Coldwell Banker agent Laurel Acker Miyake gets 30% of her qualified leads with Google AdWords.
| Boston Realtor
Laurel Acker Miyake works for Coldwell Banker, a century-old
firm with 3,500 offices and 100,000 sales associates across the
United States. In order to stand out in a crowded market, Miyake,
along with most other realtors, is responsible for her own marketing
to customers and prospects. Miyake differentiates herself by concentrating on inner-Boston properties in Beacon Hill, Back Bay and South End. She also provides clients with extensive information online through her website (www.laurelmiyake.com). Miyake says her online marketing aims to "turn traditional realty on its side by giving my customers and clients what they need to make an informed decision about what is often their largest single investment."  Source: Borrell Associates, "New Estimates for Online Real Estate Advertising," May 2005  Google attracts searchers looking for local information by offering services such as online maps. Approach The site features an extensive library of articles on topics such as first-time home buying, as well as open house schedules, customizable listings, and interactive calculators. Miyake recalls that despite the necessity of having a site, it didn't get much traffic when it first launched. To attract new prospects, in September 2002 she created a Google AdWords™ campaign built around keywords like "Boston real estate" and "Back Bay open houses." Today, 50% of Miyake's online marketing budget is dedicated to Google AdWords. Results Miyake says, "Since we began using Google AdWords, our traffic has steadily increased. It now gains 20% every year. And we estimate that 30% of our qualified leads find us through AdWords. That's on top of 40% qualified leads that come from Google search results. These are huge numbers for a local realtor." Even better, she says, "At least 30% of our leads have turned into sales within 120 days, which is outstanding for the real estate industry." Since Miyake has a specialty in relocation, one-third of her sales come from people moving to Boston from elsewhere in the U.S. or overseas. AdWords enables her to sharpen her focus by targeting ads by city, country and language. "Nothing gives us targeted performance like Google," she says. As for the inherently local nature of real estate, she observes that "we can't get around the necessary evil of offline ads, and we can't measure the results from them. But we do know that AdWords is the most successful campaign we're running." Ultimately, Miyake's AdWords campaign has led to another challenge: "I'm getting more traffic and leads now than I can handle on my own, so now I partner with colleagues to make sure all of my customers get the time and attention they need. It's a problem I'm happy to have." About Google AdWords Google AdWords is currently used by thousands of businesses worldwide to gain new customers in a cost-effective way. AdWords uses keywords to precisely target ad delivery to web users seeking information about a particular product or service. The program offers cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so advertisers pay for clicks to their sites. Advertisers can take advantage of an extremely broad distribution network, and choose budgets appropriate for their business. For more information on launching your own campaign, visit http://adwords.google.com. Would you like to share your Google AdWords success story with us? We'd love to hear from you! Return to Real Estate overview |
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