Advertising for real estate agencies, from the lead to the deal at the broker
We run ads for agencies on Phuket, in Bali, Dubai and other markets, and set up what happens after the lead: routing to brokers, a reply-time standard, WhatsApp and Telegram, the CRM and the client base. Reports show qualified leads and deals, not clicks
How a real estate agency differs from a developer
A developer has one to three projects, one sales team and a clear price per square meter. An agency has dozens of properties across several markets, a team of brokers with different habits and a buyer who writes to three other agencies the same day. The funnel, the losses and the KPIs differ, so a developer's playbook does not fit
Many properties, many markets
Campaigns run across dozens of properties and several language groups. Without regular launches a property burns out within weeks: on IBG Property we moved to a new property every two or three days
The lead often wants a shortlist
The buyer comes for a market overview, not a specific unit. Qualification by budget, timing and goal decides which lead a broker works now and which goes to nurturing
Every broker works differently
One replies in a minute, another in the evening; one logs the budget in the CRM, another keeps it in their head. Until there is one standard, the owner cannot see where money is lost
Competing for the same buyer
Several agencies sell the same property, and the buyer leaves inquiries with several of them. The one who replies first and offers a next step usually wins
Where agencies lose leads they already paid for
Almost every agency comes to us asking for more leads. The audit usually shows that some of the leads already paid for never reach a conversation with a broker. Typical points:
- the lead sits in a group chat until someone picks it up, and nobody measures reply time
- the team cannot handle the flow: on Good Karma Investment two managers physically could not process inbound and there was no CRM, so hot buyers walked away over slow replies
- any reply counts as qualified: on IBG Property "hi" and "not interested" both counted, so no one could tell which campaigns worked and Meta optimized on noise
- the broker calls once from a local number and stops, while a buyer abroad does not answer unknown calls
- lead poaching: an outside broker or intermediary calls first and takes the lead; speed, CRM access rights and logging every lead are the protection
- the ads learn on inquiries instead of deals, so they bring people who leave contacts easily
How to route leads to brokers and control reply speed
The main sales question in an agency is who takes this lead and how many minutes until they write. If the rules do not answer it, the brokers decide it among themselves each time, and a hot lead cools down during the discussion
A routing rule
The lead lands in the CRM with its source and quiz answers and goes to a broker by rule: by market, language, budget or in turn. No "first come, first served" in a group chat
A first-reply standard
5 minutes in working hours. If the broker misses it, the lead moves to the next broker, and the head of sales sees the delay the same day, not at the end of the month
One qualification for everyone
Mandatory CRM fields: budget, timing, purpose, payment method. Without them the deal cannot move forward. On IBG Property the rule became a genuine inquiry, a budget from $100K and readiness to place a deposit within three months
Loss reasons
A deal can only be closed as lost with a reason from a fixed list. After a month you see what kills deals: price, market, broker or the advertising itself
Checking these rules by hand eats the owner's time. We built wote.sales for that: it reads the agency's CRM, re-checks every deal against the rules every 15 minutes and sends the head of sales a morning list of deals where a broker was late with the first touch or set no next step
Why WhatsApp and Telegram matter more than calls for Phuket, Bali and Dubai
An agency on Phuket, in Bali or in Dubai sells to a buyer who lives in Europe, the CIS or the Middle East. That buyer is in another time zone, treats a call from a Thai or Indonesian number as spam and talks in WhatsApp or Telegram. For these agencies the messenger is the main sales channel, and a call is booked when the buyer is ready to talk
How we set it up: the first reply in the messenger within 5 minutes, two or three short sentences and one question at a time. If the buyer goes silent, four follow-ups with growing gaps: after 4 hours, after a day, after 3-4 days and after 14 days. In the WhatsApp Business Platform a business can send free-form messages only within 24 hours of the buyer's last message (Meta documentation), so the first two follow-ups fit inside that window, and later ones go as approved templates or move to Telegram
A messenger also gives the agency a long channel. For IBG Property we built a Telegram funnel: a bot with five touches over ten days, 16,370 subscribers at $1.10 and 20-30% of subscribers turning into leads within ten days. A buyer with a decision cycle of several months stays close to the agency while they get ready. On Dubai Real Estate a Russian-speaking manager walked each lead through the payment route and the legal side of the deal
The client base: an asset most agencies do not count
Unlike a developer's buyer, an agency's buyer can buy a second property, bring a friend or come back a year later for a new project. Usually the base lives in the brokers' phones and leaves with them
- every lead and chat lives in the agency's CRM, not in a broker's personal messenger
- a postponed lead gets a waiting status with the date of the next contact instead of being closed
- rejected and spam contacts are excluded from ads: on Sea Inside we refresh that list every 7 days, so the budget goes only to new buyers
- buyers and qualified leads from the CRM become the seed for look-alike audiences
- new properties go to the base and the Telegram channel first, then to paid ads
Agency cases: figures from ad accounts and CRMs
| Case | Client and period | Budget | Leads and qualification | Deals and other results |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBG Property | agency, properties $100K-5M, 9 months | $76K | 1,721 qualified leads at $34; 3 languages to 6 | 16,370 Telegram subscribers at $1.10 |
| Good Karma Investment | agency, properties from $300K, Nov 2025 - Jan 2026 | $3,800 | 382 leads, 152 qualified at $25 | 6 deals at $633 each; sales desk from 2 to 4 |
| Sea Inside | agency, properties from $300K, since February 2026 | $16,000 | 681 leads; qualified lead $200 → $50 | 2 deals in the first 2 weeks from English-speaking buyers |
| Laguna | properties from $500K sold by several agencies, 10 months | $80,000 | 4 language groups, trained on deals | 50+ deals, under $1,500 per deal |
| The Title | developer properties from $150K, traffic for the agencies that sell them, 9 months | $100,000 | 3 language groups, a pixel each | 60+ deals, at least 7 a month for 8 months |
Source: the case studies linked in each row, figures as published. Where a column is not filled, the case does not disclose that metric
Cost per inquiry, qualified lead and deal across all our Phuket cases is on Phuket developer lead cost, and all markets are compared on how much a real estate lead costs
Markets we work in with agencies
For an agency with several markets we split the ads by language group, not by property: Russian, English, Polish and Arabic speaking buyers respond to different arguments. On IBG Property Arabic gave a lead at $4-6 against $15-20 in Russian. If you sell one developer's properties, see also advertising for property developers
What we do for an agency
Ads trained on deals
Meta Ads and Google Ads by language group, regular property launches, a qualifying quiz, CRM stages and deals passed back to the ad accounts
The broker team
Structure, routing rules, scripts, KPIs and follow-up cadence. We help you hire and train your own brokers; we do not rent out ours
CRM and analytics
We set up or fix the CRM (Kommo on Good Karma), add stages and loss reasons, and bring ads and deals into one report. End-to-end analytics
Quality control
Call and chat reviews, viewing reminders, a morning report for the head of sales. wote.sales does it on top of your CRM
Budget and fee
Minimum ad budget: $2,000 a month for Southeast Asia and Dubai
Below that the algorithms do not collect enough data to optimize on qualified leads. Dubai and premium Phuket projects need a higher start
Our fee: from $750 a month
The exact figure is fixed in the media plan: markets, language groups, launch frequency and how much of the sales side we take on. The ad budget is paid directly to the platforms. Pricing
Questions from real estate agencies
Short answers about budgets, timelines, reporting and how we work. If your question is not here, write to us: we reply within 1-2 hours during working hours
Ask your questionWe need more leads. Why do you start with the brokers?
How should leads be split between brokers?
WhatsApp or Telegram for foreign buyers?
What does a qualified lead cost an agency?
Do you hire or rent out brokers?
How much does it cost?
Related pages
Let us look at your agency
A free call: we review your ad accounts and CRM, find where leads get lost between the form and the broker, and forecast cost per qualified lead from the cases closest to your market. No obligation
- Where leads get lost after the form
- Routing and reply-time rules for your brokers
- Forecast from cases in your market