36 leads in 7 days, what made it work | May 2026

Each month, we dig into data across property campaigns running nationally. This month we want to share a result we’re genuinely proud of, plus three structural shifts we’re seeing in how paid ads need to be set up to win in property right now.

A campaign we’re running for a residential project hit 36 leads in 7 days through early May, with a cost per lead 70% below our property industry benchmark. That follows 102 leads in February and 78 leads in March on the same project. Consistent performance at 8 to 10 times cheaper than category averages.

What made the difference wasn’t a clever audience hack or a magic creative format. It was three structural things working together.

• Fast creative iteration. Ad sets were refreshed every two to three weeks, not quarterly. Winning angles got more budget within days, losing ones got pulled.
• Tight feedback loop with the sales team. Lead quality was reviewed fortnightly, with sales feeding back on which campaigns produced conversations versus which produced form fills.
• A specific differentiator in the offer. The project had a clear positioning that translated into a single sentence ad headline. No generic “discover your dream home” energy.

Outsized performance on paid ads in property doesn’t come from one magic lever. It comes from running the operational basics well, every week.

One of the most common conversations we’re having right now with property clients is around landing pages. Specifically, whether to send paid ad traffic to the main project website, or to a dedicated landing page built for that campaign.

Our position: for most paid campaigns, a dedicated landing page outperforms a full project website.

Here’s why:

• A project website has to serve everyone. Buyers, sales agents, media, the curious. A campaign landing page only has to convert one type of buyer.
• You can A/B test pages fast (headline, hero image, form length, CTA) without touching the main site.
• Page speed, form placement, and trust signals can be tuned for conversion in ways most project sites aren’t designed for.
• You can run a separate landing page per buyer persona and feed each into its own ad set.

What we typically see when projects shift from “send traffic to the website” to “send traffic to a dedicated landing page”: conversion rates lift by 20 to 40% and lead quality improves because the page itself qualifies intent before the form is submitted.

If you’re spending more than $5K a month on paid ads and pointing all of it at your main website, it’s worth testing.

If your project is under construction, you’re sitting on the strongest creative source you’ve got. And most teams aren’t using it well.

Cranes going up, slabs being poured, framing taking shape, facade revealing, display suite opening. Every milestone is content that beats yet another stock lifestyle render.

Why this works on Meta:

• It’s authentic. Renders look like every other project. A real site photo doesn’t.
• It feeds the urgency narrative. Progress signals scarcity in a way static creative can’t.
• It refreshes the ad account. New creative every four to six weeks keeps frequency and CPM healthy.

What we’re rolling into more property campaigns this quarter: a “construction commenced” carousel format for milestone moments, and short form vertical video shot on site. The video doesn’t need to be polished. Phone footage with clean captions consistently outperforms produced motion content in our property accounts right now.

If your builder is on site, get someone shooting a 30 second clip every fortnight. The cost is negligible and the creative library it builds is worth a lot.

In property, winter is the season most teams get cautious. Budgets get trimmed, campaigns go quiet, and the thinking is “we’ll ramp back up in spring.”

The teams winning in property aren’t doing that. They’re using winter to do something different: nurture.

What’s been working well right now is value-add content. Ads that aren’t asking for a form fill, but instead give a prospective buyer something useful. Examples we’re rolling into campaigns:

• Suburb deep dives (schools, transport, lifestyle, walkability)
• Buyer guides (first home buyer steps, off the plan vs established explained, FIRB basics)
• Behind the scenes content from the developer, builder or design team
• “Day in the life” content showing how people actually live in the area

This content does two things. It keeps your audience engaged through the quiet months. And it builds the recall and trust that turns cold prospects into ready buyers when the market wakes up.

Get the nurture right through winter and your campaigns are positioned for the summer surge, when the audience you’ve been warming up is ready to act.

If you’re considering pausing or scaling down spend this winter, think about the alternative. Keep the lights on, soften the lead-gen pressure, lean into value-add creative, and stack the deck for summer.

• Audit where your paid ad traffic is landing. If it’s the main project website, test a dedicated landing page. Lifts of 20 to 40% on conversion rate are common.
• Get on site footage every fortnight. Real construction content beats renders on Meta. Phone footage is fine.
• Refresh creative every two to three weeks, not quarterly. The property campaigns that consistently outperform are running fast iteration loops.
• Don’t go quiet this winter. Shift a portion of budget from lead-gen to value-add nurture content. Suburb guides, buyer education, behind the scenes. By summer your audience is primed.

As always, happy to share what we’re seeing across the market. No pitch, just data.