The Google Ads Framework for Land Deals w/ Rick Sheldon
Rick Sheldon shares his transition from residential wholesaling to land investing, detailing a sophisticated PPC marketing funnel that filters leads based on qualification criteria and uses conversion tracking to optimize for off-market, large properties. His business model leverages JV partnerships where partners fund ad spend and handle acquisitions while Rick's company funds deals, manages operations, and handles disposition.
Summary
Rick Sheldon initially attempted to build a land acquisition business using direct-to-agent outreach with a sophisticated system that scraped MLS data and automated email sequences. After six months of minimal success—including three deals that fell through due to agent conflicts over commissions—he pivoted entirely to a PPC (pay-per-click) Google Ads strategy focused on direct-to-seller leads. His approach centers on a three-page conversion funnel: page one captures basic information and determines if the property is on-market or off-market (a key disqualifier); page two presents different messaging based on qualification level and gathers detailed property information via survey; page three displays a calendar and conversion tracking pixel that signals qualified leads back to Google. This strategic routing allows him to tell Google's algorithm to optimize for the leads he wants (off-market, large properties) while still capturing all submissions for manual follow-up. Over 12 months, he's invested $98,000 in Google Ads and generated approximately $1.5 million in projected net profit (a 15X return), currently running at approximately 150 leads per month at $80 per lead and $12,000 monthly ad spend. He uses extensive negative keyword filtering and AI tools (primarily Claude) to identify and exclude wholesalers, realtors, lenders, and scammers—groups that historically caused problems or added unnecessary intermediaries. His deal analysis shows about one in three contracts close, with JV partners achieving costs between $3,000-$6,000 per closed deal depending on performance. For property disposition, his strategy prioritizes MLS listings (approximately 40% of sales) supplemented by Facebook ads, organic Facebook marketplace posts, an AI chatbot that qualifies buyers, and a proprietary web app for offer collection. He strategically tests hypotheses every two weeks, tracking metrics like cost per lead and qualification percentage (on-market vs. off-market ratio) across 30-40 different campaign variations to continuously optimize performance. His business model deliberately uses JV partnerships rather than full vertical integration to address the land business's primary challenge: the six-to-eight-month cash conversion cycle. By having JV partners fund their own ad spend and focus on acquisitions while Rick's company funds deals through private lenders at 12% interest and handles operations and disposition, both parties reduce their individual risk exposure while sharing profits according to negotiated terms that may include recovering the partner's ad spend before profit distribution. His stated goal is to reach 50 JV partners by 2030, resulting in $150,000 monthly ad spend and a multi-hundred-million-dollar company valuation.
About this episode
<p>278: In this episode, I sit down with Rick Sheldon to discuss how he built a highly intentional Google Ads strategy for finding off-market land deals.</p><p><a href="https://retipster.com/278-rick-sheldon/?utm_source=shownotes&utm_medium=buzzsprout&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_content=278" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>(Show Notes: REtipster.com/278)</strong></a></p><p>Rick shares how he transitioned from residential wholesaling into land investing, why his first acquisition model failed, and how a simple PPC funnel transformed his business. We also break down lead qualification, conversion tracking, negative keywords, AI tools, land subdivisions, seller funnels, and scaling a land investing business through partnerships.</p><p>One of the most interesting parts of this conversation is how Rick uses Google Ads to train the platform to send more qualified land sellers while filtering out wholesalers, scammers, and low-quality leads.</p><p>If you're interested in land investing, land flipping, land development, PPC marketing, or building systems that scale, you'll find plenty of actionable ideas in this conversation.</p><p><a href="https://cPGY504.na1.hs-sales-engage.com/Ctc/2L+23284/cPGY504/JkM2-6qcW6N1vHY6lZ3mvW7wFR8r4QgzSXV5LTpf1wwRJnVXXr-K4W-brPW3hjcRT75xc_NW1tXcGT8h8qTXW7d_HRy8t8SkWW2J0Nk22Rkl5xW2G4d_12DFvRbW3SN5tH4Mk10rW3wF1M027vY3lW6ZSxtm3ZVrb6W1g_XxS4nSbp2W6dZSVC4hKpwtW5Zfyt_3tJRqPW1wBbgq2_Dn10W1M7Dc61Yzfv1W2-xBGf3GlTqPVj9GcM4KVwWrW72PD_S74FM_NW7WWc1Z9kFs8TW1vTb_y3H9kyXW5D2nsD5_pzQtf9b6lXl04" target="_blank"><b>📊 Manage Land Deals Like a Pro with Stride CRM</b></a><br />Built for Land Investors! 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Key Insights
- Rick found that direct-to-agent outreach failed partly because agents killed deals when they weren't guaranteed both sides of the commission, suggesting misaligned incentives were a critical friction point
- His conversion tracking strategy intentionally routes unqualified leads to non-conversion pages so Google's algorithm only receives data on ideal prospect profiles, improving lead quality over time without rejecting any submissions
- Rick has seen consistent monthly improvement in off-market property intake but stagnation in lot-size optimization, indicating his system excels at one qualification metric but needs refinement on another
- Google Ads dramatically outperformed Facebook Ads for land acquisition (he abandoned Facebook after testing), suggesting seller intent on Google search is significantly higher than Facebook scroll-based discovery
- Wholesalers searching for 'flipping land' can be excluded through negative keywords that target the terminology used by that buyer persona, allowing Google to infer broader intent patterns beyond just the current search
- Rick uses pre-purchase demand testing by running Facebook ads on properties before acquisition to gauge buyer interest levels ($4 per conversation indicates strong demand, $20+ indicates weakness)
- The JV partnership model solves liquidity constraints for partners and risk concentration for Rick's company simultaneously, but does not actually accelerate deal sales cycles or reduce the six-to-eight-month holding period
- Rick's cost to close a deal ranges from $3,000-$6,000 depending on the JV partner's individual performance, suggesting significant variation in acquisition efficiency across different team members
- Approximately two-thirds of contracts are killed during due diligence, meaning lead volume must account for this major attrition rate in underwriting ROI calculations
- Continuous campaign testing across 30-40+ variations allows Rick to isolate specific variable changes and their effects, rather than making wholesale strategy shifts based on intuition
- Private money lending at 12% interest first-position (never exceeding 65% LTV) creates the capital structure for deal funding without diluting founder equity or requiring JV partners to bring capital
- Rick's acquisition team members track separate metrics per person (leads per contract, cost per contract, contract-to-close ratio), enabling performance differentiation and compensation variation across team members
Topics
Transcript
Get that MX Gold card ready. I'm too tired to cook. We feeling Five Guys or the Cheesecake Factory? Both. Earn up to $120 a year in statement credits at participating partners. Up to $10 each month when you pay with the MX Gold card. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash explore dash gold. Enrollment required. Terms apply. Hey everybody, how's it going? This is Seth Williams from the REtipster podcast. Today I'm talking with Rick Sheldon. So I met Rick recently at a mastermind event and he caught my attention because of the way he explained his pay-per-click marketing strategy for land deals. It wasn't flashy or overly complicated., in fact, it was kind of the opposite. It was simple…
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