Buyers now ask an assistant which agent to trust.

Enough of them that being absent is now costly. The share of conversations with commercial intent rose from 13.9% to 19.2% in a year, and the real estate pattern is consistent: describe the situation, ask what a home is worth, ask who handles that street well. We record what assistants say about your markets before we begin, so you can judge your own position rather than take our word for it.

Portal real estate leads are rented and arrive without a relationship; this work builds a named presence in the conversation that precedes any portal visit. The economics differ too. Search leads averaged $102.51 at a 3.70% conversion rate in 2026, while assistant placements are still thinly contested by brokerages. We run both and let cost per booked appointment decide the balance.

It shapes the work from the first draft rather than being checked at the end. Targeting is built on geography and property characteristics, never on protected characteristics, and copy is written to describe homes and services rather than the people who should live in them. Every advert goes through a documented review before launch, and we keep that record for your broker.

Small and measured. A few hundred a month beside your existing search and portal spend is enough to learn whether these placements produce real appointments in your markets, and we would rather prove that than sell a large retainer. The heavier piece is the profile and market content work, which is a one-off build that keeps returning value whether or not campaigns run.

Both, though the shape differs. A brokerage usually needs consistent evidence across many agent profiles and neighbourhood pages; an individual agent needs depth in one or two markets and a steady flow of recent reviews. The visibility half matters more for solo agents because it costs nothing per click and compounds through the year.

We build the attribution ourselves rather than trusting platform reporting. A tracked number, landing paths that identify the source, CRM stamping at enquiry and a short 'how did you hear about us' field feed one view in our analytics layer. It is not flawless and we will not pretend otherwise, but it is honest enough to move budget with confidence.

Yes, and it is usually the highest-return part. Assistants summarise the clearest available source, so genuine neighbourhood commentary, sold history explained in plain words and honest answers about fees get quoted back to buyers and sellers. Thin pages padded for search engines do not survive that summarisation, which is why the content plan is written for people first.

The mix has shifted rather than shrunk. First-time buyers fell to 21% of the market, the lowest share recorded since 1981, while 91% of sellers still worked with an agent and homes sold at a median 99% of final list price. Equity-rich movers and repeat clients now carry the volume, and they research far more before they call.

Placements can produce enquiries within weeks, while the visibility work that gets your agents named builds across a quarter. We report the two separately so you always know which part is paying its way. In month one we would rather show a handful of well-attributed valuation appointments than a large click count nobody can tie to a listing.

It leans on it heavily. Consistent profiles, real reviews, strong neighbourhood pages and clean structured data are what both an assistant and a search engine read, and firms already running SEO start well ahead. We run one content plan across both and report assistant visibility alongside ordinary rankings rather than duplicating the work.

Very few, which is the opening. Active advertisers rose from 2,585 to 3,770 in a single week across every category worldwide, and real estate is barely represented. Placements remain cheap to test while that lasts, and the visibility work underneath keeps paying long after the auction gets busier.

A named senior paid media strategist with a local search specialist alongside, and the same people stay with your account rather than passing it to a rotating queue. You will know their names, you can email them directly, and the person who wrote your plan reviews the numbers with your team every month.