Google Ads for estate agents, measured in valuation requests rather than clicks
GrowthLine runs Google Ads for UK estate and letting agents: campaigns built on the searches that produce instructions — valuation queries, "estate agents in [your town]", landlord and lettings terms — pointed at landing pages built to convert them.
Buyers already reach you through the portals your listings pay for; paid search earns its keep with vendors and landlords, so that is where the budget goes.
The method is the same discipline as the rest of our Google Ads agency work: track every enquiry back to the keyword that produced it, and judge the account on cost per valuation request, not clicks.
What estate agency clicks cost
These are live UK figures, pulled from Google Ads keyword data. The spread is the story: vendor-intent selling terms cost roughly ten times what valuation, lettings and general agent searches do — the market has already priced where the instructions are. The low top-of-page bid column is the more useful one: it is what well-optimised accounts typically pay, and the gap between it and the average is the price of a badly run account.
| Service line | Monthly UK searches | Avg CPC | Low top-of-page bid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selling (vendor leads) | 3,200 | £49.66 | £14.48 |
| Valuations | 34,300 | £4.69 | £1.02 |
| Lettings | 9,900 | £4.24 | £1.04 |
| General (estate agents near me) | 60,500 | £6.64 | £2.08 |
UK Google Ads data (DataForSEO), July 2026. Low top-of-page bid is what well-optimised accounts typically pay per click.
What the table tells you is the order of value: a vendor or landlord search is worth many applicant searches, because the fee sits on the instruction — which is why £49.66 a click for a selling term can still be cheap, and a £2 click from a browsing applicant can still be waste.
Results, published and sourced
£120k/mo
Recurring contracted work won for a steel fabricator in the first 30 days
Client-reported
£19.97
Cost per lead for a DPF specialist, down from £86.50
Client Google Ads account
~70/mo
Enquiries for a new-start London clinic, from a standing start
Client CRM, 90-day ramp
Every figure is signed off by the client it belongs to. See the case studies
Three problems we see in estate agency accounts
Budget spent on applicants instead of instructions
Campaigns bid on "houses for sale in [town]" and "flats to rent [town]" — searches made by buyers and tenants, who would have found the stock on Rightmove or Zoopla anyway. The fee is earned on the instruction, so vendor and landlord searches carry the account; applicant terms go to negatives.
applicant clicks ≠ instructions
Valuation clicks landing on a property-search homepage
The ad promises a valuation; the click lands on the branch homepage or a listings search, and the visitor browses instead of booking. A valuation click needs a dedicated valuation page — one offer, one short first step, response promise stated.
one offer per page
Ads showing outside the patch
Estate agency is postcode-bound, but default location settings ("presence or interest") and loose match types spend budget in towns the branch does not cover; the search-term report shows it within a week. Fix is presence-only targeting, tight geographies per branch, and negatives maintained as routine.
location: presence, not interest
How we measure a property account
Cost per valuation request is reported from the client's own conversion tracking — a tracked valuation form or call — reconciled against the branch diary, not read off platform estimates. It is the same measurement discipline documented on our lead generation agency page, applied to instructions and lets.
Who we're not for
We do not work for property portals or proptech products, and if what you want is applicant volume rather than instructions, you do not need us — the portals already deliver buyers.
If you are not in property at all, the sectors we do cover are on our industries page.
What it costs
Management fees for an estate agency account are the same published fees as for any GrowthLine engagement — no property premium, no percentage of your fee income — see PPC management pricing. Media spend is paid to Google directly and is never marked up.
Want a quick estimate before you commit? The professional services PPC calculator shows what a budget could bring in, using live UK click costs.
Estate agent Google Ads FAQs
Do Google Ads work for estate agents?
Yes — when the campaigns target the searches that produce instructions: valuation queries, local agent searches and landlord terms, sent to pages built to convert them. Most of what ranks for this question is US real-estate content built around MLS listings and buyer capture, which does not translate: UK estate agent lead generation earns its fee on the instruction, and buyers arrive through the portals regardless. The click economics table on this page shows what UK searches in this sector actually cost: vendor-intent selling terms average £49.66 a click, valuation and lettings terms sit under £5, and well-optimised accounts pay a fraction of those averages.
What are the best Google Ads campaigns for estate agents?
Three, in order of value. A valuation campaign on vendor intent — searches like "how much is my house worth" and "house valuation [town]" — pointed at a dedicated valuation page. A local agent campaign on "estate agents in [town]", where sellers shortlist who to invite to value. And a landlord campaign on lettings and property management terms, which grows the recurring side of the business. What generally does not belong in the account is applicant campaigns: buyers and tenants find the stock on the portals, so paying per click for them rarely survives contact with the search-term report.
Is £20 a day enough for Google Ads for an estate agent?
It can be, in a single-branch patch, if every pound stays on vendor and landlord searches inside your coverage area and the waste is cut weekly. The honest way to answer it is backwards: take your average fee per instruction and your valuation-to-instruction rate, and that tells you the most a valuation lead can cost before the maths stops working — a budget is "enough" when it buys leads under that ceiling. As a UK reference point, valuation and lettings clicks average under £5 and well-optimised accounts pay nearer £1, so a disciplined £20 a day buys real vendor-intent traffic; the audit answers the question precisely from your own account.
Can estate agents run Google Ads for free?
No — Google Ads is a live auction and every click is paid for; searches for a free version usually turn up new-account ad credits, which are introductory discounts rather than a free tier. What is genuinely free and worth doing first is a complete Google Business Profile, which earns map-pack visibility for branch searches without spend. The audit is also free: we review your account and landing pages and give you the findings in writing, whether or not an engagement follows.
Should estate agents use Google Ads or Facebook ads?
They do different jobs, and the honest answer is intent. Google Ads reaches a vendor at the moment they search for a valuation or an agent, which is why it is the accountable end of estate agent marketing; Facebook and Instagram interrupt people who were not searching, which suits local awareness and valuation offers but produces enquiries that need more chasing. If the budget only stretches to one, start where the intent already exists. Our guide to Google Ads vs Facebook Ads for lead generation sets out the comparison in full.
Does this work for letting agents and property management companies?
Yes — the same logic, pointed at landlords instead of vendors. Searches for letting agents and PPC for property management companies are made by landlords choosing who will manage the asset, and a won landlord is recurring income rather than a one-off fee, which changes what a lead is allowed to cost in your favour. The campaign structure, dedicated landing pages and cost-per-enquiry tracking described on this page apply unchanged; only the keyword set and the offer differ.
Start with the audit
We measure what your account and pages actually do — which searches spend, which produce valuations — before either of us commits to anything.