Normally, I don’t weigh in on this kind of industry news since offerings like this come and go while marketing fundamentals do not change. I’d rather discuss the “immutable laws” of marketing your real estate than discuss trends and fads but I really want to know how you perceive these types of actions.
Zillow has partnered with 282 newspapers allowing these newspapers to sell ad space on the Zillow site to other retailers. But, also allowing Zillow to sell the ad space on the websites of partner papers.
What does all this mean to you and your business?
Joe Ferrara rightfully wonders what the ROI will now be for the brokers advertising their homes on Zillow’s site. The purpose of placing a home on Zillow is to sell it by attracting eyeballs, not to provide a framework for Zillow to sell ad space around and lure those same eyeballs away.
This is an interesting move because it looks a whole lot like a content publisher’s business model… publishing content for the purpose of re-selling that content to others and selling ad-space around their (your?) content on it’s own site.
That right there should tick-off more than a few agents most likely. But, here’s how you may actually benefit…
Zillow is now able to sell online advertising space on the website’s of 282 newspapers… and not just in the real estate section. So, basically, you can target a demographic area (The East Vally Tribune) and the psychographic profile of a market (Health & Lifestyle section).
This could be a way to funnel leads into your pipeline… especially if you don’t advertise a home on these newspaper sites but, instead, advertise your service or an incentive.
Instead of saying:
“Check out this gorgeous 3600sq. home”
you can just as easily target the Technology section and promote
“Discover the top 10 high-tech gadgets for your next home.”
Send the clicks to your sign-up landing page to receive the report and now you have targeted traffic to nurture and drip on.
But, here’s the question regarding this “benefit”: are people actually reading newspapers online? Maybe in some markets.
So, it looks an awful lot like advertising brokers will get the shaft on Zillow’s own site but may be able to reap the benefits of targeted promotion on newspaper sites.
Does it bother you that Zillow would sell ad space around your listing? Do you see the online newspaper advertising working for you?
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Zillow is admittedly a media site which makes its business model what you suggest it is– a publisher's business model— get content to attract a lot of eyeballs & sell the eyes to advertisers. And if ad success (leading to more ad sales) is determined by ROI, that means it is achieved at the ROI expense of listing brokers. That's why real estate brokers dont run 3rd party ads on their sites. Brokers have been sold a bill of “distribution” goods to get their content to sell to 3rd parties & even to sell to the brokers themselves, via ads and featured listings.
One day, hopefully soon, real estate brokers who feed their content to sites like Zillow and Trulia will demand ROI stats and — what I'd love to see– a piece of the ad revenue pie for pulling eyeballs away from their content.
I have thought a lot about, Zillow, Truila, and the others. I'm going to push My MLS to be better. The reason is when someone goes to look to buy a home usually they know where the are moving. they do not need 3 million listings. They need local information and local listings. Recent studies have shown that the MLS has the best and most up to date listings. Have the mls idx feed through your site. let your people know that if they register with you they will get the new info way before these sites. Push the mls to make it a better search tool. We need to do a better job with our information then the zillows. You can ether let them market your info better than you or you can market your info better than anyone else. Will put my listings on their site yes but I want them to come to my site.
Hi Mark, it's David from Zillow -
A new study out today has an answer to your question about the value of listing on Zillow. According to this independent study, traffic from Zillow to brokers' websites converts better than that from the other sites. On average, the conversion rate of visitors from Zillow on a brokers' site was 2.5 that of the other sites in the study. Check it out: http://www.zillowblog.com/study-shows-traffic-f...
I'm not a Realtor, so take my op for the 2 cents it's worth, but I see nothing wrong with this model. Zillow goes out of biz unless they sell ads. David & Co learned from the .bomb 90's that VC only goes so far.
jf.sellsius - what? Dude, get real. Why would Zillow pay brokers for their “content”!? A Realtor's first and foremost job is to “market” the property. Zillow provides another platform for them to do so on (and for how much? Oh yeah, for free!) to an audience that might otherwise not have found the property.
David - Congrats. Suggestion: Post the study. 2nd Suggestion: On ZMM, add a mandatory borrower field: Are you just using ZMM to get quotes to leverage against your current lender? :o)
hey dave, thanks for contributing.
checked out the study and the rankings look well for you. out of curiosity, i'd be interested to know how the study was conducted: what was considered a lead, how folks were tracked, from where on the source site visitors clicked through, the value of the lead, etc. i imagine that'd only be available through the Threewide. I'm surprised that the variables taken into consideration weren't qualified in the study.
back to the topic at hand… will a similar survey be conducted once 3rd party ads are being run through zillow?
obviously, how the ads will all be implemented needs to be looked at. for some brokers it may make sense to roll with it, for others it's definitely an increased turn-off.
much agreed, jim. most mls have a long way to go to be search competitive. they mostly keep their tasks to simply “listing” homes rather than being a “search” provider. it'd be nice if they'd move more in that direction… everyone would be the happier, i know. (or at least function with the end user in mind)
as a business model, it's a proven winner. especially when you're not the content producer, you simply publish. not too difficult to see the profit margins can be dramatic this route.
the questions raised revolve more around whether or not the practice conflicts with broker interests… serving two masters often does.
@Jim Whatley “We need to do a better job with our information then the zillows. You can ether let them market your info better than you or you can market your info better than anyone else.”
You hit the nail on the head. Realtors have little pathetic idx solutions that do very basic searching and all look the same from one realtor website the next. The zillows or the world - and to an extent realtor dot com - have created better search solutions because they understand search…brokers don't understand search. Most of them wouldn't even know what to do with the data even if they got it. You're exactly right: we have to build better search solutions than the zillows…yes, little old broker me has to do a better job than zillow with its deep pockets and scores of developers. Pardon me, i've got to get back to developing!