How to choose a real estate lead generation company in India: six questions to ask first

If you run a real estate business in India and you are choosing a lead generation company, ask six questions before you sign. Most of the "top 10" lists you will find put the author's own company at number one, so they will not ask these for you.

We run Google ads, Meta ads and lead follow-up for real estate businesses. Our real estate record is one case, an agency that now runs on four people. We say that first because it changes how you should read the rest of this post. If you need a team that has launched many large residential projects, hire one of the bigger firms. These questions work on them too, and on us.

1. Are the leads exclusive to you?

A lead sold to three builders is three people calling the same buyer. Ask whether the leads come from campaigns run only for your project, or from a shared database. If the answer is "verified leads", ask verified how, and by whom.

2. What counts as a qualified lead, and who decides?

An agency can raise the number of enquiries by loosening the targeting. Every extra enquiry makes its report look better and does nothing for your sales team. Get the definition in writing before the campaign starts: budget, location, configuration, timeline. A qualified lead is someone your salesperson would still want to call tomorrow.

3. What will they report, cost per lead or cost per site visit?

Cost per lead is the easy number. One 2026 agency guide puts pay-per-lead pricing in India as low as Rs 250 a lead, and says the cheapest option is rarely the most profitable (Get Me Rank, published August 2026). We agree. A cheap lead that never visits the site costs more than an expensive one that does. Ask for cost per site visit, and for what happens to a lead after the first missed call.

4. Can they show references you can phone?

Case study pages are easy to write. Ask for a client you can call. Ask how many real estate projects the agency has run itself, not how many the company has touched across all industries. Several firms on the big lists are general marketing agencies with one real estate page. We would rather you know our count is one.

5. How do they charge?

Retainer, share of ad spend, per lead, per site visit. Each one pushes the agency toward different behaviour. A per-lead fee pays them for volume. A fixed monthly retainer pays them for the channels they run, so you judge them on site visits and nothing else. We charge a fixed monthly retainer agreed before we start, and ad spend goes from you straight to Google and Meta.

6. Who owns the ad accounts and the lead data?

You should. Ad accounts in your name, leads and call records in your CRM, from day one. If the agency leaves, the campaign history stays with you. If an agency says it needs to hold the accounts "for tracking", ask for a different way to track.

Check the follow-up, not just the ads

Most real estate leads are lost after the enquiry arrives. A buyer who waits a day for a call has already spoken to someone else. So ask who calls the lead, how fast, and what happens after the first no-answer. This is where the same ad budget gives very different results.

Questions we get

What is a real estate lead generation company? It runs the ads and follow-up that bring buyer enquiries to a developer, broker or agency. Some sell leads from a shared database. Others run campaigns for your project only.

Is it worth paying for real estate lead generation? It is worth it if you measure site visits, own your data and have someone to call leads quickly. Without those three, more leads just means more unanswered enquiries.

How do I compare two companies? Ask both the six questions above in writing and compare the answers on exclusivity, qualification and reporting. Run a small pilot before committing a large budget.

If you want to talk through your project, tell us what you sell.