PPC Management
for Mortgage Brokers.
Mortgage PPC is one of the highest-CPC verticals in any consumer category ($25–$95 per click on refinance and purchase keywords). The accounts that work segment by loan product, run aggressive negative-keyword discipline, and feed offline conversion data on funded loans back to Smart Bidding.
The Real Problems
Why Mortgage Brokers Struggle With Paid Ads.
Problem 01
$25–$95 CPC makes every wasted click an expensive mistake
Refinance and purchase keywords run extremely high CPC because the loan LTV justifies it. Loose match types and weak negative keyword discipline can burn $5,000–$10,000 in a weekend on traffic that will never fund.
Problem 02
No offline conversion data on funded loans
Pre-qual submission is leading indicator. Funded loan is the outcome that pays. Without push-back from your LOS, Smart Bidding optimizes on pre-quals and gives equal weight to pre-quals that never fund.
Problem 03
No loan-product campaign segmentation
Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, jumbo, non-QM each have different bid economics, different qualifying criteria, and different borrower audiences. Single-campaign averaging produces averaged-out CPL on all of them.
Problem 04
Click fraud and competitor sabotage hit hard at $50+ CPC
Competitor brokers clicking ads, bot networks farming high-CPC mortgage keywords, click-farm traffic — all of it happens. Enterprise-grade fraud filtering recovers 15–25% of mortgage PPC spend in most accounts.
Our Approach
How We Run Profitable Ads for Mortgage Brokers.
Mortgage PPC is one of the most expensive verticals we run, comparable to plastic surgery and personal injury in CPC pressure. We bring the same architecture discipline as plastic surgery PPC and personal injury PPC tuned for lending economics and TRID compliance.
01
Account Audit and Wasted-Spend Recovery
12 months of data segmented by loan product, intent, state. Wasted spend on broad match terms identified and paused. Typical first-month recovery: 16–28% of spend, often higher because the CPC pressure makes every wasted click painful.
02
Loan-Product Campaign Architecture
Separate campaigns: conventional purchase, conventional refinance, FHA, VA, USDA, jumbo, non-QM specialty (DSCR, ITIN, bank statement), HELOC, cash-out refinance. Each with its own keyword list, ad copy, landing page, and bid logic. Jumbo and specialty programs warrant higher bids because loan amounts and LTV justify them.
03
Aggressive Negative Keyword Discipline
Mortgage-specific negative library covering "calculator," "rate watch," "for sale by owner," "self-build," "credit repair," "modification," and the long list of low-intent and out-of-state queries. 5,000+ entry negative list maintained weekly.
04
Click-Fraud Protection at Scale
Enterprise-grade fraud filtering (Lunio, ClickGuard, or ClickCease). IP blocking of competitor brokers and known bot networks. CAPTCHA on pre-qual forms. CPC pressure makes fraud especially costly — typical month-one savings: 15–25% of paid spend recovered.
05
Offline Conversion API on Funded Loans
LOS integration (Encompass, Calyx, LendingPad, Floify, Volly) to push funded-loan events back to Google Ads. Smart Bidding learns from funded loans, not pre-quals. Reporting shows cost-per-funded-loan by product, by state, by source.
What You Get
Every PPC Management Engagement Includes.
Google Ads audit and wasted-spend recovery
Bing Ads campaign mirror
Loan-product campaign architecture
State-specific campaign architecture
Custom landing pages per product and state
Aggressive negative keyword library (5,000+ entries)
Enterprise-grade click-fraud protection
Offline conversion API integration with your LOS
Call tracking with dynamic number insertion
Bi-weekly strategy call with senior strategist
Monthly P&L report with cost-per-funded-loan by product
Quarterly competitive analysis
Results
Numbers Mortgage Brokers Can Expect.
Twelve-month results from broker and lender PPC accounts. Jumbo and specialty (DSCR, ITIN, non-QM) campaigns produce the strongest ROAS because loan amounts and LTV justify the CPC pressure.
−42%
Cost Per Funded Loan
+58%
Pre-Qual Completion Rate
22%
Spend Recovered via Fraud Protection
3.2×
Jumbo-Campaign ROAS
The Long Read
Everything Mortgage Brokers should know about ppc management.
Mortgage PPC is one of the three most expensive consumer verticals we run, alongside plastic surgery and personal injury. CPC on purchase and refinance keywords ranges $25 to $95 per click depending on metro, product, and competitive density. A misconfigured broad-match keyword on 'refinance rates' can burn $6,000 in a weekend on traffic that will never fund. The accounts that work — and we run plenty that work very well — share three traits: tight loan-product segmentation, aggressive negative-keyword discipline, and offline conversion data feeding Smart Bidding the right outcome signal.
Loan-product campaign architecture is non-negotiable. Conventional purchase ($400K-$700K typical loan), conventional refi (shorter cycle, lower fees), FHA ($300K-$500K, first-time buyer audience), VA (military audience, no down payment), USDA (rural audience), jumbo ($1M+ loans, higher revenue), non-QM specialty (DSCR for investors, ITIN for non-citizens, bank statement for self-employed) — each is its own product with its own bid economics. Mashing them into a single campaign averages the bidding across products with vastly different revenue per funded loan. We rebuild every mortgage account around product-specific campaigns with separate keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and bid logic.
Negative keyword discipline matters more in mortgage than in almost any other vertical because of the CPC pressure. 'Mortgage calculator,' 'rate watch,' 'self-built mortgage,' 'mortgage modification,' 'credit repair before mortgage,' state-specific terms for states you do not lend in, and the long tail of low-intent variants. The negative list runs 5,000+ entries on a properly tuned mortgage account and gets reviewed weekly. It is unglamorous work and it is exactly the work that separates a $1,800 cost-per-funded-loan account from a $4,500 one.
Offline conversion integration is the technical move that pays off most because the mortgage funnel is long (45 to 60 days from pre-qual to funded loan) and many pre-quals never close. Smart Bidding optimizing on pre-quals gives equal weight to pre-quals that fund and pre-quals that disappear. Push-back of funded-loan events from your LOS (Encompass, Calyx, LendingPad, Floify, Volly) to Google Ads lets the algorithm learn from real outcomes. Two weeks of API setup, 8 to 12 weeks of learning, and the cost-per-funded-loan curve compresses meaningfully. Same long-cycle telemetry discipline we run for real estate agent PPC and property management PPC across the real estate cluster where multi-month decision cycles dominate.
FAQ
PPC Management for Mortgage Brokers — Common Questions.
What is a realistic cost per funded loan in mortgage PPC?
Tier-2 metros: $400–$1,200 per funded purchase loan, $300–$900 per funded refi (lower because lifecycle is shorter). Jumbo: $800–$2,400 per funded loan, but loan revenue justifies it.
How much should a mortgage broker spend on PPC monthly?
Floor: $8,000–$12,000/month for meaningful tests at mortgage CPC levels. Most brokers run $20,000–$80,000/month. The high CPC means thin budgets get crushed before Smart Bidding can learn.
How fast does the account stabilize?
Wasted spend stops bleeding week one. Smart Bidding learns 8–14 weeks because the funnel is long (45–60 day funding cycle). Cost-per-funded-loan stabilization runs 120–150 days.
Do you build landing pages?
Yes — product-specific and state-specific landing pages with TRID-compliant rate displays and 3-step pre-qual flows. Overlaps with [[our mortgage broker web design service|/web-design-for-mortgage-brokers]].
How aggressive is click-fraud filtering for mortgage?
Very. High CPC makes fraud expensive. Enterprise-tier filtering ($300–$700/month) typically returns 5–10× cost in first-quarter savings.
How does PPC interact with our SEO?
[[SEO|/seo-for-mortgage-brokers]] captures product-specific and state-program organic long-tail. PPC captures rate-shopper intent and refinance hand-raisers in the buying window.
Ready for Profitable Paid Ads — and Stop Burning Budget?
We'll review your existing ad accounts (or build new ones), pull the wasted spend numbers, and lay out a campaign structure built for mortgage brokers.
Free audit · No obligation · Reply within 4 business hours
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