How do real estate agents get appraisals from Facebook ads? A practical guide for Australian agents

Real estate agents get appraisals from Facebook ads by doing two jobs at once: becoming the familiar local name in a set of suburbs, and giving owners who are already thinking about selling an easy, low-pressure way to put their hand up. Most "get a free appraisal" ads fail because they skip the first job and ask a stranger for something big.

This guide covers what we've found works for Australian agents and agencies: the offers, the ad types, the targeting, and the follow-up that turns a lead form into a listing.

Why most appraisal ads don't work

Selling a home is one of the biggest decisions an owner makes. Very few people see an ad from an agent they've never heard of and book an appraisal on the spot.

What tends to happen instead:

• The ad says "Thinking of selling? Get a free appraisal" to the whole city.
• It gets a handful of leads, many from people who just wanted a number, with a wrong phone number or no intention to sell soon.
• Nobody calls them for two days.
• The agent decides "Facebook doesn't work for appraisals."

The fix isn't a cleverer headline. It's a system: local familiarity, a reason to raise a hand, fast follow-up and patient nurturing of people who aren't ready yet.

What do Facebook ads for appraisals cost in Australia?

There's no single answer, because it depends on your area, your offer and how good your follow-up is. The best public benchmark we've seen comes from Rex Software, which looked at 152 Australian agency accounts using its Reach ads product between October 2023 and September 2024. It found a median cost of $48.71 per vendor lead from on-Facebook lead forms, a median click-through rate of 4.28%, and higher click-through rates from older audiences, peaking at 4.53% for people aged 55 to 64.

Two cautions. A vendor lead is not an appraisal, and an appraisal is not a listing, so a cheap lead can still be expensive once you count how many turn into signed agency agreements. And your numbers will differ from a median across many offices. Use benchmarks to sanity-check, then track your own.

Step 1: Pick a patch and own it

Facebook ads work best for agents when they're local and repetitive. Choose the suburbs where you want listings, ideally where you've sold before and know the streets, and keep showing up there.

• Keep the area tight. A few suburbs you can genuinely service beats a whole region you can't.
• Run ads all year, not just when you need listings. Owners who sell next spring are forming opinions about agents now.
• Use your own face and voice. Short videos of you talking about the local market build more trust than a logo and stock photo.

Before you set up an audience, check what Meta asks you to declare. Meta has "special ad categories", including one for housing, that limit targeting options in some countries, and the rules have changed over time. Ads Manager will tell you if one applies to your campaign.

Step 2: Give owners a real reason to raise their hand

"Free appraisal" is what every agent offers, so it isn't really an offer. Owners respond better to something useful and low-commitment. Ideas that work well as lead ads or landing pages:

Offer	Why it works	Who it suits
Monthly sales report for your street or suburb	Useful even if they're not selling yet, and it keeps you in their inbox	Owners 6 to 24 months from selling
"What did the house down the road sell for?" after a nearby sale	Curiosity is high right after a sale they've seen	Neighbours of a recent sale
A 15-minute market chat, phone or in person	Less pressure than an "appraisal"	Owners who are curious but cautious
Price estimate with a follow-up visit	Gives them a starting point, then a reason to meet you	Owners closer to selling
Downsizing or selling-and-buying guide	Speaks to a specific life stage	Long-term owners, empty nesters

Whatever you offer, be honest about it. If the form promises a price estimate, deliver one, and make clear that an online estimate is a guide and a proper appraisal needs a visit. Don't hint at prices you can't support. Australian Consumer Law applies to agent advertising, and state regulators such as NSW Fair Trading are clear that agents are responsible for any representation they make, including what's left out.

Step 3: Use the ad types that build trust

Agents who get steady appraisals from Facebook usually run a mix of three kinds of ads.

1. Familiarity ads (most of the budget, all year). Just listed, open home and sold posts, short market updates, and "a day in the suburb" videos. These aren't asking for anything. They make you the agent people recognise.

2. Proof ads. Recent results in the area, told plainly: the street, the type of home, what the campaign involved. Only use results you can stand behind, and get the vendor's permission before featuring their property or words. Never use reviews or testimonials you can't verify.

3. Hand-raiser ads (the lead ads). The offers from Step 2, shown to the same local audience. These convert far better when people have already seen your familiarity and proof ads for a few weeks.

A note on just sold ads: they're one of the most useful formats you have. A sale in someone's street is the moment they're most likely to wonder what their own home is worth. Run a just sold ad around that address for a couple of weeks with a clear "Curious what your home might sell for? Let's chat" call to action.

Step 4: Build the right audiences

The strongest audiences for appraisal ads are people who already have some relationship with you.

• Your database. Past buyers, open home attendees, past vendors and people who've enquired, uploaded as a custom audience where you have consent to market to them. Many of your next vendors are already in your CRM.
• Video viewers and page engagers. People who watched a good chunk of your market update videos are showing interest. Retarget them with your hand-raiser offers.
• Website visitors. If you have the Meta pixel installed, people who looked at your sold listings or "selling" page are worth showing a specific offer.
• Local broad audiences. For reach in your patch, let Meta's delivery find people, and let the creative do the targeting: an ad that talks about "selling your family home in [suburb]" will attract the right people more reliably than guessing at interests.

Step 5: Make the lead form easy and honest

On-Facebook lead forms usually bring more leads than sending people to a website, but they can also bring lower-quality ones because it's so easy to submit. Find the balance:

• Ask for name, mobile, email, property address and a simple question like "When are you thinking of selling?" with options such as "Within 3 months", "3 to 12 months" and "Just curious".
• Use the "higher intent" form type, which adds a review step before submitting. It usually means fewer leads but better ones.
• Tell people exactly what happens next: "We'll call you within one business day to talk through your property."

Step 6: Follow up fast, then keep going

This is where most appraisal campaigns are won or lost. The ad's job ends when the form is submitted. Yours starts.

1. Call the same day, ideally within the hour. A lead from an ad cools quickly.
2. If they don't answer, text so they know who called and why.
3. Send what you promised (the report, the estimate, the recent sales) even if you haven't spoken yet.
4. Sort the lead by timeframe. "Within 3 months" gets an appraisal booked. "3 to 12 months" and "just curious" go into a regular nurture: monthly suburb updates, invitations to open homes, and a check-in call every couple of months.
5. Record the source in your CRM, so you can see which ads turned into appraisals and listings, not just leads.

Many of the leads that seem "bad" are simply early. An owner who says "just curious" in March can be your listing in October if you stay in touch.

How to measure whether it's working

Likes, reach and clicks are signs the ads are being seen. They don't pay commission. Track the full chain each month:

• Leads from Facebook and Instagram
• Leads you spoke to
• Appraisals booked and completed
• Listings signed
• Cost per appraisal and cost per listing

Give it time. Because the ads are building familiarity as well as collecting leads, a fair test is a few months in one patch, not two weeks.

Mistakes to avoid

• Asking strangers for an appraisal in the first ad they see.
• Targeting too wide to make the leads look cheap.
• Generic creative. Stock photos of keys and "sold" signs look like every other agent.
• Slow follow-up, or no follow-up for people who aren't ready yet.
• Overstating results or using reviews and sales you can't back up.

How we approach it

When we run Facebook and Instagram for agents, the plan looks like this: consistent local content so the agent becomes the familiar name in their patch, just listed and sold campaigns around every listing, and appraisal lead ads aimed at people who already know them, with the results on the agent's own client page. You can read more about our real estate marketing, or tell us about your agency.