Chris Smith is the bestselling author of The Conversion Code. He co-founded the SaaS marketing platform Curaytor, an Inc. 500 fastest-growing business. As a C-level executive at dotloop, Chris helped lead them to their acquisition by Zillow for $108 million. The Conversion Code has become required reading for marketing courses at colleges like Johns Hopkins University, and Chris Smith is a sought-after lecturer and speaker whose credits include NYU, as well as sold out events with Gary Vaynerchuck and Hubspot, among others. His work has been featured in Adweek, Forbes, Fortune, and many other publications.
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🎤 Google's ex-CEO just got booed off stage for praising AI
Published 25 days ago • 13 min read
The Chris List™
Every week, I get the same three questions from agents:
"Chris, what's actually working in real estate marketing right now?"
"Chris, what's a waste of time?"
"Chris, what do I do next?"
So I built the answer.
Next Thursday at 1pm ET, I'm going live on Zoom with Jimmy and Andrew to unveil the State of Real Estate Marketing Report for 2026.
This isn't a fluff webinar. It's the most comprehensive look at what's actually moving the needle for agents right now: the platforms, the tactics, the channels, the AI tools, the content formats, the lead sources, all of it.
Data from hundreds of agents, ranked, scored, and broken down by what's working and what's dead.
You'll walk away knowing exactly what to double down on, what to cut, and what to start this week.
🔬 [R]esearch: Fantasy is dead. Here's what replaces it.
🎨 [I]nspiration: KitKat just out-marketed Apple
📝 [S]wipes: Bump emails that don't feel like begging
📝 [C]ONTENT
Graduates are booing AI off stage 🎤
Something wild is happening at college graduations right now.
Last week, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, worth $43 billion, got up at the University of Arizona commencement, mentioned AI, and got booed off the stage by his own audience.
Not once. Repeatedly.
At one point he literally had to stop talking and say, "If you'd let me make this point, please."
His killer line? "When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on."
The graduates' response: nope.
And here's the part that hits close to home.
Just one week earlier, the exact same thing happened at UCF (my Orlando backyard).
Gloria Caulfield, an executive at Tavistock Development Company (yes, the real estate firm), called AI "the next industrial revolution" at the College of Arts and Humanities graduation.
The crowd erupted in boos. Someone yelled "AI sucks!"
One graduate told Orlando Weekly: "It will not be the rise of AI that is the next Industrial Revolution. It will be the boo-ers who refuse to take a check from the top 1% to present an empty agenda. It will be humans for humans."
Read that line twice.
Why this matters for agents
Most of the real estate industry is racing to slap "AI-powered" on everything they sell. The brokerages. The CRMs. The lead-gen tools. The MLS portals.
Every pitch deck in 2026 looks like a ChatGPT screenshot wearing a tie.
But the audience is shifting underneath us in real time.
Half your clients are excited about AI.
The other half is the booing graduates: skeptical, defensive, suspicious of anyone who shows up sounding like a "corporate mouthpiece."
The agents who win in this environment won't be the ones bragging the loudest about their AI stack.
They'll be the ones who use the tools quietly and lead with the human.
The framework is simple:
→ AI handles the busywork. Comps, descriptions, follow-up drafts, seller reports, social captions.
→ You handle the moments that matter. The phone call when inspection comes back ugly. The kitchen table conversation about price. The text at 9pm when a buyer is panicking.
The booing graduates aren't wrong. They're just early.
The audience for "I use AI for everything!" marketing is shrinking.
The audience for "I use AI so I can spend more time with you" is growing every single week.
Pick the right side now.
Because the worst thing you can be in 2026 isn't behind on technology.
It's getting booed by your own audience.
🛠 [H]OW-TO
Get my help on every marketing campaign and sales pitch (for free)
Every week, I get the same DMs.
"Chris, what do I say to a buyer who ghosted me after the third showing?"
"Chris, how do I respond when a seller says 'I already have an agent'?"
"Chris, what's the best way to ask for a referral without sounding desperate?"
I love getting them. I just can't answer all of them.
So I built something that can.
It's called Conversion Code AI, and it's basically me, my book, and 15+ years of frameworks crammed into a free tool that gives you a custom playbook in seconds.
Type in your real estate marketing or sales challenge
Get a script, an email, and an action plan built on frameworks from The Conversion Code (500K+ copies sold, 1,200+ five-star reviews, taught at Johns Hopkins)
That's the whole flow. No account. No email opt-in. No credit card. No "free trial that auto-bills you for $97 in 7 days."
Try prompts like these:
→ "My leads go cold after day 3 and stop responding"
→ "Leads won't answer my calls, what do I do?"
→ "How do I generate more seller leads on Instagram?"
→ "Write me a 7-day follow up sequence for a buyer who toured but went quiet"
→ "What do I say to a FSBO who thinks they don't need an agent?"
Whatever's stuck right now, type it in. You'll get the playbook in seconds.
Why I'm giving it away free
Most coaches are charging $50, $100, even $500/month for AI tools that do less than this one does.
I get the business model. I'm just not playing that game.
The book has already given me more opportunities than I deserve. I'd rather have 20,000 agents using the frameworks than 200 agents paying to access them.
If you've never read The Conversion Code, this is the easiest way to get the full value of it without opening the book.
If you've already read it, this is your highlighter, your dog-eared pages, and your to-do list come to life.
Bookmark it. Pin it to your home screen. Use it every time you sit down to write an email, plan a campaign, or prep for a sales conversation.
Then reply to this email and tell me what you built with it. I want to see it.
🔬 [R]ESEARCH
TikTok just told you exactly how to win in 2026 📱
TikTok dropped its official 2026 Trend Report, and buried inside the corporate speak is a roadmap every Realtor should be using.
The big idea: In 2025, audiences coped with the chaos by going numb. Doomscrolling. Quiet quitting. Autopilot mode.
In 2026, they're swinging the other way. Real curiosity. Real conviction. Real connection.
Translation for agents: the era of polished, AI-generated, lifeless real estate content is dead. People want the messy, human version of you.
Here are the three trends TikTok says will define 2026 and what each one means for your business.
Trend 1: Reali-TEA (Fantasy is fading)
People are done with #delulu, romanticizing every moment, and pretending life is a Pinterest board. They want the real story. The chaos. The "here's what actually happened" version.
TikTok says Millennials and Gen Z are 1.5x more likely than Gen X+ to try a new brand because of its community.
And users are 1.6x more likely to repurchase when brands let them interact (comments, replies, co-creation).
The Realtor move: Stop posting the highlight reel. Post the lowlight reel. The deal that almost died at inspection. The buyer who lost three bidding wars before winning one. The seller who cried at closing because they didn't think it would actually happen.
The vulnerable stuff is the magnet.
Trend 2: Curiosity Detours (Search is the new scroll)
This stat is wild: TikTok now sees billions of searches per day, up more than 40% from last year.
And 1 in 4 users start searching within 30 seconds of opening the app.
Even better: 2 in 3 TikTok searchers say a main reason they search on TikTok is that they discover useful things beyond what they were looking for.
People aren't just scrolling anymore. They're hunting. And they're falling down rabbit holes from one topic into ten.
The Realtor move: Your content needs to be searchable, not just scrollable. Stop captioning videos with "✨new listing✨" and start using the actual phrases buyers type into the search bar: "best neighborhoods in [city] for first-time buyers," "what to know before buying in [zip code]," "Avalon Park vs Lake Nona schools."
Write like a buyer types.
Trend 3: Emotional ROI (Why to buy beats want to buy)
The line that should hit every agent: "Impulse will lose to intention in 2026 as shoppers reward the brands that justify the why to buy, first."
Consumers are still spending. They're just demanding a reason. Not "this is cute" but "this brings me joy." Not "viral" but "I've used this for 36 days." Not "hype" but "most recommended."
The Realtor move: Stop "selling" homes. Start justifying them. Don't say "stunning kitchen with quartz counters." Say "this is the kitchen where you'll host every Thanksgiving for the next 20 years." Don't say "great schools." Say "your kids walk here in 4 minutes."
Anchor every listing in the emotional why, not the feature list.
The Bottom Line
TikTok's whole thesis for 2026 is "shaped by people, powered by AI."
AI for scale. You for soul.
That's the entire 2026 playbook in six words.
🎨 [I]NSPIRATION
KitKat just turned its wrapper into a phone jail 📵
KitKat's been running the same slogan since 1958: "Have a break, have a KitKat."
Sixty-eight years later, they finally made the slogan do something.
They just launched Break Mode, a special edition wrapper that, once you take the chocolate out, doubles as a Faraday cage for your phone.
Slide your iPhone inside, and it instantly blocks calls, internet, Bluetooth, and GPS.
The packaging has a metallic conductive layer sandwiched between copper, nickel, and polyester.
It's not a gimmick. They tested it with RF signal attenuation and cellular signal strength readings. Your phone genuinely goes dark.
The result? A candy wrapper that delivers on a promise the brand has been making for almost 70 years.
That's the move. KitKat didn't write a better tagline. They built a tagline you can hold.
The Realtor Lesson
Every agent has a tagline. "Local expert." "Your trusted advisor." "Concierge-level service."
Most of them are empty calories. Words on a business card that nobody believes because nothing physical backs them up.
KitKat just proved that the most memorable marketing isn't a better slogan. It's a slogan you can prove.
Here's how to steal this for real estate:
→ "We make moving stress-free." Don't just say it. Show up at closing with a branded moving kit: labeled boxes, tape, a Sharpie, snacks for moving day, and a list of your favorite local movers.
→ "I know this neighborhood better than anyone." Don't just say it. Drop a printed mini-guide at every open house with your top 10 spots in a two-block radius. Coffee, dog park, best pizza, fastest pharmacy, where to get a key copied.
The point isn't to be clever. It's to make people feel the promise instead of just reading it.
KitKat could have run a TV spot about taking breaks. They built a wrapper that takes the break for you.
Find the one promise in your marketing that everyone else also makes... and build the physical version nobody else has bothered to.
That's how you become unforgettable.
📝 [S]WIPES
The "polite bump" templates that unstick ghosted clients 👻
You sent the email. You sent the text. You got... crickets.
Welcome to the part of real estate nobody talks about: the slow death of waiting for a reply that's never coming.
Here's the fix.
According to research, one well-timed follow-up can boost reply rates by 49%.
But there's a catch. A fourth bump email triggers a 1.6% spam rate and a 2% unsubscribe rate.
Translation: bump once, maybe twice, then move on. Stalking is not a strategy.
Use these swipes the next time a client, lead, or partner goes radio silent.
📨 The 3-Day Bump (Buyer Who Toured and Vanished)
Subject: Quick question about the Maple Street house
Hi [Name],
Circling back to see if the home on Maple is still on your mind. No pressure either way, I just want to make sure I don't miss your window if you decide to make a move.
If it's a no, totally fine. If it's a maybe, I have two more I think you'll love.
[Your name]
📲 The 5-Day Text Bump (Seller Considering Listing)
Hey [Name], just bumping our convo from last week. I know life moves fast, so no rush. If listing this spring is still on the table, I can run fresh numbers and have them to you by Friday. If the timing's shifted, no worries, just let me know so I'm not chasing you down 😅
📨 The Final Bump (The "I'm Closing the Loop" Email)
Subject: Closing the loop
Hi [Name],
Haven't heard back, so I'll assume the timing isn't right. No hard feelings at all.
I'll stop bumping this thread. If anything changes (this month, next year, five years from now), my number is the same: [phone]. Just text me.
Best, [Your name]
🧠 The Rules That Make Bumps Work
Wait 2-5 business days before the first bump. Any sooner and you look desperate.
Extend to 5-7 days before the second one.
Cap it at two bumps. After that, the silence is the answer.
Avoid these phrases that scream pushy:
"Why haven't you replied yet?"
"I need an answer today."
"Just following up again... and again... and again."
Use these instead:
"When you have a moment..."
"Totally understand if now isn't a good time..."
"No rush, just want to stay on your radar..."
The Big Idea
The agents who close the most deals aren't the ones who send the most follow-ups.
They're the ones who send the right follow-ups at the right time with the right tone.
Bump like a pro. Get ghosted less. Close more.
Two quick things before you close this email.
One. Don't forget to RSVP for The State of Real Estate Marketing Report.
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The Chris List
Chris Smith
Chris Smith is the bestselling author of The Conversion Code. He co-founded the SaaS marketing platform Curaytor, an Inc. 500 fastest-growing business. As a C-level executive at dotloop, Chris helped lead them to their acquisition by Zillow for $108 million. The Conversion Code has become required reading for marketing courses at colleges like Johns Hopkins University, and Chris Smith is a sought-after lecturer and speaker whose credits include NYU, as well as sold out events with Gary Vaynerchuck and Hubspot, among others. His work has been featured in Adweek, Forbes, Fortune, and many other publications.
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