New kids on the block

by Kirstie Ayres

The property portal market is growing thanks to a number of new entrants, but how do they compare to established models? The marketing manager at Badger Holdings provides an insight into her experience of the portal market.

We get approached by new internet portals almost weekly, making us regularly question our portal strategy to check whether we are receiving, and in turn offering clients, value for money. And I’m sure we’re not alone.

It’s often difficult to know whether to subscribe to just one or two mainstream portals or whether subscription to a wide range of portals is more beneficial. Our research earlier this year showed that 56% of buyers registering and 41% of viewings were generated by our internet advertising, compared with just 3% for local newspapers.

We consider all new portals carefully to establish whether they will add value to our business. We are interested in sites that attract a different consumer audience and thus represent good value for money, rather than those which threaten to cannibalise the audiences of the more established portals.

Cost

Cost doesn’t simply refer to the cost of advertising on portals. To ensure a Return On Investment on their portal expenditure, agents need to invest time and resources to ensure their stock is at optimum levels to maximise the leads they receive.

Most of the portals spend heavily on Google and the other search engines to attract consumer traffic through both search engine optimisation and pay per click. Many agencies continue to plough money into print advertising too.

Functionality

For all the cost of portals, the advertising of stock on each is largely similar, with roughly the same information displayed with each property together with instructions about how to contact the relevant agent.

We currently advertise properties on a wide range of portals, including Rightmove and Globrix, and carefully monitor the volume and quality of the leads generated on a monthly basis. Rightmove clearly represents a significant investment, which is justified by the fact that it remains the number one portal in terms of public perception outside of London, and offers the highest volumes of property advertised and the traffic
levels achieved.

It is rumoured that agents are leaving Rightmove in droves in favour of a cheaper option. Agents considering following suit should should perhaps consider how these alternative sites plan to offer similar value for money and the additional functionality available to member agents as part of services, such as Rightmove Plus which assists with valuations and ongoing vendor care. These services would be costly and time-consuming for even a large agent like us to replicate inhouse, which is why I doubt that Rightmove’s membership levels will plummet as some industry players have suggested.

That said, with increased competition and new payment models gaining popularity, Rightmove and other established portals are going to have to work much harder than in the past to maintain their market share. It will be interesting to see how portals’ 2009 pricing levels change in light of the fact that the current market downturn is expected to continue until at least Q4 2009.

Newcos

When the newest property portal, PropertyIndex, approached us we were impressed with its expansion plans. It is already running a successful overseas portal and, unlike many start-up portals, can demonstrate that it knows how to attract consumer traffic to the site.

We have undertaken comprehensive research on the ROI of our existing portals, so we are confident that PropertyIndex provides good value for money, particularly as it is the first portal to support what agents have been asking for – response-based functionality. Agents only pay (£1) for the leads they receive, rather than a monthly subscription fee, which I think is a much fairer and more logical way of paying for advertising and one which encourages the portal to attract as much quality traffic to the site as possible.

Meanwhile, we have embraced the free portals such as Globrix and Zoomf, but have found that their traffic levels, quality of leads and
management information is still relatively low in comparison with the
more established portals.

One area that we are interested in is the ‘targeted portal’ and weare currently in discussions with a new community site, which targets a very specific audience we feel is highly relevant to our clients. We
think that niche sites like this will be a key area of development in the short to medium term.

I welcome innovation in the portal market because, if nothing else, it will encourage more established portals to review their charging structures to protect their market share among agents. I would expect
2009 to see some major shifts in portal power, which can only bring
good news for agents.

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