Google Ads vs Facebook ads for realtors
The BrokerFold Team — Product + Engineering
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Google Ads and Facebook ads solve different problems that happen to share a budget line. Search advertising harvests demand that already exists — someone typed “sell my house” and you bid to be the answer. Social advertising manufactures demand — someone was watching a cousin’s video and your listing interrupted. Everything else about the comparison (pricing, lead quality, creative burden, follow-up load) falls out of that one distinction. Here is how it cashes out for a Canadian agent.
What each channel is actually selling
Google sells you a moment of intent. The searcher self-declares what they want, you pay a premium for the declaration, and the click arrives mid-task. Meta sells you targeted attention at volume: real estate is a Special Ad Category there, so fine demographic targeting is off the table, but broad local reach is cheap and the creative does the filtering. The cited Canadian benchmark numbers for each side live on Google Ads for realtors and Facebook ads for realtors — directionally, expect fewer, dearer, warmer contacts from search and more, cheaper, colder registrations from social.
The follow-up asymmetry nobody budgets for
The channels diverge hardest after the lead arrives. A search lead can be called the same hour about the thing they searched. A social lead often does not remember filling in the form, and converts only through months of nurture — which means Meta’s cheap leads carry an invisible surcharge: the cost of a follow-up system that persists longer than human patience. If your leads route into a CRM that responds instantly and runs long nurture automatically, social volume compounds. If follow-up is manual, social leads mostly age out in a spreadsheet, and search’s smaller, warmer flow quietly outperforms on closings.
Where each channel wins on the job
Search wins for sellers. Valuation and “sell my house” queries are the highest-leverage clicks in real estate, and nothing on a social feed matches a typed declaration of intent — the dedicated build is in seller lead Google Ads. Search wins for specific buyers searching a neighbourhood or building your site genuinely serves. Social wins for listing promotion — reach around a new listing or an open house at prices search cannot touch. Social wins for presence in a farm area, keeping your name ambient between transactions. Neither wins broad curiosity: “real estate” terms on Google and untargeted awareness on Meta burn money on both platforms equally well.
The sequencing answer
For most agents the resolution is not either/or but an order of operations. Fund search first to its learning floor — the floor logic and worked levels are in Google Ads budget for realtors — weighted toward seller intent, because those leads justify the channel fastest. Hold ninety days, judge on cost per appointment rather than cost per lead. Then layer Meta with incremental budget for listing promotion and nurture-fed volume, knowing its leads are a deposit into a months-long pipeline rather than this quarter’s closings. Teams with follow-up capacity can invert the order and make volume work; solos usually cannot.
The synergy the either/or debate misses
Run together, the channels trade audiences. Visitors your search budget paid to find can be rebuilt as retargeting audiences on Meta, where staying in front of them costs a fraction of finding them — so the expensive search click buys not one visit but an audience membership. In the other direction, owners softened by months of ambient social presence search your name when the moment comes, and the brand campaign catches them for pennies. The two ledgers look separate; the pipeline they feed is one.
Judging the pair honestly
Whichever mix you run, force both channels through one funnel and one scoreboard: same CRM, same source tags, same cost-per-closed-transaction arithmetic twelve months out. The most common comparison error is grading Meta on lead count and Google on closings — each channel flatters a different vanity metric, and only the shared scoreboard, on your own data, settles which deserves next year’s budget.
Frequently asked questions
Which generates cheaper leads, Google or Facebook?
Meta almost always wins on price per lead; Google almost always wins on lead intent. A social lead is someone who paused mid-scroll; a search lead typed a housing question minutes ago. Cheaper inputs, colder pipeline — the comparison only resolves at cost per closed transaction.
Should a new agent start with search or social?
If the budget can reach the search learning floor — roughly $1,000–2,000 monthly in a Canadian metro — start with search, weighted to seller terms, because intent forgives inexperience. If it cannot, disciplined Meta ads with fast follow-up beat an underfunded search campaign that never learns.
Can I run both on a small budget?
Splitting a small budget usually starves both channels below usefulness. Sequence instead: fund one channel to its floor, run it for ninety days, then add the second with new money once the first has stable numbers. Two half-funded experiments produce two inconclusive answers.
Keep reading
- Google Ads for realtors Published 2026 real estate benchmarks — roughly $2.40–3.25 average CPC, $4–8 for high-intent terms — the realistic monthly floor, and when search beats social.
- Facebook ads for realtors Canadian real estate CPL benchmarked near $124 CAD vs $41 global (2025, cited) — the honest expectations math, lead-ad mechanics, and follow-up reality.
- Google Ads budget for realtors How to set a Google Ads budget as a realtor: the learning floor, CAD examples at three spend levels, and when the management fee math works.
- Seller lead Google Ads Seller leads are the highest-leverage search campaign a realtor can run. The keyword set, the valuation landing page, and honest volume math.