What Is Pay Per Lead in Real Estate?

PPL in real estate (and in any other industry for that matter) stands for Pay Per Lead.

It literally means that you pay your lead provider on a per-lead basis as opposed to paying a set fee (often a management fee or marketing retainer) for the service.

In other words, with the PPL lead generation model, you only pay when there is a lead matching your real estate lead intake criteria. Hence, the name Pay Per Lead.

If you are considering this lead gen model but are not fully sure if it is worth buying real estate leads from PPL providers, I’ve listed below all the major pros and cons of this model.

How Does Pay Per Lead Work in Real Estate?

Generally, Pay Per Lead in real estate works in a very straightforward manner. First, you need to create an account with your PPL provider.

Then, you will often specify your lead intake criteria. In other words, you simply provide your preferences in terms of geography, property attributes (property type, price range, beds, baths, etc.), monthly spend, and others to indicate which leads you want to receive.

From there, you are pretty much good to go. Every time your PPL provider gets a lead that matches your criteria, they will charge your credit card.

That is how Pay Per Lead works in a nutshell. If you need a more comprehensive overview, check out my step-by-step guide on how to buy real estate leads.

Real Estate Pay Per Lead Examples

Let’s say you are a Realtor who is looking to buy real estate listing leads. You’d then want to sign up with one or more PPL providers.

Once you signed up, provided your lead intake specifications and the budget, you’d be able to start buying leads on a Pay-Per-Lead basis.

Depending on your PPL provider, you’d have the following options:

a. Access only to your dashboard where you’ll see all the leads you’ve purchased

b. Both access to your dashboard where you’ll see all the leads you’ve purchased and access to a real-time lead marketplace where you’ll have an ability to buy leads manually one by one

Here is an example of the Real Estate Bees’ PPL marketplace with a real-time feed of listing leads:

When buying real estate leads through a real-time lead marketplace, you simply scroll through the lead inventory, pick those that match your criteria, and then click the “BUY LEAD” button.

Once you do that, usually you’ll be presented with two options:

1. Buy a lead exclusively (more expensive option).
2. Buy a lead non-exclusively (cheaper option).

Here is how this looks like on the REB lead marketplace:

Obviously on different PPL platforms, this flow will look slightly differently. But generally, it is quite similar across the board.

Takeaway

I hope this article shed some light on what Pay Per Lead is and how it works. While in some industries this lead generation model is not common, it’s quite prevalent in the real estate space.

In fact, according to our nationwide lead generation statistics report, the second most popular lead gen channel among real estate professionals is PPL (14%), right after direct mail (17.9%).

That said, like many other lead gen channels, PPL, too, has its advantages and drawbacks.

To find out whether this lead generation model is for you, check out my comprehensive guide about all the PPL pros and cons.

If this guide provided value to you, I’d be grateful if you share it with other real estate pros who you think will greatly benefit from it, too.

I wish you best of luck, and thank you for your attention!