How to choose a real estate marketing agency: 12 questions for developers

Most real estate marketing agencies pitch the same things: great creatives, low CPLs and a dashboard. The differences that matter only show up three months in, when the sales team says the leads are poor and nobody can explain why. These twelve questions bring those differences out before you sign.

Results and measurement

1. What will you be judged on?

If the answer is cost per lead, keep looking. A good real estate digital marketing agency agrees to be judged on cost per site visit and cost per booking, even if it can't fully control sales.

2. How do you qualify leads?

Ask to see the lead form. Budget, configuration and purchase timeline questions raise CPL slightly but cut junk dramatically. An agency that never adds friction is optimising for its own report.

3. How do site visits and bookings get back to the ad platforms?

The best results come when CRM outcomes are sent back to Meta and Google as offline conversions, so the algorithms learn what a buyer looks like. Ask how they'll set that up with your CRM.

4. What will the weekly report show?

Look for spend, leads, visits and bookings by campaign and by source, including portals. If the sample report ends at CPL, the agency is not looking at what you care about.

Follow-up and sales

5. What happens in the first five minutes after a lead comes in?

This is where most budgets are lost. Ask whether they handle instant WhatsApp replies, visit booking and reminders, or whether that is "the client's job". Read our guide on speed to lead for why it matters.

6. How do you handle portal leads?

Leads from 99acres, MagicBricks and Housing.com should land in the same CRM as ad leads, de-duplicated, with the same follow-up. Ask how.

7. How will you work with our sales team and channel partners?

Look for a clear lead hand-off, an agreed response time, and a regular joint review of lead quality. Without them, every month ends in an argument.

Compliance and ownership

8. How do you handle RERA in ads?

Under the RERA Act, advertisements for registered projects must carry the project's registration number and the regulator's website. Ask to see examples, and agree who approves creatives before they go live.

9. Who owns the ad accounts, pixels and data?

You should. Accounts should be in your name with partner access for the agency. If you part ways, you keep the history and the audiences.

10. How do you charge?

Flat retainers, percentage of spend and performance fees each reward different behaviour. A percentage of spend rewards spending more. Read our breakdown of agency pricing models.

Fit

11. Who will actually run our account?

Meet the people who will manage your campaigns, not just the founder who pitched. Ask how many other accounts they handle.

12. What have you done in our city and segment?

A team that knows your micro-markets, such as Whitefield, Dwarka Expressway or Hinjewadi, will ramp up faster than one learning on your budget. Ask for relevant work, and for a reference you can call.

Red flags in a pitch

• Guaranteed CPLs before they've seen your project or market.
• A plan with no mention of follow-up, CRM or site visits.
• Ad accounts owned by the agency.
• A reporting sample that shows only impressions, clicks and CPL.
• No questions about your sales process.

What a good proposal includes

After the first meeting, ask for a written proposal. The strongest ones share a few traits:

• A diagnosis of your current situation, based on your past campaigns, CRM data and sales feedback, not a generic deck.
• A funnel plan that covers the path from ad to site visit to booking, not just media.
• Targets for cost per site visit and booking, with the assumptions behind them stated clearly.
• A channel plan by micro-market, explaining how budget will be split across Meta, Google, portals and creative, and why.
• A 90-day roadmap with what happens in each fortnight, and what will be tested.
• A reporting sample that shows exactly what you'll see every week.
• Clear commercials: the fee, what's included, what isn't, notice periods and who owns what.

A proposal that's mostly credentials and creative samples tells you how the agency sells. One built around your funnel tells you how they'll work.

How to run a fair trial

If you're choosing between two agencies, or testing a new one alongside your current team, set it up so the result means something:

1. Give each a comparable project or micro-market, not the hardest launch to the newcomer and the easiest to the incumbent.
2. Agree the same targets and definitions for lead, qualified lead, site visit and booking.
3. Use the same follow-up process for both, ideally the same CRM and WhatsApp flows, so the comparison isn't really about your sales team.
4. Run it for at least 60–90 days. Real estate cycles are long, and the first month is mostly set-up and learning.
5. Judge on cost per site visit and booking, reviewed with sales every fortnight.

Questions agencies should ask you

Pay attention to what the agency wants to know. A team that will get results asks about:

• your bookings target, inventory mix and pricing strategy;
• how leads are handled today, from first call to visit;
• which campaigns and portals have worked before, and how you know;
• your sales team's capacity and response times;
• competing launches nearby, and how your project compares;
• who approves creatives and how long that takes.

If an agency can quote a CPL before asking any of these, the number isn't based on your project.

Frequently asked questions

Should we hire separate agencies for creative and media?

It can work, but it adds hand-offs. In real estate, where creative fatigue drives up costs quickly, a team that can produce and test creative weekly alongside media usually moves faster.

Is a local agency better than a national one?

Local knowledge matters, but it isn't the same as a local office. What counts is experience with your micro-markets, buyer profiles and competitors, whether the team sits in your city or not.

How much should we budget for agency fees?

Fees vary widely with scope. Compare proposals on what's included: media management, creative volume, landing pages, automation, CRM and reporting. Our pricing guide explains the common models.

Make the first 90 days count

Agree three targets before you start: cost per site visit, lead-to-visit rate and response time. Review them every fortnight. By day 90 you'll know whether the agency is moving the numbers that sell inventory.

If you'd like to put us through the same twelve questions, our real estate team works with developers in Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.