Consistent Listings targets expired listing ads on YouTube by zip code, household income bracket and search intent, sized to one agent per market of roughly 250,000 to 750,000 people, because Google's housing policy forbids targeting an individual property or a protected characteristic. The stack reaches owners while they research why the home did not sell, then Appointment Setting calls each lead within minutes to confirm the previous agreement has ended.
- Google's housing policy forbids targeting a specific property or a protected class, so an expired campaign never targets an address or a status directly.
- Intent targeting on phrases like why didn't my house sell and relist my house reaches the owner without touching a protected characteristic.
- Renters, licensed agents and the agent's own current listings are excluded from every expired campaign.
- Expired demand clusters at the end of the spring and summer selling season, so budget pacing follows that curve, not a flat calendar.
What Google's housing policy forbids and what intent targeting allows
Google's housing category, which covers real estate ads on YouTube, blocks targeting by age, familial status, marital status, religion, national origin, disability or any protected characteristic, and it also does not allow an ad to target a named property or an individual owner. A campaign cannot target the address that just expired, and it should not try to.
What the policy does allow is targeting by what someone searches. An owner searching my listing expired what do I do now or house didn't sell should I relist is showing intent, not a status, and that intent is exactly what an expired campaign targets. The same owner searching what's my home worth in the same zip code adds a second signal without adding an individual identifier.
Most MLSs also prohibit soliciting a property that is still under an active listing agreement, which is why our ISA (inside sales agent) team confirms the agreement has ended before it ever books a call, separate from ad targeting itself.
The targeting stack for expired and withdrawn homes
An expired campaign layers four settings, each one built from behaviour rather than an individual property or owner.
| Layer | Setting | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Geography | The agent's zip codes, sized to one agent per market of roughly 250,000 to 750,000 people | Weighted toward zip codes with a steady count of expired and withdrawn listings on the MLS hotsheet |
| Search intent | Phrases like my listing expired, why didn't my house sell, relist my house and what's my home worth | Reaches the owner during research, before they have chosen a new agent |
| Household income bracket | Matched to the agent's price band | Filters toward the price range where the agent already closes |
| Homeowner status | Homeowners, not renters | Renters do not hold a listing agreement to relist |
Days on market and price history are not targeting signals; they describe the property, not the searcher, and Google's ad platform does not target by an individual listing's MLS history.
Exclusions: who never sees the ad
Three groups are excluded from every expired campaign. Renters are excluded because they do not hold a listing agreement to relist; licensed agents are excluded so competitors do not see the creative or the offer; and the agent's own current listings are excluded so the ad never targets a homeowner already under contract with that same agent.
Out-of-area viewers are not excluded outright, since an owner researching relisting sometimes searches from a second home or a work location before returning to sell. The expired listing leads targeting notes treat that owner the same as one searching from inside the zip code.
Seasonality and budget pacing for expired campaigns
Expireds cluster at the end of the spring and summer selling season, so September to January typically produces the most expired and withdrawn listings and the most searches about what went wrong. Relaunches then tend to land in the new year, once the owner has had time to decide on a new price and a new plan.
That seasonal curve means an expired budget should weight spend toward the fall and winter months rather than running flat across the calendar. The YouTube ads for expired listings campaign is built around that curve from the first launch, so the heaviest spend lands when the most owners are actually searching.
The Fair Housing sentence, plainly
The rule for every expired campaign is short: zip code, search behaviour and income bracket, and nothing beyond that. Age, familial status, marital status, religion, national origin, disability and every other protected characteristic never enter the targeting settings, and that same rule keeps the campaign from ever aiming at the specific address that just expired. The script and creative speak to any owner whose listing did not sell, not a slice of that group.
Every layer in the stack, geography, search intent, income bracket, homeowner status, gets checked against that rule before the campaign goes live. A setting that cannot be written in those four terms is cut, no matter how well it might perform. The YouTube ad examples for expired listings walk through how that same discipline carries into the script.
Questions, answered
Is it legal to target homeowners whose listing recently expired?
Targeting homeowners whose listing recently expired is legal when it is based on location, search behaviour and income bracket, not on an individual address or a protected characteristic. Consistent Listings builds expired campaigns entirely on search intent for phrases like my listing expired what do I do now, which keeps every campaign inside both Google's housing policy and Fair Housing law.
Can YouTube target a specific expired listing by address?
YouTube cannot target a specific expired listing by address, since Google's housing policy does not allow ad targeting tied to an individual property. It can target the search behaviour that follows an expiry, such as house didn't sell should I relist or expired listing protection period, which reaches the same owner through what they search rather than through the listing itself.
How does Fair Housing apply to marketing to expired listing owners?
Fair Housing applies to expired listing marketing the same way it applies to every seller campaign: creative and targeting must never reference race, religion, national origin, familial status, disability or any protected class. Expired ads describe the relisting decision, not the owner, and targeting stays on zip code, income bracket and search intent for the entire campaign.
Does expired listing ad targeting change in Canada?
The targeting mechanics stay the same in Canada, with the Canadian Human Rights Act and provincial human rights codes applying the same restrictions as US Fair Housing law. Canadian campaigns use the same zip or postal-code geography, search intent and income bracket, and holdover clauses take the place of US protection periods in the qualifying conversation.
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