How to Choose a Real Estate Marketing Company

TL;DR: Ask any marketing company to show you a client who is currently ranking in Google and AI search for non-branded queries in their market. Not a testimonial. A live URL you can check yourself right now. If they cannot produce that, they are selling promise, not results.

David Parides spent over $100,000 on more than 30 marketing companies before working

with us. Thirty. He is not a cautionary tale about being naive. He is a case study in an industry that has figured out how to sell marketing to real estate agents without being accountable for results.

Companies selling social media management, lead generation, website design, SEO, AI tools, and every combination of the above have all specifically targeted real estate agents because the market is large, the agents are motivated to spend, and accountability is almost never built into the contract.

Most of them cannot show you a client who is currently ranking in Google or AI search for a non-branded query in their market. Not a two-year-old case study. Not a testimonial about how pleasant the team was to work with. A current, verifiable ranking you can check right now.

If that is the standard, and it should be, the field narrows significantly.

The First Question to Ask

Ask them to show you a client in a market comparable to yours who is currently ranking in Google and AI search for non-branded queries. Not the brokerage brand. The individual agent, for the questions buyers and sellers actually search.

Then go check it yourself. Open Google. Open Perplexity. Open ChatGPT. Search the terms they say the client ranks for. See what comes up.

This single step does not require any marketing knowledge. You either see the results or you do not. Most companies will hand you a PDF with testimonials, screenshots, and metrics you cannot independently verify. That is not the receipts. Ask for a live URL and the specific queries. Then look.

What should I look for when reviewing a marketing company's results?

You should look for:

• Current Google rankings for non-branded local queries.

• AI search citations for buyer and seller questions in the agent's market.

• Google Business Profile visibility in Google Maps.

• Reviews posted publicly on Google where you can verify they are real clients.

If everything is in a curated presentation with no way to verify independently, keep asking questions.

The Second Question: What Are You Actually Buying?

Social media management is a task. Posting three times a week to Instagram is content scheduling.

If the company cannot explain how their work directly connects to your search visibility, your AI search presence, your Google Business Profile performance, and your website traffic, they are managing a channel in isolation.

Isolated channels do not compound. Marketing is a system. Every element affects every other element.

How do I know if a company is building search authority or just keeping me busy?

Ask the right away:

• What you should expect to rank for in 90 days.

• How their work connects specifically to your GBP performance, your website search rankings, and your AI search presence.

• What they measure. If the answer is engagement, impressions, and follower growth with no reference to search visibility, they are measuring activity, not outcomes.

And the big question: how does my content stay different?

If the company produces content for multiple real estate agents, ask how each agent's content is differentiated. What makes yours sound like you and not like every other agent on their roster?

If the answer involves shared content libraries, templates, or "we customize the captions," that is not differentiation. That is the sea of sameness that is actively hurting agents who use it. We have audited content where the previous agency was using AI-generated captions across dozens of agents in the same industry without training on anyone's specific voice.

One paste into Google and the same caption appeared on competitor profiles verbatim.

Your content should sound like a specific person who knows a specific market. Ask to see examples of content produced for two different agents in the same specialty. If the structure, phrasing, and approach are indistinguishable, you have your answer.

What should I ask about how they use AI for content?

You should ask them:

• How they train AI on your voice.

• Whether they build a unique profile for each client or use shared templates and prompt libraries across the roster.

• What happens when the output sounds generi

A company that cannot describe their voice training process in concrete terms is not doing voice training. They are prompting and accepting whatever comes back, which is the most common way AI content damages brand authority without anyone realizing it until the rankings prove it.

The bottom Line

A 12-month contract with no defined performance benchmarks in the first 90 days is a company protecting itself, not you.

Ask what you should expect to see in 30 days, 90 days, and six months.

Get it in writing. A company confident in its results earns your continued business month after month. One that is not confident locks you in first.

If you want quick wins and social media volume with no results, there are plenty of options.

If you want a content system that builds search authority, generates AI citations, and compounds over time, book a call to start conversation.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who actually does the work at most real estate marketing companies?

At many agencies, the account you see in sales is not the person building your content. The work is often produced offshore, by junior contractors, or increasingly by untrained AI with no human review. This matters because the quality of your content determines your search authority, and search authority is the outcome you are paying for.

Do I own my website, content, and social accounts if I stop working with a marketing company?

Not automatically. Asset ownership is a contract term, and many marketing companies retain ownership of websites, content, and sometimes social account access when the relationship ends. Ask specifically before signing: who owns the domain? Who owns the website? Is the content produced for my accounts exclusively mine, or does the agency retain rights to reuse it? What happens to my Google Business Profile access if I leave?

What red flags should I look for in a real estate marketing contract?

Automatic renewal clauses, no performance benchmarks, vague deliverable language, and restrictions on leaving are the most common contract structures that protect the agency rather than the client. Look for: long commitments with no defined performance milestones, clauses that lock you in for 12 months without specifying what success looks like in the first 90 days, automatic renewal language buried in the agreement, and restrictions on contacting their other clients or speaking to references before signing.

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About the Author

Michele Biaso is President and CEO of Imagine Social AI and founder of the Girl’s Guide to AI. With 20+ years in digital marketing, she helps business owners fix broken SEO, build real visibility, and use AI correctly so their brand stays consistent and their marketing actually converts. Learn more about Michele or connect with her on TikTok, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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Testimonials

Imagine Social AI works with business owners and realtors who want expert help with AI, SEO, and social media systems that actually convert. Read what clients say about our AI training, prompt engineering, and strategy support in these testimonials. View all testimonials

“Michele and her team will change the way you do business - guaranteed. In a world where everyone seems to be claiming to be digital marketers and claim to be able to help your business grow- Imagine Social is the real deal. They’ve been doing it for decades and it shows." - Evan Molavinsky, Entrepreneur , View on Google