Prompted by this we were recently sent by Zoopla!….
“Whilst it is always unfortunate for those involved when a business faces potential closure, the recent news about Propertyfinder cannot be described as a surprise. Property marketing online in the UK is changing rapidly. Over recent months pay-per-lead sites like Zoopla.co.uk have started to gain significant market share from the traditional, subscription-based portals, as agents have sought to use more clever, targeted and cost-effective advertising methods. This can only impact on the first-generation of subs-based property portals; those of them that choose to change their models and align themselves fully with agent needs can survive but those who do not or cannot face a very challenging future.”
Zoopla claim to be the UK’s fastest-growing and 5th most-visited property website with over 1 million visits per month. They don’t charge subscription fees and instead charge agents a flat rate of £1 per buyer/renter lead (and an optional £5 per vendor/landlord lead). This they say is around 20% of the cost per lead that you pay with existing major property portals.
Our own analysis of our agents and the cost of leads from national portals is in agreement with this, some have actually quoted paying as much as £17 or even £20 each for a lead from well known national portals!
This price is pushed up, simply by these national portal charging the agent too much per month in the first place, and in some cases compounded by not delivering enough leads. If you supply 50 leads and charge £500 a month then they cost £10 each, if you only charge £45 per month as Southern Property Finder do then the supply of the same number of enquiries works out at less than £1 each!! Therefore the monthly subscription model is still valid which we are continuing to prove by delivering 50+ leads a month to several of our agents in our strongest areas.
Our biggest short coming is not enough agents and subsequently not enough stock (currently x9000 approx properties listed from x194 Agents)… applicants may not be getting a ‘whole of market’ experience on SPF (in some areas) and may be reverting back to national portals which ultimately costs our agents more money per lead than if it comes from us!
So… the simple answer is to tell as many agents as you can to list on Southern Property Finder and reduce your portal fees and subsequent lead costs to less than a £1!
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