Talked to four principals last week about vendor paid advertising — VPA — campaigns finalised in the back half of April. Across roughly 200 campaigns between them, average VPA spend in Sydney’s middle ring sat between $8,400 and $9,200 per property. That’s about flat on Q1 and slightly down on the same window last year, despite every agent telling me they’ve been pushing harder for premium packages.

The breakdown isn’t surprising. Domain and realestate.com.au continue to soak up the vast majority of the spend — usually 70 to 80 per cent of the total. The rest goes to social, signboards, professional photography and floorplans, and a handful of premium upgrade packages where the property suits a marketing-led campaign. Drone footage and video walkthroughs are now routine inclusions rather than upsells.

What’s interesting is the variance. The same suburb, similar price point, similar property type — VPA recommendations from different agents can differ by $5,000 or more. Vendors notice this. Several principals told me they’ve started losing listings on VPA proposals where the competitor went lower and the vendor took it personally. The “you get what you pay for” pitch only works when the difference is obvious.

Where the money actually moves the needle

Photography is the only line item where every agent I spoke with said the spend is non-negotiable. Floorplans likewise. Past that, it’s contested.

Premium real estate portal upgrades — the highlighted, top-of-search slots — produce real measurable lift in enquiry volumes for the first 7 to 10 days, then taper sharply. Agents with disciplined campaign timing are spending into that window and pulling back after, rather than running the upgrade for 28 days as a default. That’s a meaningful change in 2026.

Social media spend is more contested. Facebook and Instagram still produce solid engagement metrics but converting that to genuine buyer intent is hard. A few agencies have stopped including paid social in standard packages and now offer it as an optional upgrade for properties that suit it — usually entry-level apartments or anything aimed at a first home buyer audience.

Print advertising is mostly dead. Two of the four principals had run a single print campaign in April, both for prestige listings where the vendor specifically asked for it. Neither thought it produced enquiry. Both said they’ll keep offering it because vendors want it.

The vendor conversation

The hardest part of VPA in 2026 is still the conversation itself. Vendors want certainty about what they’ll get for the spend. Agents can’t give them certainty. The best practitioners I spoke with have stopped trying — they show data on similar campaigns, lay out the choices, and let the vendor decide.

One principal told me he’d started showing vendors the actual enquiry breakdown from comparable campaigns: how many came from the standard portal listing, how many from the premium upgrade, how many from social, how many from signboard. That transparency alone has reduced VPA disputes in his agency by something like 60 per cent. It’s the kind of practice that should be standard but isn’t.

What I’d watch for in the back half of 2026: more agencies bundling VPA into commission structures, more variance between premium and budget recommendations, and continued slow death of print. The fundamentals haven’t changed. The tooling around the conversation has.