Top 6 Creative Trends in Property Marketing Right Now

If there’s one thing we at Social Garden know how to do well, it’s creating damn good digital content for our clients. In order to create ads that convert, we need to be on top of the creative trends that catch the eyes of the users and engage them enough to click.

Here, we’ve summed up a few of our top trends in the property sector and why they’ll work for you and your prospective home buyer audience!

1. Text Overlays

In this current digital climate, less can really mean more when it comes to capturing the attention of your consumer. As the name suggests, text overlays provide the ability to use different text elements over an image or video.

What do we love about text overlays? You can use different fonts and layouts, and this feature really helps give you the opportunity to push your key message to your audience. Since Facebook removed the 20% text rule, there is free reign to overlay your images however you like!

2. The Power of Video

Did you know, a positive experience with a video ad increases a user’s purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%? Using video ads gives you a unique opportunity to engage and convert prospects better than a standard ad image. Not only can you have some fun with your content, but videos also provide your audience an easy way to follow the story you’re telling!

Video Content Fun Stat
For one of our home builder clients, we conducted extensive testing and optimisations around the performance video ads. The result? 66% of sales were attributed to our video ads, and when compared to static these achieved an 11% higher click-through rate and 39+ more conversions on average per month.

3. Image Extensions in Google

Creating an ad that automatically provides your audience with higher visibility as soon as they see it on Google? Sounds good to us! Image extensions are one of the simplest, yet most effective ways to boost click through rates and engage your audience. We recently utilised image extensions with one of our property clients and saw an incredibe 50% increase in their click through rate.

Campaign Manager, Michael Nadalin, shared with us his thoughts on image extensions:

“​​Image extensions are a great way to increase your ad engagements, CTRs and even conversion rates. This really assists in driving more traffic from high buying intent/low search volume searches.”

 4. Mobile First

With almost half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s no wonder that utilising a mobile first approach when it comes to creative direction is so important! Plainly put, mobile first is when you create your advertising around the mobile experience. Here are some of the ways we utilise a mobile first approach when creating our ads:

• Using shorter copy. No mobile user wants to scroll through endless amounts of text to get to the information they’re trying to find! Keep your text simple and to the point.
• Utilising square imagery and video content. With mobile first creative having a 27% higher chance of driving consumers compared to creative that isn’t optimised toward a mobile device, now’s the time to embrace visual elements that occupy more real estate on screens.

5. User generated content (UGC)

With 60% of consumers saying that user-generated content is the most authentic form of content, 3x more than brand-created content, it’s no wonder that the property market is taking full advantage and utilising this creative trend!

Consumers enjoy learning about businesses from the lens of someone who is just like them. First time home owner? Looking to upgrade the family home? It instills a sense of confidence to the potential buyer to hear from someone who has been in a similar situation that they’re in.

For buyers, authentic content equals influential content. Not only that, but UGC is 85% times more effective at increasing conversion rates above other creative methods.

6. Discovery Ads

Similar to Facebook dynamic ads, these ads work in a way that combines multiple headlines, descriptions and images to see what combination works best for your target audience.

With placements across Gmail, discover feeds and YouTube, using discovery ads is an awesome way to increase brand awareness, as well as giving further opportunities to drive engagement with your current customers. Account Director Loredana Principessa has seen recent success with discovery ads for one of her property clients, Avid Property Group. Here are some of her thoughts on why this is an awesome tool to utilise:

“Discovery ads are different to traditional GDN ad placements as they offer another channel that not only increases brand exposure, but also contributes to high quality lead generation. The ability to test various images, text and call-to-actions gives further insight into what your customers are really engaged with online, and can help to inform your overall Google strategy.”