Real estate
You can’t target them. So out-answer them
Housing ads lost their targeting in 2022. What’s left is creative, local authority, and how fast you call back
What the data says
Three numbers that shape the whole strategy
15 miMinimum radius Meta enforces on US housing ads. Neighbourhood-level targeting is no longer available to you or to your competitorsMeta Special Ad Category requirements for housing
$115,054Maximum penalty under the Fair Housing Act, paid by Meta in its 2022 settlement with the Department of Justice over housing ad deliveryNational Association of Realtors case summary, 2022
42 hrsAverage time to first response across 2,241 companies audited — against research showing the useful window is about five minutesHarvard Business Review audit, 2011; five-minute finding from the 2007 MIT Sloan / InsideSales Lead Response Management study
The rules that bind you
Housing advertising was rebuilt in 2022
If your agency is still talking about ZIP-code targeting and lookalike audiences for property ads, they either aren’t declaring campaigns properly or they haven’t run one since 2021
What the settlement actually changed
The Department of Justice alleged that Meta’s ad delivery algorithms violated the Fair Housing Act. The 2022 settlement reshaped how every housing ad on the platform works.
- Meta paid $115,054 — the maximum civil penalty available under the Fair Housing Act.
- The Special Ad Audience tool was retired for housing by the end of 2022, on the basis that its modelling could reproduce discrimination on protected characteristics.
- A Variance Reduction System was built to even out who actually sees a housing ad, independent of how the advertiser set it up.
- Declaring Special Ad Category is mandatory. Age, gender, ZIP code, detailed interest categories tied to protected classes, and externally built lookalikes all disappear. A minimum 15-mile radius applies in the US.
Separately, the Fair Housing Act reaches the message a listing conveys, not just the advertiser’s intent. Copy describing the ideal resident rather than the property is the recurring risk. Describe the building and the area; let people decide whether it’s for them.
Source — NAR case summary of the Meta settlement. General information, not legal advice.
Where deals are lost
The enquiry has a shelf life measured in minutes
Since you can no longer out-target anyone, the advantage moves to response speed — and that’s a solvable problem rather than a talent one.
The most quoted research here is the 2007 Lead Response Management study run by Dr James Oldroyd at MIT Sloan with InsideSales.com — three years of data, 15,000+ leads, 100,000+ call attempts — which found contacting a web lead within five minutes made you dramatically more likely to reach and qualify them than waiting thirty. A separate Harvard Business Review audit of 2,241 companies in 2011 found an average first response of 42 hours.
Worth flagging: that 21× figure gets attributed to HBR constantly. It isn’t theirs. Both studies are also old — and buyer patience has not improved since.
How we run it
The real estate playbook
01
Automate the first responseAn instant acknowledgement and a qualifying conversation within seconds, not an email that arrives tomorrow. This is the highest-return change available to most agents.
02
Separate the seller funnel from the buyer funnelBuyers come through property search, where the portals win. Sellers come through local reputation, valuation tools and neighbourhood content. Most agents overspend on the buyer side because it produces visible volume, then wonder why listings are thin.
03
Let creative do the qualifyingWith targeting gone, the ad itself has to filter. Price band, property type and neighbourhood stated plainly in the creative do the work the audience settings used to.
04
Own the ground the portals can’t takeYour Google Business Profile, your reviews and your neighbourhood pages. The portals will always outrank you on listing keywords; they can’t outrank you on being the local agent people trust.
05
Review every listing for fair-housing languageA second reader, every time. The Act reaches the message conveyed, and the writer is the worst judge of what their own copy implies.
06
Keep the database warmSomeone who bought through you five years ago is your cheapest future listing. A quarterly market note costs almost nothing and outperforms most paid acquisition.
What we run for agents and brokerages
Where the leverage is
Instant lead response
An assistant that replies in seconds, qualifies budget and timeline, and books the viewing before a competitor picks up the phone.
Google Business Profile
The local shortlist most sellers build before they call anyone. Reviews, photos, service areas and posts.
Corunit CRM
Past clients, valuations and enquiries in one pipeline, with the follow-up automated so the database stays warm without anyone remembering.
Geofencing & programmatic
Reaching people by real-world location for non-housing messaging — open days, brand, recruitment — within the rules that apply to each.
Neighbourhood SEO
Area guides and market content that rank for the searches portals don’t bother serving well.
Reputation management
Review generation that asks every client, because gating is prohibited and because sellers read the middling reviews most closely.
Good questions
Real estate marketing, answered
Curious how long your enquiries actually wait before someone replies? That’s usually the first thing we measure.
Why can't I target my ads the way I used to?
Because housing advertising was restructured after a 2022 settlement between Meta and the US Department of Justice over Fair Housing Act claims about its ad delivery algorithms. Meta paid $115,054 — the maximum penalty under the Act — retired the Special Ad Audience tool for housing by the end of 2022, and built a Variance Reduction System to even out who actually sees housing ads. In practice, declaring a campaign as Housing removes age, gender and ZIP code targeting, detailed interest categories tied to protected classes, and lookalikes built outside Meta’s compliant modelling.
What is Special Ad Category and do I have to use it?
It’s the declaration Meta requires for housing, employment and credit advertising. For real estate it isn’t optional. Failing to declare a housing ad correctly leads to rejection and, repeated, to account suspension. Any agency promising sharper targeting on property ads is either not declaring properly or not running housing campaigns at all.
How tight can I geo-target a housing ad?
In the US, housing ads on Meta carry a minimum 15-mile radius. You can’t ring-fence a neighbourhood or a postcode. That changes the strategy rather than ending it — since you can’t select the audience narrowly, the creative and the landing page have to do the qualifying instead.
How fast do I need to respond to a property enquiry?
Minutes, not hours. The most cited research is the 2007 Lead Response Management study by Dr James Oldroyd at MIT Sloan with InsideSales.com — three years of data, 15,000+ leads, 100,000+ call attempts — which found contacting a web lead within five minutes made you far more likely to reach and qualify them than waiting thirty. A separate Harvard Business Review audit of 2,241 companies in 2011 found an average first response of 42 hours. Both studies are old, and the behaviour they describe has only accelerated.
Is the 21x lead response statistic from Harvard Business Review?
No, and it’s misattributed constantly. It comes from the 2007 MIT Sloan and InsideSales.com Lead Response Management study led by Dr James Oldroyd. HBR published a related but separate piece in 2011 based on an audit of 2,241 companies. If a marketing deck cites HBR for the 21× number, nobody checked the source.
What language should I avoid in property listings?
Anything signalling a preference about who should live somewhere. The Fair Housing Act reaches the message a listing conveys, not just intent, so phrases describing an ideal resident rather than the property are the risk. Describe the building and the area, not the person you imagine buying it — and have someone other than the writer read it before it goes live.
Do I need my own website when the portals dominate search?
Yes, because the portals are marketing themselves rather than you. Their model depends on owning the relationship with the buyer and selling you access to it. Your own site, your Google Business Profile and your review base are the only parts of the funnel a portal can’t reprice or switch off — which is why they deserve investment even though the portals will always outrank you on listing keywords.
What actually generates listings rather than buyers?
Different work entirely. Buyers arrive through property search, where portals dominate. Sellers arrive through local reputation, valuation tools, neighbourhood content and referrals from past clients. Most agents overspend on buyer-side advertising because it produces visible volume, then wonder why listing inventory is thin.
How important are reviews for an agent?
Decisive — the transaction is large, infrequent and trust-dependent. Most sellers interview two or three agents and use reviews to build that shortlist. Note that soliciting reviews only from happy clients is prohibited under the FTC consumer reviews rule that took effect in October 2024, so the process has to ask everyone.
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