The Next-Gen Brand Lab
Meta, Google and channel choice
How should Google ads be set up for a real estate project?
Last updated 2026-09-09
In four layers: your own project and brand terms, locality plus category terms, category terms without a locality, and competitor terms where appropriate. Brand defence is the layer you cannot skip — it is the cheapest traffic you will ever buy and, if you leave it undefended, channel partners and aggregators will bid on your project name and resell you the lead you already paid to create.
The four layers, cheapest to most expensive
Brand and project terms. Lowest cost per click, highest intent, smallest volume. Always on.
Locality plus category — "apartments in Whitefield", "plots near Devanahalli". The workhorse layer: real intent, real volume, genuinely competitive.
Category without locality — broad, expensive, weak intent. Runs only when the first two are saturated and there is budget left.
Competitor terms. Legal in India and commonly done, but you cannot use a competitor's trademark in ad copy, and the landing experience has to justify the click or you are simply funding their brand awareness.
Match types and the negative list
Broad match with a thin negative keyword list is the fastest way to burn a real estate budget, because the category is surrounded by rental, resale, job and PG queries that look adjacent and convert at zero. Build the negative list before launch, not after the first invoice: "rent", "rental", "PG", "resale", "job", "salary", "vastu" and their local variants are a starting point.
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