How we received real estate leads with the cost AED 30 and 57% qualification rate

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Tareq is a real estate broker operating in the UAE property market. The client wanted to generate more qualified leads from people genuinely interested in buying or investing in real estate. The main focus was on promoting apartments with accessible starting prices and strong capital appreciation potential. Another important goal was to attract investors with higher budgets, particularly those ready to invest more than AED 2 million. Over three months, the campaigns generated 123 leads, including 40 qualified prospects interested in cooperation.

At the beginning of the project, the main challenge was not simply to generate more leads, but to attract people who were genuinely interested in buying property. During the first month, we received 16 leads at an average cost of AED 168, and 33% of them were qualified. Many prospects were looking for 2–3 bedroom apartments or villas, while the campaigns were promoting cheaper units. Later, we faced another challenge: we needed to attract more investors with budgets above AED 2M. Useful article

We started by creating a clear project-selection strategy together with the client.

• Instead of promoting expensive luxury villas, we focused on apartments with a lower starting price and strong capital-appreciation potential. In the ads, we highlighted what could make the offer more attractive to investors: affordable payment options, fully furnished units, and limited availability.
• After collecting the first campaign data, we analyzed the quality of the leads, adjusted the audience and updated the creatives.
• At the next stage, we launched a lookalike campaign based on a database of Dubai investors to reach more relevant and higher-budget prospects.

1.Building the Initial Lead Generation Strategy
At first, we created a project-selection strategy for the client. We decided to focus on properties with a low starting price and capital-appreciation potential, and to promote apartments instead of expensive villas. The client approved the approach and provided a list of projects that matched these criteria. Based on this strategy, we created the first advertising teasers. Instead of selling the idea of luxury, we focused on affordability and a lower entry point. The creatives highlighted fully furnished apartments, affordable payment terms and limited availability to make the offers more attractive to potential buyers. To collect leads, we used a simple internal Facebook lead form. We wanted to make the first step as easy as possible, so prospects could leave their contact details and choose how they preferred to be contacted without leaving Faceboo
2.First Results Revealed a Lead Quality Problem
During the first month, we received 16 leads at an average cost of AED 168. The qualification rate was 33%, so we analyzed both the advertising results and the feedback from the leads. This helped us understand which audience settings were working better. We then focused on people aged 30–65 with interests in apartments and real estate investing.
3.Optimizing for Lead Quality, Not Just Lead Volume
After analyzing the best-performing ads, we prepared a new set of creatives. We strengthened the messages around fully furnished properties and affordable terms and launched them together with the updated audience settings. As a result, the campaigns generated 24 leads at an average cost of AED 117. The qualification rate increased to 57%, and two property viewings were completed.
4.Scaling Toward Higher-Budget Investors
The next step was to attract investors with larger budgets, especially people ready to invest more than AED 2M. For this stage, we launched a lookalike campaign based on a database of Dubai investors. The campaign generated 79 leads at an average cost of AED 50. One of the campaigns delivered 29 leads at AED 39 per lead, while the lead data also showed an increase in investors’ budgets.

Client and project-selection strategy
We started by defining which real estate projects should be promoted instead of advertising every property available. Together with the client, we created a selection strategy focused on apartments with a lower starting price and strong capital-appreciation potential. We deliberately moved away from expensive villas because a more accessible entry price could attract a broader pool of potential investors. After the strategy was approved, the client provided projects that matched these criteria and we used them as the foundation for the advertising campaigns.

Creative direction: affordability and scarcity
We created the first advertising teasers around the projects with the most accessible starting prices. Instead of positioning the properties mainly through luxury, we focused the communication on practical reasons to consider the offer: a lower entry point, affordable payment options and limited availability. This allowed us to make the properties feel more attainable while still keeping an investment-focused message. The creatives were designed to generate interest quickly and encourage potential buyers to request more information.

Scarcity message example
We strengthened the sense of urgency in the advertising by emphasizing limited availability. The creative highlighted that only a small number of units were left, encouraging potential buyers to act sooner rather than postpone their decision. In the original campaign process, the number of remaining units shown in the creative was changed specifically to create a stronger feeling of scarcity and make the offer appear more time-sensitive.

Lead-generation form
We used an internal Facebook lead form to make the conversion process as simple as possible. Instead of sending users to a separate landing page, we allowed them to submit their contact details directly inside Facebook. We also gave prospects several contact options, including WhatsApp, Telegram and phone, so they could choose the most convenient way to continue the conversation. The goal was to remove unnecessary steps between seeing the ad and becoming a lead.

First-month performance
During the first month, the campaigns generated 16 leads at an average cost of AED 168. We used these initial results as a benchmark rather than treating the first campaign setup as final. The cost per lead was still high, so the next step was to analyze who was submitting requests, what they were actually looking for and which parts of the targeting and creative strategy needed to be improved.

Initial lead quality
We reviewed the incoming leads together with their qualification notes to understand why the first campaign was not producing enough relevant inquiries. Only 33% of the leads were qualified. A number of prospects were looking for 2-3 bedroom apartments or villas even though the advertising was focused on cheaper units. This showed us that generating a lead was not enough - we needed the targeting and advertising message to better match the type of buyer the client wanted to work with.

Audience analysis
Based on the first campaign data, we refined the audience instead of continuing with the original targeting. The strongest settings were concentrated around people aged 30-65 with interests related to apartments and real estate investing. We used these findings to build a more relevant audience for the next campaign stage. This optimization was intended to reduce wasted traffic and increase the share of leads who had genuine interest in purchasing or investing in property.

Updated creatives
We updated the advertising creatives using the messages that had shown the strongest potential in the previous campaigns. The new teasers placed greater emphasis on fully furnished apartments, accessible starting prices and affordable purchase terms. We made the value proposition clearer and more specific so potential buyers could understand the key benefits before submitting a request. These creatives were launched together with the refined audience settings as the next optimization stage.

Optimized campaign results
After launching the new creatives and updated targeting, the campaign performance improved. We generated 24 leads and reduced the average cost per lead from AED 168 to AED 117. This was an important step because it showed that the changes based on the first month of data were moving the campaign in the right direction. We continued evaluating lead quality as well, rather than optimizing only for a cheaper cost per result.

Qualification improvement
The optimized campaign also produced a clear improvement in lead quality. The qualification rate increased from 33% to 57%, and two property viewings were completed. The incoming requests included prospects looking for different property types and working with meaningful investment budgets. This confirmed that the combination of refined targeting and updated creatives was bringing the campaign closer to the client's actual sales objectives, not simply increasing the number of form submissions.

Next challenge: higher-budget investors
After improving the qualification rate, we moved to the next challenge: attracting more investors with budgets above AED 2M. To reach a more relevant high-budget audience, we launched a lookalike campaign based on a database of Dubai investors. Instead of relying only on interest-based targeting, we used an audience modeled on people who were already connected to the investment market. The objective was to scale lead generation while increasing the likelihood of reaching prospects with stronger purchasing power.

Lookalike campaign scale
The lookalike campaign significantly increased the volume of leads while reducing acquisition costs. We generated 79 leads at an average cost of AED 50, and one of the campaigns produced 29 leads at only AED 39 per lead. At the same time, the incoming lead information showed larger investment budgets, including prospects considering properties in the AED 2M-2.5M range. This meant the campaign was not only becoming cheaper at scale, but was also reaching the higher-budget audience we wanted to attract.

We did not rely on one campaign setup throughout the whole project. We used the results from each stage to improve the next one. First, we selected projects with a more accessible entry price. Then we analyzed the quality of the leads, refined the audience and updated the creative messages around the offers that performed best. Finally, we used a lookalike audience based on Dubai investors to scale the campaign and reach prospects with higher investment budgets.
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