I’ve been meaning to write this article for a while — partly to share what’s been working for me in real estate marketing across Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, and Vancouver Island. And partly to clear up some common misconceptions I see developers and marketers run into.
Because the truth is: marketing real estate in BC isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula. What performs well for a downtown Vancouver condo might not work as well for a presale townhome project in Victoria. But there are consistent patterns — and after running campaigns for projects across the province, I’ve learned which ad channels, creatives, and strategies actually deliver results.
Which Ad Channels Work Best
I’ve tested just about every channel available for real estate advertising in BC — from Google and Meta to TikTok, X and smaller networks.
After all that testing, two platforms consistently perform best: Google Ads and Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram). Are they new, sexy and exciting? Not so much. But do they always deliver results? You betcha bud.
Google Search Ads remains the strongest channel for high-intent traffic — especially for pre-sale condos and real estate investments. When people are searching for homes, that’s where you want to be.
Meta Ads, on the other hand, are perfect for awareness and lead generation campaigns where you’re introducing a new project or lifestyle concept. The demographic data and visual storytelling power are unmatched.
However, not every placement performs equally. Reels and Stories usually underperform for real estate because they’re too fast-moving for a high-consideration purchase. News Feed and Explore placements tend to generate higher-quality leads.
On Google, performance varies based on your property type and audience:
- Search Campaigns: Always essential, especially for brand and location keywords.
- Display & Demand Gen: Great for awareness when you have strong visuals.
- Performance Max (PMax): Can work well for some projects but can also scatter spend too widely — it depends on your asset quality and targeting. I’m currently running some PMax campaigns with $50 CPAs, and tested them on a different property for the same developer and not beaten $200 CPAs. So, these really need to be tested, but not relied upon.
And as for TikTok Ads — I’ve tested them for rentals around universities (which should be the perfect demographic for the channel), and results were consistently poor. It’s an amazing platform for reach, but not really for generating qualified real estate leads.
Which Images Work Best
You might assume that interior photos perform best — after all, buyers want to see the kitchen and living room, right?
But almost every test I’ve run shows exterior images outperform interiors.
That’s because the purpose of your image is simple: stop the scroll. An eye-catching building shot, render, or city view grabs attention far better than a photo of a countertop. I also have a hunch that some people see an indoor image and can’t tell if we’re advertising furniture, Airbnbs or a hotel. You need the images to make it instantly clear what’s on offer.
Video can perform well too, but it depends on quality and clarity. I’ve found the best-performing real estate videos are 15–20 seconds long, clearly show what the property is, where it’s located, and who it’s for. Long cinematic videos can look great but convert poorly.
If you want examples of image and video testing in real campaigns, see my earlier article on creative testing for real estate ads.
As an example of some ads that I’m not running, I would expect this exterior ad from Wesgroup outperforms this interior ad considerably. It’s just more eye-catching and inspirational to see a new building you could own than a living room that could be anywhere:
And not to be too critical, but trying to sell property with an image of a swimming pool being the start of the video, I just don’t think you’ll catch the audience’s attention with this image:
Which Keywords Work Best
For real estate Google Search Ads, your keyword strategy is everything. I spend a lot of time refining keyword lists so I can avoid broad and phrase match keywords — they tend to pull in irrelevant searches from other projects. Of course, I do have the advantage of having built search campaigns for properties for Peterson, Beedie, Boffo, Townline and Wesgroup (among others), so my keyword lists are built on a lot of data. But do your research!
Even phrase match keywords often match to competitor properties that are in the wrong price range, location, or segment — and those clicks don’t convert.
That said, competitor campaigns can be powerful when done right. If two projects share similar pricing, amenities, and neighbourhood appeal, targeting those brand keywords can deliver excellent results.
Targeting Limitations
Both Meta and Google now impose strict real estate advertising restrictions. You can’t target by age, income, or small-radius geography.
Instead, you have to rely on creative, copy, and conversion data to help the algorithm find the right audience. In other words: your results depend on how well your ad communicates who it’s for, why it matters, and what you want them to do.
While we as advertisers aren’t able to target by these factors, Google and Meta don’t make it clear whether their algorithms use these data points to optimise delivery. I have a hunch that they do, as they are built around optimisation, and these are key data points. So you just have to trust the algorithm to a certain extent. Gotta love it, right?
How Much to Spend on Ad Budget
Here’s the straight answer:
$2,500 per ad channel per month is the absolute minimum I recommend. This is for two reasons: collecting enough data and management fees:
Anything less, and you won’t generate enough data for Google or Meta’s algorithms to optimize properly. Real estate ads need consistent volume to identify what works. Especially when you consider our limited targeting as discussed above.
I really don’t think you should spend more than 50% of your ad budget on management. Personally I charge a flat rate for ads management, so the bigger your ad spend, the smaller proportion you are paying in management fees.
If your budgets are smaller, hiring a contractor (like myself) is more efficient. For larger-scale projects, you could work with the agencies I often collaborate with: Publish Partners, Good Commerce, and occasionally Major Tom. They do great work for developers running bigger multi-channel campaigns.
Which Bid Strategies to Use
On Meta Ads, I always use Maximum Conversions — it consistently produces the best results for real estate lead generation.
On Google Ads, bid strategies depend on your campaign stage and data volume:
- Start with Max Clicks when you’re gathering early traffic and conversions.
- Move to Max Conversions once you have enough data to optimize.
- Switch to Target CPA when campaigns are stable and conversion data is strong.
For brand campaigns, I typically use manual CPC bidding to control costs. (You can read more about that in my earlier post on brand campaign strategies.)
Landing Pages
Even the best ads won’t perform without a strong landing page.
A good real estate landing page should be one page, focused, and visually appealing. It should give enough information and imagery that by the time visitors reach the bottom, they’re ready to register. If your site has more information than this, great! That’s going to be better for SEO. But for an ads landing page, I would recommend investing in a separate one page site that give the user everything they need (including a registration form) in one place.
If you’re running a promotion, make sure it’s front and center — not buried halfway down the page.
And when it comes to forms, keep them short: name, email, phone number, and maybe an optional field about which property they’re interested in. Asking for too much kills conversions.
If you’re investing in ads, you should also invest in conversion rate optimization (CRO). Even a modest improvement in conversion rate can make a big difference in your lead cost and campaign performance.
Final Thoughts
Marketing real estate in BC — whether in Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, or on Vancouver Island — is a mix of strategy, testing, and creativity. The platforms are restrictive, the competition is fierce, but the opportunities are huge when you do it right.
By combining the right ad channels, visuals, keywords, and landing pages, you can generate qualified leads and drive real interest — without wasting your budget on guesswork.
If you’d like help setting up or optimizing your real estate campaigns, feel free to get in touch with me here — I’ve worked with a wide range of developers across BC and can help you tailor a strategy that fits your goals and budget.