With limited budgets and stiff competition in real estate investing, knowing which lead generation avenues work best, what type of return you can expect, and how you compare to your peers is valuable information. Many general benchmark reports exist, but they’re really only helpful if you benchmark within your specific industry.

Carrot has been hosting real estate investor websites for wholesalers, flippers, and beyond since 2013, putting us in the unique position of having 10+ years of data and insights. This Real Estate Investing: State of Marketing 2025 report from Carrot sets the benchmark for real estate investors to gauge the success of their website, SEO, PPC, and other marketing efforts and plan goals for 2025.

Methodology

For this report, we analyzed 2024 data from 6,303 real estate investor websites hosted by Carrot. To ensure websites were mature enough to generate consistent traffic and leads, we only analyzed sites created before July 1, 2023.

Motivated Leads, a digital marketing agency specializing in online advertising for real estate investors, provided paid advertising data and insights, analyzing spending and conversion trends from the accounts they manage.

We also surveyed 90 real estate investing professionals — both Carrot members and non-Carrot members — with a range of experience to get a broader sense of marketing strategies going into 2025. This survey provides insights that data alone can’t capture, such as budgets, planned strategy changes from 2024 into 2025, and the success of offline lead generation tactics.

Investors of all experience levels and a variety of real estate investment specialties responded.

Top Takeaways

• Real estate investors plan on expanding their marketing budgets and strategies in 2025.
• When a site visitor watches a video, their chances of converting to a lead almost doubles.
• Most leads convert on their first visit, so capture their attention and earn their trust quickly!
• Leads from paid search jumped more than 20% from 2023 to 2024. If you’re not investing in paid search, you should consider adding it to your marketing mix going forward.
• Almost an equal amount of visitors are on mobile versus desktop. Your website absolutely needs to be optimized for both.

Insights from Real Estate Investors

Top Takeaway: The majority of real estate investors plan to increase their marketing budgets and time spent on marketing. Are you ready to keep up? In 2025 you should have a website and CRM at the bare minimum.

For real estate investors, marketing is still very much a DIY endeavor. Fifty-seven percent of survey respondents report handling all marketing activities themselves, while 31% have some outside help. Only 12% of investors have agencies or freelancers handle all their marketing.

Marketing activities make up only a fraction of a busy investor’s schedule. More than 85% of survey respondents spend less than 10 hours per week on marketing activities, with nearly a quarter of respondents dedicating less than one hour per week. Things may change as we go into 2025 though, as an impressive 71% of investors plan on increasing their marketing time this year. Only 8% plan on decreasing the amount of time spent on marketing in 2025.

Where should investors focus their marketing?

With so little time dedicated to marketing, it’s important for investors to find marketing strategies and tools that work well and fill pipelines. With a seemingly endless number of marketing solution options, deciding which to focus on can be difficult. Most investors report using only a few solutions, with nearly 50% of investors using two to three marketing services. The most common solutions are a CRM and website. Investing in a real estate CRM is a smart move going into 2025 to keep all leads (online and offline) organized and streamline follow-up. Investors still relying on spreadsheets for lead management risk falling behind their peers.

These tools support a range of lead generation strategies. The average investor works with three strategies, but some use upwards of eight. Websites and social media are the most common, followed by direct mail, cold calling, and SEO, indicating that both online and offline lead generation tactics are required for a successful investment business.

While referrals and networking are the No. 1 source of leads for many investors, social media and direct mail are also top lead drivers. When planning your marketing strategy in 2025, a healthy mix of networking plus online and offline marketing has the best chance of driving success. Many survey respondents mentioned Facebook in particular, so if you have limited time, focus on that social platform.

To capture more leads in 2025, 65% of investors plan on adding additional marketing strategies. Only 3% intend to decrease their number of outreach channels. For those interested in increasing marketing, SEO, paid advertising, and pay-per-lead solutions are popular and effective for many successful investors. Having a website is also a key piece of the mix, as you need something to optimize for SEO and somewhere to point paid advertising. (It’s also good practice to add a website to any offline outreach so potential leads can research you and verify your authenticity before deciding to reach out.)

Marketing budgets vary wildly

To support marketing expansion, 60% of investors will increase their marketing budget in 2025, while 28% are keeping their budget the same. Marketing budgets for real estate investors vary wildly. The median annual marketing budget amongst survey respondents is $12,000. However, eight respondents plan on spending less than $1000 on marketing this year, while 12 will spend more than $100,000. Three respondents report having a $500,000 annual marketing budget!

Annual marketing budgets increase as investors become more seasoned, but stay relatively flat for investors with 1-9 years of experience.

Interestingly, there isn’t a consensus on the primary lead source among the top spenders, nor on their most effective marketing strategy. While investors who spend more than $100,000 do utilize more marketing strategies (an average of five instead of three), some top spenders only rely on paid ads or cold calling. The most commonly used marketing strategies are websites and direct mail.

Meanwhile, those with the smallest annual budgets ($2,500 or less) rely on an average of two marketing strategies, mainly a website, social media, or cold calling. Their primary lead sources are more manual and low-cost options, such as referrals and social media.

This survey proves there isn’t one right way to generate real estate investment leads. Find what works for you and your budget. If you’ve been avoiding certain marketing strategies, 2025 may be a good time to expand your reach and try something new. If you don’t have a website yet, this is the year to get online. A strong website serves as both a lead generation machine and a central hub for the rest of your online and offline marketing.

Benchmark Your Website Performance

Top Takeaway: Focus on your website’s conversion rate (what percentage of visitors turn into leads). A high conversion rate means you’re attracting the right traffic and are on the right path to strong inbound lead generation. To improve your conversion rate, make sure your website successfully targets the best keywords, is personalized to you and your business, and performs well on mobile. If your site isn’t mobile-optimized, you could be missing out on a lot of leads!

A website is a powerful lead generation tool for real estate investors, attracting high-quality leads, helping investors get found by ranking well in search results, and serving as an online landing place for offline marketing. Here’s what you can expect from your website and goals to aim for in 2025.

What to Expect from Website Traffic

Web traffic is a good indication of how many people find you online. Whether they come directly to your website because of a referral, find you via a search engine or paid ad, or follow a piece of offline marketing (like a mailer, door hanger, or bandit sign), people use websites to vet your credibility and get in touch.

When to expect website traffic

When monitoring web traffic you should expect to start the year off strong. The busiest time of year for web traffic in 2024 was January, with an average of 172 visitors. Overall, traffic remained relatively steady throughout the year, with most months averaging visitors in the 160s. Things slowed down as we came into the end-of-year holiday season, however. November and December were the lowest traffic months, with an average of 143 and 145 visitors respectively.

When it comes to business forecasting for 2025, front load your pipeline and don’t count on a rush of late-year deals. If you’re lagging behind your lead goal by mid-year, consider updating your website sooner rather than later to make up the difference before things cool down in the back half of the year. (Checking your SEO optimization and keyword rankings is a good place to start.)

How visitors get to your site

Direct traffic (people coming directly to your website, such as typing in your URL) was the largest segment, generating 40.45% of overall traffic. Organic search (24.71%) and paid search (20.96%) were also high-value traffic sources. Organic social, referral traffic (a link from another site), and paid social each represented less than 7% of traffic. However, referral traffic had the third highest conversion rate (converting better than direct traffic), making it a powerful driver of actual leads. Building a strong backline strategy can help investors enhance this promising lead source in 2025.

What devices visitors used was fairly even between desktop (46.78%) and mobile (50.78%). This is a significantly more even split than overall web traffic trends (39.41% desktop vs. 58.54% mobile, according to MobiLoud). This illustrates the importance of benchmarking within your industry. If you follow general trends, you could miss important ways that your target audience interacts.

Both mobile and desktop traffic increased in 2024 over 2023 — good news for investors. Mobile traffic jumped 16% while desktop traffic was up an impressive 37%. However, the gap between mobile and desktop traffic lessened last year, stressing the need for a good website experience across devices.

Despite being a near-even split, different traffic sources tend to lean heavily toward either desktop or mobile. Direct traffic favors desktop, but social sources (both paid and organic) are almost all mobile visits — likely because consumers tend to use social media apps rather than visiting social platforms on a desktop. Interestingly, paid search drives significantly more traffic on mobile devices. The major takeaway from this is that any landing pages connected to paid ad campaigns absolutely must be designed for mobile.

Generating Leads & Opportunities

All the web traffic in the world doesn’t mean anything if visitors don’t convert into leads. The most beautiful website might do a terrible job of converting visitors into leads. Meanwhile, a simple but effective website could be a lead powerhouse. Instead of relying on what your site looks like or how you feel it performs, lean into the data when planning for 2025. Understanding how many leads other real estate investment websites generate will tell you if you’re ahead or behind your peers and help you gauge your site’s real efficacy.

How many leads can you generate with a website?

Answering “How many leads can I expect from my website?” is tricky. Some investors spend a lot of time optimizing and driving traffic to their sites while others set up a website and do little to improve or promote it. However, investors who focus on their website as a major marketing tool can expect a healthy number of online leads.

The average number of website-generated leads in 2024 was 62. However, many factors impact lead generation, including how well a website is optimized, the type of leads you’re targeting, and location. Because of these variables, focusing on which leads percentile you want to be in is a better way to set your 2025 goal.

Part-time or newer investors (or those just launching a website) may find the 50th to 75th percentile more realistic, while more advanced real estate investors should generate multiple web leads per week. As you can see from the chart above, top performers are generating significantly more leads than average. If your website isn’t generating leads, make sure it’s ranking well for high volume keywords, has the right content to attract traffic, and is designed to encourage visitors to contact you (too many “pretty” sites make it hard for visitors to actually reach out!).

Where you invest has a major impact on lead expectations

The number of leads you can expect varies greatly by location, with larger, more populated states naturally generating the most leads. Texas, Florida, and California generated the most leads in 2024, with Texas and Florida seeing a significantly higher lead average than other states.

Interestingly, the states with the most web traffic weren’t necessarily the states with the most leads last year. Ohio and Virginia have high traffic counts, but rank numbers nine and 16 respectively for total leads.

Investors in Georgia and Washington, D.C. will be pleased to know that these areas have the highest leads per capita (using 2024 population data from the U.S. Census Bureau). Wisconsin and New Jersey have surprisingly low leads per capita when compared to population.

Eight states generated fewer than 1000 total online leads in 2024, likely due to the difficulty of real estate investing in those areas or because of their size and population.

• Hawaii: 932 leads
• New Hampshire: 804 leads
• South Dakota: 628 leads
• Wyoming: 570 leads
• North Dakota: 511 leads
• Vermont: 371 leads
• Rhode Island: 330 leads
• Alaska: 190 leads

How to REALLY gauge your site’s success

When it comes to benchmarking your website’s success, your traffic-to-lead conversion rate is a better gauge than the number of leads you generate. For example, if you generate the same number of leads from less web traffic, your site is more successful than someone who needs to attract a lot of visitors. As you attract more web traffic, you can use your conversion rate to estimate how many additional leads you can expect. If your conversion rate goes down (meaning traffic isn’t converting into leads), you’re not attracting the right type of traffic and may want to adjust your keyword, content, or advertising strategy.

For this report, we specifically looked at the conversion rate for leads who filled out a website form and only counted leads once, regardless of how many forms they filled out on the same website. It’s important to note that the overall average conversion rate in 2024 is higher as we’re not accounting for leads who call instead of filling out a form. With more than 50% of website traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s safe to say that phone calls generate a good number of leads, meaning an investor’s overall conversion rate is likely much higher. But in terms of assessing your website and online lead generation performance, here are some base numbers to go off of.

Nationally, organic search and paid search traffic converted leads the best, both with conversion rates slightly over 5.3%. While this rate may seem low, it’s important to remember that not all web traffic is high quality. This conversion rate was calculated by looking at the total number of visitors to all pages divided by how many filled out a contact form. Traffic from a website owner or team member visiting their own site or a competitor checking out your site increase traffic numbers despite being “unqualified” traffic that isn’t intended to convert (lowering the conversion rate).

For reference, the average conversion rate for real estate websites overall (not just Carrot websites) was 2.2% for organic search and 2% for paid search in 2023, according to Ruler Analytics. When looking at just form conversions, those rates dropped to just 1.2% for organic and 0.7% for paid search (data from 2021). Form-based conversion rates from our data set were significantly higher in 2024, proving a well optimized website can be a powerful lead generation tool.

Search traffic converting better than other traffic sources tells us visitors looking for a specific service, solution, or answer are more likely to convert once finding your site. Focusing on smart SEO optimization and new content that answers common questions in 2025 could help you capture more search traffic and generate more leads. When publishing new content, make sure all your high traffic pages include a form so visitors can easily convert to a lead.

Investors may specifically want to double down on paid search — this source saw a 21.5% conversion increase over 2023, despite only being used by 9% of investors in our survey. Investors who have honed in their paid advertising messaging and targeting are likely to see conversion rates much higher than the 5.3% average. To add successful paid search campaigns to your marketing strategy, identify your target keyword, build a landing page optimized to that keyword, and create ads with the same keyword pointing to your landing page. (Many PPC service providers can help with this, including Real Estate Investing: State of Marketing 2025 contributor Motivated Leads.)

Despite the web traffic device breakdown being relatively even (50.78% mobile, 46.78% desktop), conversion rates on mobile were significantly higher than on other devices in 2024:

• Mobile: 4.78%
• Tablet: 2.6%
• Desktop: 2.20%

This is particularly interesting considering the conversion rates in this report look at online form fills only, not phone calls. Properly optimized mobile sites make it easy for visitors to click a phone number to make a call, making calling a particularly popular conversion method on mobile. With this in mind, conversion on mobile is likely much higher than 4.78%.

To capitalize on this trend, make sure your website scales for mobile, has clickable phone numbers, and that forms are easy to see and fill out on smaller screens. Pay special attention to how your site’s navigation menu performs on mobile. Menus that shrink too much or have link colors without enough visual contrast cause visitor frustration and can lead them to abandon your site without taking action. How quickly your site loads is also important. Today’s consumers expect websites to load almost instantaneously. You don’t want to lose leads because of a slow website. (If your site is slow, check the size of your images. Large image files are a major culprit in slow load times.)

Conversion Rates by State

The states with the highest web traffic or the most leads aren’t necessarily the easiest places to invest. While a high number of leads is tempting, how much web traffic you need to generate those leads is an important consideration. Conversion rate is a good way to gauge this. If you’re in a highly competitive market and have an above average conversion rate, it means your website is doing really well.

The average traffic-to-lead conversion rate nationally was 4.08% in 2024. Only four of the states with the most web traffic and leads had above-average conversion rates (Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas). Despite appearing on the “most traffic” list, Ohio and Virginia each have conversion rates below 2%, which is likely why they were replaced by Georiga and North Carolina on the “most leads” list.

Texas and Florida appear on both the 2024 “most traffic” and “most leads” lists and have above-average conversion rates, suggesting they’re lucrative places to invest. In fact, Florida had the second highest conversion rate in 2024 at 5.92%, making it the only state to appear in the top three for most traffic, most leads, and highest conversion rate. It also comes in at number three for leads per capita, making it overall the strongest investment location in 2024.

Nevada had the highest conversion rate last year at 6.35%, despite appearing at #39 for total traffic and #31 for leads.

What type of investors have the best conversion rates?

The type of real estate investing you focus on also impacts your conversion rate. Nationwide, the average form-based conversion rate across real estate investor websites was 3.55%. However, if you invest in a few specialty areas, you can expect higher-than-average conversion rates based on 2024 data.

• Rent-to-Own (11.28%)
• Owner Financing (6.59%)
• Land Buying (4.02%)

These specialties likely see higher conversion rates because they’re “low risk” inquiries. Visitors to these sites may fill out forms to get more information or view properties and land for rent or sale. Whereas visitors to a motivated seller site may be more hesitant to provide their information before they’re fully ready sell their property. Investors shouldn’t be discouraged by lower conversion rates. Rather, you should set your individual goals based on your area of expertise and the intent of your website.

Websites specifically intended to build credibility only converted at a rate of 1.75% in 2024. Building credibility and trust is a major factor in real estate transactions and this data point doesn’t mean you should skip this vital step. Instead, it suggests that you don’t need a separate website to build credibility. Incorporate credibility builders like customer reviews, videos, “About Us” pages, and topical thought-leadership blogs into your services websites to generate trust while visitors explore your services.

You need to capture a lead’s interest quickly

Your homepage is the most important page on your site. We looked at 17.6 million web sessions from 2024 and 10.1 million started on the homepage. The most common conversions were simple: A visitor lands on the homepage > scrolls down the page > and submits a contact form. It all takes place on the homepage.

Not converting on the homepage isn’t a bad thing though. While the overall average conversion rate is 3.55%, that rate jumped up to 8.8% for visitors who view a second page and 9% when they visit a third page — a good reason to build out multiple pages on your site.

The homepage isn’t everything though. More than seven million web visits started on a page that wasn’t the homepage. That’s no small number! Adding SEO-optimized pages like blog posts and landing pages covering specific topics is a good way to rank in search engines for the terms and questions potential leads are searching for. Getting in front of leads when they’re looking for information is a great way to drive site traffic.

In the real estate investing world, there isn’t as much window shopping as other industries. Many web visitors are ready to act once they land on your site. The vast majority of leads converted on their first and only visit in 2024, with only 7.2% of visitors returning to a site after the initial visit.

You have a small window to make a good impression, so make sure your website is set up for success with high quality content, helpful information, and credibility builders. In addition to the homepage, about us and contact pages are popular with leads right before they convert, so spend extra time building out those pages.

Optimize Your Website with Keywords & Content

What should your website look like? We’ve already established that you need a stellar homepage, about us page, and contact page at the very least. But many real estate investors move beyond these basic pages.

The right website content to attract leads

Twelve percent of investors surveyed report practicing SEO, and a key component of successful SEO is having websites to support target keywords. The top-performing sites of 2024 have an average of 28 pages per site. These are a mix of core pages, landing pages, location-specific pages, blogs, and topical pages answering common questions.

The most active online investors pay close attention to their website content, consistently adding new information to attract more traffic. Investors who regularly updated their website created an average of 9.6 pages per month — primarily pages that target a specific location or topic. They also added an average of five blogs per month. Carrot’s AI Rewrite tool helps generate original site content and blogs, making it easier for investors to add new content to their site. The most active site editors used the AI Rewrite tool an average of 17 times per month in 2024, explaining how they can add so many new pages and posts monthly.

The best keywords for real estate investing

Targeting the right keywords is critical to getting found online. People aren’t googling “Bob Buys Houses,” but they are googling “Sell my house fast, Portland.” Simple, location-based keywords that channel the problem your leads are trying to solve are the best bet for SEO.

In 2024 the most common keywords targeted by real estate investor websites included:

• “We buy houses [location]”
• “Sell my house fast [location]”
• “Cash homebuyers [location]”

Those aren’t the only keywords investors go after though. The average investor tracks how their site ranks for 30 keywords and optimizes webpages for an average of 4.5 keywords.

Not sure which keywords to go after? Enter a topic you’re interested in targeting into a Keyword Explorer tool and it will provide keyword recommendations alongside search volume and competition.

Paid Advertising Benchmarks

Top Takeaway: While Google Performance Max advertising offers cheaper cost-per-click and cost-per-lead it’s much less targeted. Focus on attracting the right traffic with traditional targeted Google Advertising, especially at the beginning of the week.

Paid search accounted for 21% of total traffic and 30.5% of leads in 2024, but how do you know if you’re spending your online advertising budget wisely? Motivated Leads, a digital marketing specialist for real estate investors, shared some 2024 insights to help investors set expectations.

How much to spend on ads

The median spend for Motivated Lead’s investors on Google Ads last year was $3,000 to $5,000 a month and the average cost-per-click (CPC) was $25.20. Investors running regular Google ads saw an average click-thru rate (CTR) around 5%, leading to an average cost-per-lead (CPL) of $250 or lower.

Ads targeting Illinois, Kentucky, and Delaware had the highest conversion rates, with CPLs dancing around the national average:

• Illinois: $207.18
• Kentucky: $241.03
• Delaware: $279.11

However, things changed slightly for investors who used Google’s Performance Max advertising option. Performance Max can lower your CPC and CPL, however, it may result in less qualified leads without proper campaign optimization.

Performance Max is harder to run and has broader targeting, leaving the algorithm to place ads. With this approach, your ads may appear on display, search, YouTube, Gmail, or other places and may even appear to web surfers outside of your local area. This broader approach can impact lead quality because you have less control over who you’re targeting ads toward.

With Google’s “regular” search advertising, you bid on specific keywords (that align with your website and SEO strategy), specifically targeting searchers who are more likely to become leads. The cost per lead is higher in this case because you’re focusing on more qualified leads.

Investors with smaller advertising budgets should focus on Google search ads and targeting the right keywords to get the most value from their investments. Since paid search was an extremely strong traffic and lead driver in 2024, this year could be the right time to try online advertising or increase your spending. Don’t worry about having a large budget for paid advertising. If you’re just getting started, setting up a simple ad campaign with a modest budget can still generate leads.

The most effective advertising

Focusing your ad budget on the right keywords and running ads at the right time can make your advertising dollars go further.

In 2024, the highest converting keyword themes for real estate investors were:

• Sell my house fast
• We buy houses
• Home buyer

Localizing your target markets and adding local terms to your keywords helps focus who sees your ads, improving lead quality. When adding a location name to keywords remember that your city name may not be unique. Are you trying to reach buyers/sellers in Portland, OR or Portland, ME? Make sure your ad account is properly set up to target the right area and that your landing pages include the city AND state.

Once your ads are set up, give them a better chance of being seen by running them at the best times. In 2024, online ads converted best on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday between 1pm and 5pm local time.

Other Data Gems

Top Takeaway: Just having a website isn’t enough to generate leads. You don’t have to be a marketing expert, but you do need to spend time building up your site if you want to generate inbound leads. Focusing on the high-value elements below can make a major difference.

Understanding how your fellow real estate investors are approaching 2025 and website and PPC trends from 2024 is valuable information and can help you benchmark your success. But what else should you pay attention to in the new year? Here are some additional takeaways to help you improve your marketing strategy and success this year.

Organic search = Better engagement

We know that organic search and paid search both generate a good amount of traffic and are the leading sources for leads, but in 2024 organic search had the edge. Between organic and paid search, organic results drove more traffic and leads and had a slightly higher conversion rate … but it blew all other sources out of the water when it comes to website engagement. Engagement rates (the average amount of time a visitor spends on the site per session) for organic search were more than twice as high as all other traffic sources.

The high engagement rate makes sense when you consider that visitors get to your site via organic search when they’re looking for specific information. Whether that’s as specific as selling their house fast or something more educational (like how rent-to-own works or what to do with an inherited house), visitors coming from organic search are looking for information. If your site is well-optimized, ranks high, and provides high-value information, visitors are going to stick around longer — and have a higher chance of converting to a lead.

ACTION! It’s time to invest in video

How much time do you spend watching videos on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube? Online video consumption is estimated to hit four hours per day in 2025, according to Oberlo. US consumers like to gather information via video, and adding videos to your website can help improve your conversation rate.

While the overall average conversion rate in 2024 was 3.55%, that rate increased to 4.5% when a visitor started watching a video and an astounding 6.3% when they finished an entire video.

Videos don’t have to be complicated or daunting. Today’s consumers are used to seeing natural, self-shot videos, so simple videos recorded on your phone or computer work just fine. If you want to get a little fancier, there are plenty of simple video editing tools available for free or a small fee.

To engage site visitors, record videos breaking down complex topics, sharing local trends, and answering common questions. Video testimonials from happy clients talking about what it’s like working with you and how pleased they are with the results are great on websites. They build your credibility and put leads at ease, making them more likely to want to work with you. Make sure videos are included on your homepage and about us page to get them in front of site visitors.

Build Your Backlink Strategy in 2025

Though backlinks are one of the more complex elements of SEO, real estate investors who master successful backlink strategies have higher-performing websites and attract more traffic and leads. A backlink is a link from another website to your site. They help build credibility, especially if you get a backlink from a highly reputable site like a local media outlet or well-known organization.

In 2024 the average number of backlinks for real estate investing websites was 62. If backlinks aren’t part of your current strategy, you should make a point of adding them this year. If you only have a few, it’s time to ramp things up.

“Trading” backlinks (linking to each others’ sites) with vendors and service providers you recommend or work with often is a good way to build a healthy backlink profile. Getting listed in local directories or even being a donor who is thanked on a local non-profit’s website are additional ways to gain more backlinks. When building a backlink strategy, don’t forget to periodically look through your backlink profile for broken or dead links that need to be fixed.