Advertising on forsale.bz is self-serve, pay-as-you-go, and runs entirely off a saved card — no monthly subscription, no contract. The full pipeline takes about three minutes from sign-up to first ad served. This guide walks through every step.
What this costs
Save a card on file. Nothing is charged until accrued spend hits $10 OR 30 days pass — whichever first. Ads run at 4¢ per in-feed impression / 5¢ per rail impression / 12¢ for the premium homepage slot. Connect your card and we credit $50 free immediately; spend your first $50 of billed impressions and we credit another $50 free. No subscription, no prepay.
Step 1 — Become an advertiser
You need an agent account before you can run ads. The conversion is one click, and favorites / saved lists keep working the same way they always have.
- Sign in at /sign-in (or sign up at /sign-up if this is your first visit).
- Open /dashboard. The yellow "Are you a real estate agent?" banner is your entry point.
- Click Convert my account. Optionally fill in display name, phone, and website. All three are editable later.
Full walkthrough: How to sign up as an agent.
Step 2 — Save a card on file
Go to /dashboard/advertiser. Click Add card on file. Stripe opens a hosted checkout to collect the card — nothing is charged at this step. Once Stripe confirms, you're back on the dashboard with billing enabled. From here, you can build and launch campaigns.
How charging works
- Every impression accrues to an unbilled counter. We don't charge per impression — we batch.
- When the accrued amount crosses $10, we charge your card for the accrued total and reset the counter to zero.
- If 30 days pass without crossing the threshold, we charge whatever has accrued and restart the clock. So you're never billed more often than every batch, and the minimum cadence is monthly.
- Failed charges (declined / expired card) appear on your dashboard with a red banner. Until you fix the card, no new impressions serve so the unpaid amount can't keep climbing.
$50 + $50 — two-tier sign-up bonus
We split the welcome bonus into two stages so you have skin in the game once you start actually paying:
- Tier 1 — $50 free on card connect. The moment you save a card, $50 of free impressions land in your account. Run with it, see the platform work, no commitment.
- Tier 2 — Spend $50, get $50 more. Once your lifetime billed spend crosses $50, we drop another $50 into your free pool. The free pool always runs before paid impressions accrue.
Each tier is one-shot per advertiser, ever. Removing and re-adding a card doesn't re-fire either bonus. Total possible free: $100.
Cancel anytime
Hit Remove next to your card on the dashboard. We charge any remaining accrued spend one last time, then your campaigns pause. No cancellation fees, no notice period, no contract.
Step 3 — Build a campaign
From the advertiser hub, click New campaign. The editor is split side-by-side: form on the left, live preview on the right. Every keystroke updates the preview so you can see exactly how your ad will render.
Required fields
- Internal name — only you see this. Name it whatever helps you keep campaigns organized (e.g. "Placencia listings — spring").
- Headline — what buyers actually see. Up to 120 characters. Be specific about who you serve. "Buying in Placencia? Top-100 RE/MAX agent." beats "Belize real estate agent."
- Click-through URL — where the click goes. Your public agent profile, a dedicated landing page, a phone (use a
tel:URL), or a contact form. We recommend your public profile so the click lands on a forsale.bz page that already features you.
Optional fields
- Body — supporting line. Up to 400 characters. Specialties, languages, one differentiator.
- Photo URL — square headshot works best. Use a hosted URL (brokerage CDN, S3, etc.). No upload from the editor yet.
- Brokerage logo URL — small, shown alongside the photo.
- Button text — defaults to "Contact".
Step 4 — Pick placements
Each placement has a base rate in cents per impression. Your campaign's bid floors automatically to the highest base rate among selected placements, so the campaign stays eligible everywhere it opts into.
| Placement | Base rate |
|---|---|
| Homepage Recommended Agent | $0.12 |
| Individual Listing detail page (highest volume) | $0.06 |
| TV mode overlay (Live carousel) | $0.05 |
| Video tour side rail | $0.05 |
| 3D tour side rail | $0.05 |
| In-feed on All Listings for Sale page | $0.04 |
| In-feed on Recently Sold Listings page | $0.04 |
| Map sidebar (left side of Map page) | $0.04 |
How to think about placements
- Homepage Recommended — premium scarcity. One slot at the top of the most- visited page on the site. Best if you want maximum visibility for a launch / sale.
- In-feed on /listings & /sold — disguised as listing cards with a small (i) disclosure dot in the corner (reads “Sponsored” on hover). Best if you want consistent throughput at the lowest rate.
- Rail slots (map, tour, watch) — compact card next to media. Best for retargeting people already deep in shopping mode.
Step 5 — Save as draft, preview, then activate
New campaigns are saved as DRAFT first. Nothing runs and nothing charges until you flip the status to ACTIVE. Use the live preview pane to make sure the headline, photo, and CTA look the way you want before you go live.
- From the campaign edit page, scroll to Campaign basics → status dropdown.
- Pick Active — running. Save.
- The campaign is now eligible. Refresh the relevant page and you should see your ad rendering within a few seconds.
Step 6 — Monitor and pause
On any campaign's edit page, the header shows impression count and total spend. You won't see per-second metrics — those are for the admin side only — but you can pause any time:
- Set the status to Paused. The campaign stops competing for placements immediately; no further spend accrues from it.
- Set it back to Active any time to resume.
- Click Archive campaign to remove it from your active list. Archived campaigns stay in the database for billing history — they just don't show in your default view.
What happens if a charge fails
If your card is declined or expired when we batch-charge, all of your campaigns flip to EXHAUSTED and stop competing for placements. Your accrued spend is preserved — we don't lose the bill. The dashboard shows a red banner explaining what Stripe told us. Update the card; on the next billing run we'll charge the accrued amount and re-enable campaigns (you flip them back to Active).
FAQ
Are impressions tracked accurately?
Yes. We log every real impression — no multiplier, no inflation. The advertiser hub hides the per-impression number from your view by design (it's noise), but the billing math is the actual count.
What counts as one impression?
A render on a page that the user actually loaded. We dedupe to one impression per campaign / placement per browser session within a 60-second window, so a tab refocus or quick re-load isn't double-charged.
Can I run multiple campaigns at once?
Yes — there's no campaign cap. Each campaign's impressions accrue to the shared billing counter, so multiple active campaigns just mean the next $10 threshold arrives faster.
Can I edit a live campaign?
Yes. Edit any field; save. The change applies on the next page load that resolves an ad from your campaign. Your impression and click history is preserved.