The New Rules of Generating Commercial Real Estate Leads

Discover the new rules of lead generation and why your website is more important than ever. 

By Walter Fitzgerald 

* A note on the author: At 83 years old, Walter isn’t your typical copywriter—and that’s exactly why we love him. His offbeat take on blogging and colorful storytelling make him a standout voice at ATYPICAL. 

In commercial real estate, leads still come from boots on the ground. Cold calls, referrals, market reports, and long-standing relationships are as important as ever. 

But alongside those traditional methods, the digital side of lead generation has grown, and with it, expectations have changed. 

Today, prospects might hear about you through a social post, click a paid ad, read a market update, or get an email from your team. No matter where they come from, most of them will end up in the same place: your website. And this is where expectations have changed the most. People are no longer just browsing. They’re comparing, validating, and making snap judgments about whether you’re worth their time. They expect fast, clear, frictionless digital experiences because that’s what they’ve come to expect everywhere else. The result? Even if you’re doing all the right things to generate interest, you could still be losing leads quietly if your website isn’t aligned with what today’s prospects need. The new rules of commercial real estate lead generation start with understanding this shift and knowing how to respond to it. 

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The Most Underestimated Player in Lead Generation: Your Website

Now, I’ve been around long enough to see CRE folks pour time and money into all sorts of lead generation efforts: CRM systems, paid ads, slick email campaigns, market reports, and even the occasional drone video.  And rightly so. These tools work when used well. But here’s what often gets overlooked: your website. 

It might not be the flashiest part of your marketing stack, but it’s where everything connects. Every email you send, every ad you run, every social post or market update, all lead people back to one place. And when they land there, what they experience determines whether they stick around or move on. 

Think of your website like the lobby of your building. It doesn’t need to be the most luxurious room in town, but it better be clean, clear, and ready to point people in the right direction. 

Whether you’re investing in digital marketing or not, your website is always working. The question is: is it working for you, or quietly pushing leads away? 

Because in today’s CRE landscape, the website isn’t just an accessory. It’s the backbone of your digital presence. And it’s often your first (and sometimes only) shot at converting curiosity into action. 

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The Shift: What’s Happening and Why It Matters for Lead Generation 

We’re seeing a fundamental change in how people interact with businesses online, and that change is happening everywhere, not just in commercial real estate. 

Across industries, digital behavior has evolved. People expect more from websites than ever before, and they lose patience faster than a broker in a four-hour zoning meeting. 

The 2025 Digital Experience Benchmark Report by Contentsquare puts numbers to this shift: 

• 40% of website sessions now end in frustration. 

• 53% of users bounce after viewing just one page. 

• And a striking 73% say they’d avoid doing business with a company after a poor online experience. 

And this isn’t just about broken links or clunky mobile layouts. It’s about how user expectations have outpaced the experiences many brands are delivering. 

Why is this Happening? 

It’s the world we live in. People are spending more time online than ever before, shopping, banking, booking travel, streaming content. They’re used to platforms like Amazon, Google, TikTok, and ChatGPT that deliver instant results, clean design, and seamless experiences. That’s become the norm. 

Even though most folks understand CRE is a different kind of business, they still bring those same expectations with them when they land on your website. They want fast load times. Clear navigation. Easy access to what they came for, be it an offering memorandum, book a demo, or a contact form. If they can’t find it quickly, they leave. So while your paid campaigns, emails, and social posts might be doing a fine job driving traffic, if your website hasn’t kept up with what users now expect from a digital experience, that traffic won’t translate into leads. 

This shift is subtle, but it’s massive. 

The rules of online engagement have changed. And commercial real estate teams that don’t adjust their digital presence accordingly are going to find themselves doing more work for fewer results. 

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What a Website Needs to Do to Capture CRE Leads These Days 

Now, I’m not here to tell you your website needs a total overhaul. This isn’t about flashier design or trendy animations. 

It’s about whether your site does the one job it’s supposed to do: turn interest into action. 

So, what does a lead-ready CRE website actually look like? 

1. It Loads Fast: Three seconds or less. That’s the benchmark. Anything slower and people bounce, especially on mobile. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your property photos are if no one sticks around to see them. 

2. It’s Built for Mobile: Most of your traffic is coming from phones. If users have to pinch, zoom, or fight with formatting just to read a listing or find a contact, they’re gone. 

3. It’s Easy to Navigate: Visitors shouldn’t have to dig for details. Whether someone’s looking for available space, investment info, or a way to get in touch, it should all be no more than two clicks away. 

4. It Has Clear, Compelling Calls to Action: “Schedule a tour,” “Request more info,” “Download the brochure”—whatever the next step is, it should be obvious, accessible, and easy to act on. 

5. It Gives People What They Came For: That might be pricing, property specs, leasing availability, or a downloadable offering memorandum. Make sure key information is accessible without making people jump through hoops. 

Most commercial real estate websites are built to look good, not to convert. And in today’s landscape, that’s a costly mistake. A lot of the time, it’s not a case of getting more traffic; it’s about converting more with the traffic you already have. That starts by making sure that your website is not only showing up, but stepping up. 

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Why You Need More Than a Website: You Need a Strategy 

A website on its own is just a piece of the puzzle. You can have a sleek design, fast load times, and clean navigation, but if it’s not connected to the rest of your marketing efforts, it’s not doing the job. 

Think about it like this: if your website is the front door, then your marketing, like your emails, your paid ads, your LinkedIn posts, your market reports, is everything leading up to the driveway. 

If there’s no clear path from one to the other, or if the door’s hard to open, people turn around. 

That’s where strategy comes in. Your site needs to work hand-in-hand with the rest of your marketing ecosystem. 

That means: 

• Paid ads should lead to pages built for conversion, not your homepage. 

• Emails should drive to landing pages with specific, relevant content. 

• Social content should guide users toward the next logical step, not leave them wandering. 

And whether you're running full digital campaigns or just sharing organic content, your site still plays the same critical role: it’s where interest becomes action. 

But aligning all these pieces isn’t something you do off the side of your desk. It takes a team that understands not just design, but digital behavior. 

Not just platforms, but people. A team that knows commercial real estate and knows how your audience actually moves through a digital journey. 

Because here’s the truth: a website without strategy is like putting a property on LoopNet without any contact info. It might catch attention, but no one knows what to do next. 

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Walter’s Final Thoughts

Getting someone’s attention is only half the battle. The real win is what happens after. The follow-through, the clarity, the ease of next steps. 

That’s where your website comes in. 

You might be doing all the right things to build awareness, running campaigns, sending emails, posting listings, but if the experience people land on doesn’t match the effort that brought them there, the lead stops cold. The new rules of commercial real estate lead generation aren’t about chasing every new channel or piling on more tactics. 

They’re about alignment, making sure every part of your digital strategy is working toward the same goal: converting interest into action. And your website is right at the center of that. So don’t treat it like a side piece or a digital placeholder. Treat it like the essential tool it is: the place where modern marketing efforts either come to life or quietly stall out. 

And if you’re not sure it’s doing its job? That’s worth a closer look. 

Because in this market, every click counts, and every missed one is a lost opportunity. 

As always, 

Stay ATYPICAL 😊