As real estate professionals, we talk a lot about finding the fastest (and least labor-intensive) path to generate real estate leads. And when a certain lead gen strategy has been producing consistent results for your team, it’s hard to think that there’s any reason to diversify. But if you are siloing your efforts to only one source, you are placing an extremely risky bet.

There are a plethora of lead sources, all with varying degrees of quality depending on various factors, including the agent and the location. But when you decide that all of your leads will be purchased from an online source, such as Facebook or Adwords, you have succumbed to that current source as your sole, online lead-generator instead of investing in a sustainable, long-term lead generation strategy.

On top of that, PPC costs are rising as competition grows stronger. It’s crucial that brokers build a lead generating strategy that incorporates a ‘mixed bunch’ of real estate lead sources including direct paid, organic and 3rd party leads (Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, etc). If your entire business is reliant upon one lead source, be prepared to live or die with that source.

Brokers that diversify their lead sources have far more options when one source doesn’t seem to be working out as well as they had planned. The wider net that you cast, the greater your ability to generate leads and maximize your broker ROI.

Where do you expect to get your best real estate prospects this year? Here is where agents, team leaders, and broker-owners are finding success with online real estate leads in 2015, as reported in a recent survey by Inman.

Paid online real estate lead sources

– The most common sources of paid traffic for agent websites are search engine and Facebook ads, with Facebook delivering the best return on investment.

– 27% of those surveyed said that they utilize Facebook advertising.

– Agents who use Facebook coupled with search engine advertising to garner leads experience better ROI than other online marketing tools.

– Compared to Zillow, Trulia or Realtor.com, Facebook’s response rate is higher and the cost is much lower..

– As far as online advertising budgets, agents are spending an average of $200 on online leads per month. Among those online leads, buyer and seller leads were shown to cost the same.

Take-away: Leads generated by search engine and Facebook ads generally provide the best return on investment among paid online real estate leads.

Unpaid online real estate lead sources

– Only 26% of those surveyed said they don’t pay for online leads.

– 60% said unpaid leads from LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Craigslist resulted in a poor ROI.

– 58% of those who had gotten unpaid leads from Facebook said the ROI on those leads was either mediocre, good, or great.

– Facebook is the most common source of unpaid leads among agent respondents.

– Unpaid leads delivered via agent profiles, property details pages and discussion forums on listing portals generally deliver the highest return on investment.

Take-away: Being attentive and active on social media and other discussion forums has its rewards, if your resources include less money (but more time).

Many agents are asked to generate quality real estate leads, yet never given the proper tools to do it. The result? They end up gambling with leads they can’t afford to lose. An effective lead management system should provide visibility into every lead source, so you can gauge success and failure early on and make adjustments accordingly. These adjustments, along with the ability to score and nurture leads, will provide the greatest value for your team.

‍