Google Ads for property developers: Are you wasting your budget?
Google Ads doesn’t fail—your setup does.
Someone convinced you to try Google Ads. You committed a budget for a few months. The result? A trickle of leads that rarely converted into genuine buyer interest. Starts to feel like money down the drain.
Here’s the thing: Google Ads can absolutely work for property developers. But only when you avoid these critical mistakes.
Mistake 1: Using Broad Match Keywords Without Controls
When setting up search campaigns, Google encourages you to add broad match keywords. This might work for other industries, but for property developers, you need to ensure you’re advertising for the correct intent.
Google gets creative with broad match. Your campaign targeting “House and land Melbourne” can start appearing for “house sitting Melbourne” (wrong service), “land rover Melbourne” (wrong kind of land), “gingerbread house kits Melbourne” (delicious, but irrelevant), and “house music festivals Melbourne” (not even close). Each click costs $8-$15 and delivers zero leads.
The Fix:
Exact match: [land + location] – High intent but limited reach. Use for your core converting terms.
Phrase match: “Land for sale + location” – Allows for multiple variations while maintaining buyer intent. This should be your primary match type.
Broad match: There’s still a place for this, but keep it very limited—1 or 2 keywords per campaign maximum. Use it for new keyword exploration and discovering search terms you haven’t considered.
The key is control. Tighter match types ensure you’re only paying for searches that align with what you’re actually selling.
Mistake 2: No Negative Keywords
You’ve set up the perfect keywords and match types. Perfect. But you’re still getting expensive clicks on unwanted search terms—rental enquiries, job seekers, and somehow “dog grooming” has snuck into your property campaign.
This is where negative keywords become essential. Without them, even well-structured campaigns bleed budget on traffic that will never convert.
Common culprits for property developers:
- Rental intent: “rent”, “lease”, “rental”, “tenant”, “renting”
- Job seekers: “property development jobs”, “careers”, “hiring”
- DIY/research: “how to”, “guide”, “tips”, “advice”
- Wrong locations: Suburbs or regions you don’t operate in
- Random irrelevance: Yes, even dog grooming somehow finds its way in
The Fix:
Create a shared negative keyword list that applies across all your campaigns. Check your search term reports weekly and add any irrelevant terms you spot.
Mistake 3: Incorrect Conversion Tracking
Everything is set up, leads are starting to come through to your website, and it’s time to start optimising your spend. But wait—zero lead conversions are showing on the platform.
Most likely, your conversion tracking isn’t set up correctly. Without it, you won’t know which campaign, ad group, or keyword has actually driven your leads. Common tracking failures include form submissions tracked as pageviews rather than conversions, phone calls not tracked at all (often 50%+ of property enquiries).
The Fix:
Implement tracking that captures form submissions, phone calls, and download requests. Once proper tracking is in place, you’ll immediately see which campaigns justify increased investment and which are silently draining your budget.
What To Do Next
These three fixes will ensure you’re using your budget efficiently and start delivering the quality leads you actually need. Master these fundamentals first—they’re non-negotiable.
Ready to take it further? There’s Performance Max for extended reach across all Google placements, and Meta to drive awareness and pre-qualify visitors before they even search. Both can seriously amplify your results, but they’re a whole different conversation, one we’ll dive into another day.
For now, get the basics sorted. Your campaigns will thank you for it.
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