Commercial real estate advertising

Commercial real estate advertising is paid media that puts office, retail, industrial, warehouse, flex, land and investment listings in front of the tenants, buyers and owners most likely to act: Google search ads for space for lease by area and size, LinkedIn ads to business owners and finance leaders, Meta ads for retail and small business tenants, video tours on YouTube, and retargeting to people who viewed a listing. It suits commercial brokerages, commercial agents and landlords leasing or selling space, and brokerages looking for new listing mandates from owners. Canada Create is a Toronto agency with an office at 126 Willowdale Avenue, serving businesses across Canada; this page covers paid ads only.

Contents

• How tenants and buyers search for commercial space
• Google search ads by property type, size and area
• LinkedIn ads to decision makers
• Meta ads for retail and small business tenants
• Video tours, display and retargeting
• Listing landing pages, tour and brochure forms
• Campaigns for vacancies and new developments
• Landlord and owner acquisition campaigns
• Measuring tours and qualified enquiries
• Brokerage advertising rules and privacy
• How we run commercial property campaigns
• What commercial real estate advertising costs
• Choosing an advertising partner for a brokerage
• Your next step

How tenants and buyers search for commercial space

Commercial searches are specific. A tenant rarely types commercial real estate; they type the space they need and where they need it: office space for lease Toronto, small office near Yonge and Eglinton, warehouse for lease Mississauga, industrial unit for sale Vaughan, retail space for rent Queen West, flex space GTA. Size, type and location are in the search itself, which makes paid search unusually precise for this trade.

Who is searching

• Small business tenants: a clinic, a café owner or a small accounting firm looking for a first or larger unit, often searching on their own.
• Growing companies: operations and finance leaders comparing office or industrial options before involving a tenant rep broker.
• Owner occupiers: a manufacturer or contractor wanting to buy a building rather than lease.
• Investors: buyers looking for income properties, plazas, mixed use buildings or land.
• Owners and landlords: people deciding which brokerage to hire for a vacancy or a sale.

Long decisions

A commercial lease or purchase is a large decision. A tenant may view several spaces, involve a partner or a board, check zoning and power, and take months to sign an offer to lease. Advertising has to reach them early with the right listing, then stay in front of them through the comparison, without wasting budget on people who will never move.

Google search ads by property type, size and area

Google search ads match listings to the searches that name the property type, size and area. Our Google local ads management covers setup and day to day running.

Campaign structure for a brokerage

1. Office: office space for lease, small office, executive suites, by neighbourhood or city.
2. Industrial and warehouse: warehouse for lease, industrial unit for sale, distribution space, with sizes and clear height in the ads where accurate.
3. Retail: retail space for rent, storefront for lease, plaza units, by street or area.
4. Flex and land: flex space, light industrial with office, development land, by region.
5. Investment: commercial property for sale, income properties, plazas for sale.
6. Brokerage brand: the brokerage’s own name, run when competitors bid on it.

Ad copy that states the facts

Commercial ad copy works when it reads like the first line of a listing sheet: the type, the size range, the area and one feature a tenant cares about, such as drive in doors, a corner storefront or a furnished suite with parking. Headlines can carry the available square footage only when it is current, and a unit that leases should come out of the ads the same day. Vague promises about the perfect space waste the character limit.

Location and negative keywords

Industrial tenants often search across a wide area, so a warehouse campaign may target the whole western GTA, while a retail campaign may target a few neighbourhoods. Negatives remove residential searches such as apartments for rent and condos for sale, job searches for commercial real estate roles and searches for free listing sites. Residential real estate advertising is a different practice; we cover it on our real estate advertising for agents page.

LinkedIn ads to decision makers

Many office and industrial decisions are made by people who are not actively searching yet: a chief financial officer reviewing occupancy costs, an operations director planning a second warehouse, a founder whose team has outgrown its space. LinkedIn lets campaigns reach them by job title, company size and sector.

Campaigns that suit LinkedIn

• A new office building or a large floor, shown to finance and operations leaders at companies of the right size in the area.
• Industrial space with dock doors and power, shown to logistics and manufacturing managers.
• Investment listings, shown to business owners and private investors where targeting allows.
• Brokerage market reports, offered in exchange for an email address, to build an audience for future listings.

Audiences built from your own lists

A brokerage’s past enquiries, tenant contacts and owner relationships can become matched audiences on LinkedIn and Meta, where the platforms allow it and consent supports it. A new industrial listing can be shown first to companies that asked about similar units last year, and a lookalike audience can extend the reach to similar firms. Lists are uploaded through the platform’s own tools and stay in the brokerage’s accounts.

Ad formats

Single image ads with a strong exterior or floor plate photo, document ads carrying a brochure, video ads for a tour, and lead forms that pre fill name and company all work for commercial listings. Our social media ads service runs LinkedIn alongside Meta.

Meta ads for retail and small business tenants

Retail and small office tenants are often business owners who spend time on Facebook and Instagram. A café owner looking for a storefront or a physiotherapist looking for a ground floor unit will respond to a well photographed space in their neighbourhood.

What works on Facebook and Instagram

• Carousel ads showing the storefront, interior, street frontage and nearby anchors.
• Short video walkthroughs filmed on a phone or by a crew.
• Ads targeted by area and by interests and roles linked to small business ownership.
• Lead forms asking for business type, size needed and timing.

Platform policies

Meta and Google have their own rules for real estate ads, including limits on how audiences can be targeted. Campaigns should be set up within those rules, and targeting options should be checked when each campaign is built.

Video tours, display and retargeting

Commercial space is hard to judge from photos alone. Clear height, loading, natural light and the walk from parking all matter, and video shows them.

Video and drone tours

A walkthrough of an office floor, a drone pass over an industrial building showing truck access and yard, or a street level video of a retail strip can run on YouTube as ads and sit on the listing page. Our video production team films tours, and our 3D rendering, virtual tours and drone service covers buildings not yet built or spaces that need a virtual walkthrough.

Retargeting through a long decision

Most visitors to a listing page leave without enquiring. Retargeting shows them the same listing again on display networks, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn over the following weeks, with new angles: the floor plan, the tour, a reminder that a showing can be booked. Frequency caps keep the ads from becoming irritating, and retargeting stops once someone books a tour.

Listing landing pages, tour and brochure forms

An ad that sends a tenant to a brokerage home page wastes the click. Each listing or property type campaign needs its own landing page.

What a listing page carries

• Address, property type, available size, and lease or sale status, stated accurately.
• Photos, floor plans, a video tour and a map with transit and highway access.
• Key features for that type: dock doors and power for industrial, frontage and foot traffic for retail, layout and amenities for office.
• The listing agent’s name, the brokerage name and contact details, clearly shown.

Photos and floor plans

Ads and listing pages are only as strong as the images behind them. Exterior shots at a good time of day, interiors cleared of clutter, loading areas shown from the truck’s point of view and accurate floor plans let a tenant shortlist a space before calling. Our commercial photography covers listing shoots, always with the landlord’s authorization to publish.

Forms that qualify

A tour booking form asks for name, company, business type, size needed and timing. A brochure request form delivers the property brochure by email and records the enquiry. Both should feed the brokerage’s CRM; our commercial real estate CRM page covers deal and tenant tracking.

Campaigns for vacancies and new developments

Some campaigns serve one listing; others serve a building or a project.

Vacancy campaigns

A landlord with a vacant floor or a plaza unit wants it leased. A vacancy campaign runs search ads on the matching terms, LinkedIn or Meta ads depending on the likely tenant, and retargeting to listing page visitors. It pauses when the space is under offer, so the landlord’s budget is not spent on a unit that is spoken for.

New developments

A new industrial park, an office redevelopment or a mixed use project with ground floor retail needs a longer campaign: a project page, renderings, a registration form for updates, and ads that build interest before units are ready. As construction progresses, the campaign shifts from awareness to tours and offers. Each phase gets its own ads and reporting.

Sublease space

Tenants offering part of their space for sublease often want it filled quickly and quietly. A sublease campaign may run on search only, with a landing page that shows the floor, the remaining occupancy period in general terms and the furniture included, while keeping the sublandlord’s name off the ads where the brokerage and the head landlord have agreed it.

Seasons and cycles

Commercial demand follows business cycles more than seasons, but some patterns repeat: retail tenants planning openings before the busy holiday period, industrial demand linked to logistics activity, and office decisions tied to companies’ fiscal year planning. Budgets can rise and fall with those cycles.

Landlord and owner acquisition campaigns

A brokerage grows by winning listings. Advertising can reach property owners and landlords who are deciding whether to sell or how to lease a vacancy.

Reaching owners

• Search ads on phrases like sell my commercial property, lease my industrial building or commercial property valuation.
• LinkedIn ads to business owners and real estate holders in the area.
• Market reports and leasing updates offered on a landing page in exchange for contact details.
• Retargeting to owners who read the brokerage’s market content.

What owners want to see

Owners judge a brokerage by how it markets its listings. Landing pages for owner campaigns should show the brokerage’s approach to advertising a property, with examples of real listing pages and tours, used with the relevant owners’ permission. The whole marketing plan for a brokerage, including organic search and email, is on our commercial real estate marketing page.

Measuring tours and qualified enquiries

Clicks and impressions are easy to report and say little. A commercial campaign is judged by tours booked and qualified enquiries, and eventually by offers.

What we track

• Tour bookings and brochure requests per campaign and per listing.
• Calls from ads and landing pages.
• Qualified enquiries, marked in the CRM by size, type and timing fit.
• Cost per tour and cost per qualified enquiry, so listings and channels can be compared.

How ads fit with the rest

Ads work well with a solid brokerage website, accurate Google Business Profile listings for the office, and a CRM that follows up every tour. Our real estate marketing hub shows how the pieces connect, and property managers who also lease space can look at our property management marketing page.

Brokerage advertising rules and privacy

In Ontario, TRESA and RECO set advertising rules for registered brokerages and salespersons: ads must identify the brokerage clearly, and claims must be accurate. Other provinces have their own regulators and rules. Listing details and photos also need the owner’s or landlord’s authorization before they are advertised. This is a marketing observation, not legal advice.

Email and contact data

Brochure requests and market report sign ups create contact lists. Commercial email to those contacts, even business to business, falls under CASL: consent or a documented business relationship, clear sender identification and a working unsubscribe. Contact details collected through forms are personal information and should be handled under PIPEDA in general terms: a stated purpose, secure storage and no sharing without reason.

How we run commercial property campaigns

Every campaign starts with the listings, the likely tenant or buyer and what a qualified enquiry looks like for the brokerage.

Free review

We look at current campaigns, listing pages, forms, how tours are booked and how enquiries are tracked, and ask which listings, property types and owner mandates you want to grow.

Custom proposal

The custom proposal sets out which listings get search, which get LinkedIn or Meta, which deserve a video tour, how owner campaigns run beside them, what a tour or brochure request is worth tracking, and the ad budget we suggest per channel. Our management fees are quoted in writing, and the spend you pay Google, LinkedIn or Meta is shown on its own line.

Build and launch

We build the campaigns in accounts owned by the brokerage, write ads, build landing pages and forms and connect them to your CRM, then launch at agreed milestones after you review every ad and page for brokerage identification and accuracy.

Monthly management

Each month we review search terms, audiences and budgets, pause campaigns for listings under offer, add new listings and report on tours and qualified enquiries.

What commercial real estate advertising costs

Advertising has two parts: the ad spend paid to Google, LinkedIn or Meta, and our management fee, quoted in writing after the free review.

What drives the fee for a brokerage

• The number of active listings and property types advertised at once.
• Channels used: Google search only, or also LinkedIn, Meta, YouTube and display.
• Landing pages to build for each listing or development.
• Video, drone and virtual tour production.
• Owner and landlord acquisition campaigns alongside listing campaigns.
• Campaigns in English and French for brokerages working in Quebec.

Ad spend

Ad spend depends on the property type, area and how quickly the space needs to be leased or sold. A single small retail unit needs a modest budget; a new industrial park or a large office floor may justify more across several channels. We recommend a budget in the custom proposal.

Choosing an advertising partner for a brokerage

Ask these questions before you hire anyone to advertise your listings.

• Who owns the accounts? The answer should be you: the Google Ads, LinkedIn and Meta accounts, landing pages and data belong to the brokerage.
• How will you report tours and qualified enquiries, not just clicks?
• How will you make sure every ad identifies our brokerage correctly?
• How will you pause campaigns when a listing goes under offer?
• How will you handle our landlords’ authorization for photos and details?
• How will you keep commercial and residential audiences apart?

Residential teams in the same brokerage can compare this with our real estate leads page.

Your next step

Ask for a free advertising review for your brokerage or portfolio. Tell us the listings you need to lease or sell, the property types and areas, and how tours and enquiries are tracked now. We will send a custom proposal with management fees quoted in writing and ad spend shown separately.

Call (416) 273-9030, Monday to Friday, 9 am to 6 pm, and Saturday, 10 am to 2 pm. After hours, our 24/7 AI agent answers the toll-free line, +1 (800) 808-9235, and we’ll follow up the next business morning.

Brokers who spend the week walking floors can write instead: list the empty units, upcoming developments and owners you want to pitch on our contact form; we reply within one business day. Landlords and agents are welcome at 126 Willowdale Avenue, Suite 3, Toronto, and the Canada Create agency profile explains our background.