Google Real Estate gets Social

Google Realestate steps into battle with Facebook Ads

Google Map’s has showed the power of Facebook ads as its new real estate product has moved aggressively into expanding its market share by utilising Facebook Advertising to reach its target market in Australia.

I noticed tonight a new campaign was reaching out to my demographics to try and encourage us to try Google Maps to find a new home. The ad message and graphic is not exactly groundbreaking or likely to lead to an exodus but may lead consumers to change how they search for realestate from social media.

Judging by the Facebook campaign messages and the landing page it seems that it is very early in the process and will likely start a new advertising war with existing real estate players who have typically avoided social media ads until now.

Even the interface for Google Maps does not come close to existing leading realestate sites, but does seem to allow a offer channel for those using social media to consider a new option. The basic Google Maps realestate interface is shown below.

The next steps would be to see how other Realestate groups meet this direct challenge for eyeballs as typically Facebook advertising offers much lower CPC. So while many in the industry will hope that this as just a test this one-off test but based on Google’s previous behaviour it is likely that Google will gather some more data and aggressively expand its social media marketing.