Australian market ranges are $1,500–$3,000 per month for SEO for a single competitive office and $500–$1,500 per month for Google Ads management, with ad spend separate. Multi-office groups usually sit at $3,000–$6,000+ per month for SEO.

Item	Typical Australian market range
SEO, single office in quieter area	$800–$1,500 per month
SEO, single office in competitive metro suburbs	$1,500–$3,000 per month
SEO, multi-office agency or franchise group	$3,000–$6,000+ per month
Google Ads management (ad spend separate)	$500–$1,500 per month, or 10–20% of spend
One-off paid marketing or SEO audit	$500–$2,500

Here’s a hypothetical worked example. An office in Geelong earns an average of $14,000 gross commission per sale and converts one in four appraisals into a listing that sells. Each appraisal is then worth about $3,500 in gross commission. If digital marketing costs $3,500 a month in total, it needs roughly one extra appraisal a month to break even before the agent split. At that conversion rate, that’s one extra sale every four months. Use your own numbers. The point is to know them before choosing channels.

For a fuller breakdown of how SEO is priced, see our SEO pricing guide. Work is month-to-month with no lock-in, and reporting shows appraisals and listings by channel.

Want to know which channels would bring your office the most appraisals? Get a free real estate marketing audit.