When we talk about the best online lead sources out there, it helps to understand the different categories of lead sources, because they vary in quality, price, and type.

A lot of agents say, “I don’t want online leads — I just want to work my sphere of influence.” That’s great, and you should always put your sphere of influence ahead of online leads. But for people in leadership roles, there are often agents who really need income to survive in this industry. I’m a big proponent of building your business around your sphere of influence so you’re not always chasing new business, but I’m also a proponent of paying the bills. So online leads need to be viewed as supplemental income while you’re building your business — not in lieu of it.

If you’re an “online leads guy,” you will burn out. All online-lead-only agents burn out, just like most prospectors burn out. If you’re prospecting from sources you don’t know — FSBOs, expireds, circle prospecting — only a small percentage of agents actually keep doing that at a steady pace for their entire career. The main reason is either they burn out, or they start getting enough business from their SOI, built at the same time, that they have the luxury of stopping three hours of prospecting every morning.

So the caveat is: we must always put the SOI first, so we aren’t dependent on online leads forever. But since a high percentage of our clients are leaders of real estate teams and brokerages, scaling lead generation sources becomes a big deal. You’ve got agents who are struggling or brand new and need to pay bills — how do you provide them with online leads? First, you have to understand the different types of leads out there.

I have a graphic I want you to look at — an online lead funnel showing the different types.

At the top, we start with leads from social media. This is probably your weakest lead, but also your cheapest. Typically you’re paying for ads off a business page. The reason it’s weaker than something like Google PPC or force-registration leads is the difference in intent: people on Facebook aren’t expecting to look for a house. They’re looking at faces, scrolling, and then a house pops up, or a question like “are you pre-qualified?” Very few people click.

With that type of lead, you’re looking at a 1-2% conversion rate if you’re doing it well off Facebook — and that’s about as good as it gets. It takes a lot of follow-up: quick speed to lead, then 7, 8, 9 follow-up touches, staying in contact, helping them through the search process, adding value. It’s cheap, but it’s not a good conversion rate, and it’s very heavy on buyers. You’re not going to get a lot of people going that route to list their house — sellers typically go with someone they know, or the best agent in their neighborhood or town.

Then we move into PPC — people actually searching online. Again, if you’re doing it well, that’s a 3-5% conversion rate, though I’d lean closer to 3%, because portals like Zillow and realtor.com pull a lot of that traffic. You’ll have a lot of lead follow-up here too, because these buyers are typically six months out on average. These leads cost a bit more because they’re more focused on people actually searching for property. You might get a few seller leads here — usually because the buyer is also selling a home, and that’s the jackpot moment.

Then we get into the portals. These are different because people are actually regularly looking on the portals. These cost a lot more — typically a referral fee paid at close, which can go up to 40% in some areas. But the conversion rate is much higher — I’ve seen higher than 12%, and I’ve seen it go as high as 20%. These buyers are closer to purchasing, typically three months out on average, and you’ll see more listings show up on the portals too. They’re more experienced and less impulsive — they’re actually searching on a portal and often set up email reminders. When they’re ready, they click a button asking to be put in contact with a realtor, and in some cases, they’re transferred to a live conversation. That means your follow-up call is a customer service call, not a cold sales call, which is why the conversion rate is so much stronger than force registration.

The two biggest lead sources we’re seeing with the highest conversion rates right now are Zillow and Veterans United. Both are producing very high quality leads, and a lot of our clients are getting a lot of business off both. Veterans United is newer to a lot of people — it’s actually a private company that many mistake for the VA, so a lot of veterans call in thinking they’re calling the VA. Agents sign up and get paid by referral, the same model as Zillow, and it’s been growing very strong.

The key is you have to be good at conversion. If you’re an agent who doesn’t answer the phone when they call, you’re going to stop getting leads from these sources. These companies make money when you sell real estate, and they understand the importance of speed to lead. They want to see that you have an established team, that you’ve sold a lot of real estate, and that you understand the importance of jumping on the call quickly, making yourself available, and following up. If you don’t perform, you won’t get many more leads. That’s why we coach teams and brokerages with dedicated lead teams on how to keep these accounts — they’re hard to keep, because most people don’t realize everything that goes into online lead conversion. You have to have dashboards, you have to track performance, and you have to hold agents accountable. Otherwise, the vast majority will say these leads “aren’t good.” And to be fair, the conversion rates aren’t fabulous — but working your SOI isn’t either. You contact your SOI regularly, and only a small percentage raise their hand to buy or sell at any given time.

Then there’s Google Local Service Ads. These are probably the best leads out there, and you don’t necessarily have to pay for local service ads — it starts with having a very strong Google Business Profile. That’s extremely important in the age of AI right now. AI leans very heavily on your Google Business Profile: Do you have a lot of reviews? Are you posting regularly? That’s where most agents fail — they treat their Google Business Profile like a static listing instead of a social media channel. Are you constantly adding new listings, activities, or events?

A long time ago, Google had Google Plus, a social media platform that failed miserably, in part because Google folded its features into the Google Business Profile platform. Agents who don’t keep their profile updated just aren’t going to get noticed by AI. People are searching on AI right now — “who’s the best agent in this neighborhood, who’s the best agent in this city” — and if you’re not showing up, it’s usually because your Google Business Profile isn’t being maintained.

Another key to boosting your Google ranking and getting these top-tier online leads is making sure you’re posting to YouTube regularly, since YouTube is owned by Google and shows up next to your Google Business Profile. Reviews matter a lot too — having quotes from those reviews on your profile, and having uniformity between the name on your Google Business Profile, your website, and everywhere else. Different names or formatting in different places will confuse Google.

You can also run Google Local Service Ads. They show up at the very top of search, and they’re pretty affordable. The good thing about Google Business Profile leads is that they’re split between sellers and buyers — I’d even say there are more sellers than buyers here. They’re paid per lead, and they’re very close to buying or selling. The conversion rates are about the same as the portals.

These leads are powerful because when people don’t know an agent, they trust Google — the same way they trust the product with the most reviews on Amazon. If Google ranks you highest, or you have the most reviews, people feel safest choosing you. It’s not always the most experienced agents that Google ranks highest — it’s the agents who actually did the work to build out their Google Business Profile completely.

Search algorithms shifted a couple of years ago — less emphasis on blogging, though blogging is still important, and more emphasis on Google Business Profiles. That makes sense: if I owned Google, I’d want people using my products more — YouTube, posting on my Business Profile, all of it. That builds trust in the platform, which is why we’re seeing a move away from pure social media marketing and toward Google Business Profiles, especially with the rise of AI.

If you need help getting set up in this area, we have service providers we connect a lot of our clients with. Trying to do it yourself can be time-consuming, and it’s easy to do incorrectly.

One more thing on premium portal leads — your Zillows, your realtor.coms, all the pay-per-close programs. When someone starts coaching with Icenhower Coaching, this is something we get them on right away — usually one of the first or second calls every coach has with every agent: getting them set up with our online lead service partners. That list has over 60 partners, closer to 90 once you include sources like Veterans United.

One of the first things we do with that list is register agents on every single site, because you’re only paying at close. If you don’t want to pay a 25-35% referral fee, you don’t have to — but I guarantee there are agents in your organization who need to pay their bills and will do it, while also growing their sphere of influence, since a lot of those leads become past clients. This ties agents over until they’ve built enough income from their SOI or other lead sources to graduate off online leads.

This isn’t going away — these companies are growing because more people are starting their search online every year. We’re not going extinct as agents; buyers and sellers still work with a real estate agent. But this is going to keep growing as a percentage of lead capture, so learning how to convert online leads and find these sources is important. Otherwise, you’re missing a big chunk of the business that’s growing every year.

Nick: Hey Brian, when I took your advice and started filling out these referral sources, something interesting happened on a Google search. You’ve got your Google Business Profile, then the paid ads — the Zillows of the world, realtor.com, and so on. But after I filled these out, my brokerage started showing up under those referral sources too. I was improving my SEO and starting to show up on sites besides my own website and my Google Business Profile just by filling these out.

Brian: Yeah, you’re right — it puts your profile out there in more places, and I’d have to think AI recognizes that too. It signals that you’re a trusted partner across all these different lead sources, and it increases your online presence.

Team member: If I can add something — one of the most overwhelming things my team experienced when filling these out (I think I’m on about 40 of them) is the follow-up. We’ve used AI to really help with that. Not only is AI where we’re getting a lot of these leads, we use AI as our follow-up system. We keep our iPads or computers open, do all our calls on speaker phone, and use note-taking tools like Read AI to record every conversation. We copy the conversation right back into ChatGPT and ask for a custom drip system — a follow-up text or email based on the conversation, spaced two, four, or six weeks out — then paste that right back into the CRM. Every follow-up is custom, based on the actual conversation we had with that lead.

Brian: That’s really cool. It’s absolutely amazing — use AI in the proper way. It’s not just helping you get leads, use it to follow up too. All our drips are custom, and it works phenomenally, especially with Facebook and Google PPC, where there’s so much follow-up required and so many leads that it’s tough to remember every detail. AI doesn’t forget.

Team member: Right, it remembers every conversation. It’s changed the game on follow-up. These note-takers are phenomenal — $39 a month for the premium version of Read AI, and it remembers the person’s name, records the conversation, and you don’t need permission to be on speaker phone.

Brian: That’s great — it really saves time and increases your conversion rate because of the personalization factor. With Google and Facebook leads especially, 75% of your business comes after the seventh follow-up attempt, and too many agents are just cherry-picking, deciding on the first call whether a lead is “good” or not.

By the way, this only works when you customize it — please don’t use the blank, free version of ChatGPT. It doesn’t work. You need a custom version that’s real estate-specific, or you’ll get random, generic responses sent to your leads. Please customize your ChatGPT and use the paid version.

Team member: Agreed, we definitely do.

Brian: If you want to learn how to customize ChatGPT for that, we have courses on that too. Lead follow-up is what makes the difference, especially as you move to the cheaper leads — the more follow-up required, the further out those buyers and sellers are.

You can look at all of this as negative and fear-based — “oh my God, there’s all this stuff” — or you can look at it as an opportunity to learn more. Resting on your own knowledge of what you think this industry will look like puts you in scarcity mode for the rest of your career. But staying active and learning-based, continuing to evolve — that’s fun. The way this helps agents is unbelievable, but you have to keep learning and evolving with it.

We’ve had a lot of changes over the last couple of years, and making these adjustments — to get more leads, to get more leads from AI, to get more leads from Google — is all very important. We stay ahead of it.

Thanks, guys. I hope this helps.