Why Are My Google Ads Not Generating Real Estate Leads?
Your Google Ads Are Probably Targeting the Wrong People
If your real estate Google Ads are running but leads aren’t coming in, you’re almost certainly not alone. At Softtrix, we’ve reviewed hundreds of Google Ads accounts across the real estate industry — and the same two problems appear in the vast majority of them.
First: the keywords are too broad, attracting clicks from people who have no intention of buying or renting a property. Second: the cost-per-click is too high, eating through budget so fast that only a handful of daily visitors ever see the landing page — nowhere near enough volume to generate consistent leads.
The good news? Both problems are fixable. This Q&A breaks down exactly what’s going wrong and what to do about it.
Broad Match Keywords Killing Intent
Generic keywords like “home in London” attract browsers, researchers, and window shoppers — not buyers. If the keyword doesn’t signal purchase intent, the click is wasted budget.
CPC Too High, Volume Too Low
Paying $5 per click on a $50/day budget means only 10 visitors per day. That’s statistically 0–1 leads. Real estate Google Ads need CPC between $0.50–$1.00 to generate meaningful volume.
No Negative Keywords in Place
Without a negative keyword list, your ads show for irrelevant searches — rental queries, history searches, suburb maps — burning spend on traffic that will never convert.
Why are my Google Ads not generating real estate leads?
The primary issue — the one we see in the majority of real estate Google Ads accounts we audit — is keyword intent mismatch. Most accounts are running broad match keywords that pull in clicks from people who are nowhere near a buying decision.
Take this example Ami walks through in the video:
The first keyword could attract anyone — someone doing a school project, a tourist researching London, a renter looking for temporary accommodation. The second keyword tells Google to only show your ad to someone actively searching to purchase a house in a specific location. That’s the difference between a click that costs you money and a click that earns you a client.
What is the right CPC (cost-per-click) for real estate Google Ads?
According to Softtrix’s experience managing millions in real estate ad spend, the target CPC for real estate Google Ads should be between $0.50 and $1.00 per click.
Here’s why that number matters so much:
| CPC | Daily Budget | Daily Clicks | Daily Leads (est.) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $5.00 | $50 | 10 clicks | 0–1 leads | Not viable |
| $0.75 | $50 | ~67 clicks | 3–7 leads | Profitable |
| $1.00 | $50 | 50 clicks | 2–5 leads | Viable |
The math is straightforward: at $5 per click, your $50 budget is gone after 10 visitors. Statistically, 10 visitors produce 0 to 1 lead. That’s not a campaign — it’s an expense. Bringing CPC down to the $0.50–$1.00 range through better keyword targeting and Quality Score improvements gives you 50–100 daily visitors on the same budget, dramatically changing lead volume.
What are broad match keywords and why do they hurt my campaign?
Broad match is Google’s default keyword match type. When you use it, Google shows your ad for any search it considers related to your keyword — including synonyms, related concepts, and loosely associated terms.
For a real estate agent targeting “home in London,” broad match might trigger your ad for searches like:
→ “London tourist homes” → “London rental apartments” → “London Ontario history” → “London property tax rates” → “London home decor”
None of those searchers are looking to buy a property from a real estate agent today. But you’re paying for every single click. The fix is using phrase match or exact match with intent-driven keywords that contain location signals and purchase language: “houses for sale in London Ontario,” “buy home London Ontario,” “3 bedroom homes for sale London Ontario.”
How do I get more leads from my real estate Google Ads?
There are five moves that make the biggest difference, based on hundreds of real estate account audits at Softtrix:
1. Switch from broad match to intent-based keywords. Every keyword in your campaign should contain a location and a purchase signal. If it doesn’t communicate “this person wants to buy right now,” cut it.
2. Build a negative keyword list. Block searches for rentals, property history, maps, tourist information, and anything else irrelevant to buyers. This alone often reduces wasted spend by 30–50%.
3. Improve Quality Score. A higher Quality Score lowers your CPC, which means more clicks for the same budget. Quality Score improves when your keyword, ad copy, and landing page are tightly aligned.
4. Match your landing page to your keyword promise. If someone clicks an ad for “houses for sale in London Ontario,” they should land on a page specifically about houses for sale in London Ontario — not your general homepage.
5. Get a free audit from Softtrix. We’ll review your entire account and send you a specific report covering exactly what to fix, in order of impact.
Does Softtrix offer a free Google Ads audit for real estate campaigns?
Yes. If you have a live campaign, Softtrix will review your Google Ads account and provide a free audit report covering:
→ What your current campaign is doing well
→ Where budget is being wasted and why
→ Specific keyword, match type, and bid changes needed
→ A prioritized action plan to maximize leads from your existing budget
If you don’t have an active campaign yet, that’s fine too. Share your website URL, your monthly budget, and your location targeting — Softtrix will do the market research and come back with a launch plan tailored to your market and goals. Contact us via WhatsApp or the number at the top of the website to get started.
5 Steps to Fix Your Real Estate Google Ads — Starting Today
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1
Audit your current keyword list
Open your Google Ads account and pull a Search Terms report for the last 30 days. Look for any term that isn’t explicitly about buying a property in a specific location. Flag everything else as a candidate for removal or negation.
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2
Replace broad match with phrase or exact match intent keywords
Rebuild your keyword list around purchase intent: “houses for sale in [city],” “buy [property type] in [suburb],” “[city] real estate agent.” These trigger fewer but far more qualified clicks.
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3
Build a negative keyword list immediately
Add negatives for rental terms, historical searches, map queries, competitor brand names (unless you’re running conquesting campaigns), and any irrelevant search category appearing in your Search Terms report.
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4
Target a CPC of $0.50–$1.00
If you’re currently paying $3–$8 per click, better keyword targeting and Quality Score improvement will bring this down significantly. Set manual CPC bids initially to control spend while the account optimises.
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5
Request a free Softtrix audit
For a comprehensive review of everything in your account — including settings and configurations not covered in this guide — contact Softtrix for a free PPC audit report with specific recommendations for your campaign.
★ Request My Free Audit →
Full Video Transcript
Auto-GeneratedAmi (Softtrix PPC Specialist):
Hi everyone, my name is Ami and we are Softtrix — a Google Premier Partner. We have worked with hundreds of real estate clients and we have managed millions of dollars in terms of budgets for them.
So there are a few questions that I am regularly asked: why does the Google Ads account not generate leads?
The primary issue is the quality of the clicks that you are getting. Because we have seen hundreds of Google Ads accounts and most of them have the same issues — they are using broad match keywords and getting clicks from generic search terms.
When I say that, we can take this as an example. Suppose that we have a real estate agent in London, Ontario, and they have the keyword like “home in London.” You can see the keyword is very generic. There is no intent behind the keyword. We need to target keywords like “houses for sale in London”. Now you can see that the keyword in itself is an intent-based keyword. The ad will only show to those visitors that are actually looking to purchase a specific house in their location.
So the primary issue with almost all the accounts that we see is: first, the clicks are not relevant — they are using broad match keywords. Second, they are paying a very high CPC that they should not be paying.
With the high CPC — what I mean is they have a budget of $50 a day, they are paying $5 for a click, and that means only 10 clicks per day. Now 10 clicks per day means 0 to 1 lead per day. That will not be beneficial. We need to make sure we are paying the lowest possible CPC for this kind of industry. The CPC should be between $0.50 to $1. Then only will we be able to see the results we are looking for.
So if you have any campaigns running in a similar niche, you can contact us for a free audit. There is a phone number on the top right corner. You can contact us on WhatsApp. We will be able to look at your PPC account and then we can actually send you the free audit report.
In the audit report, we will let you know what you are doing and what you need to do in order to maximize the ROI from the campaigns.
But on the other side of things — if you do not have any campaign running, then don’t worry about it. You can just share with us some basic information: it can be the website URL, the monthly budget, and the location targeting. We will be able to do the research and then get back with a plan of action on what you can do to bring your business online to the next level.
Thank you for watching the video.
Get Your Free Real Estate Google Ads Audit
Share your campaign details or just your website URL and budget. Softtrix will review your account and send you a specific, actionable report — at no cost.
About Softtrix
Softtrix is a Google Premier Partner and full-service PPC and SEO agency with over 300 team members. We have managed millions of dollars in real estate Google Ads spend and conducted free audits for hundreds of campaigns across the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.