At the moment, Bob's table is nothing more than marketing claims made by portals. Claims that are not verified or substantiated in any way. For all we know the figures in the table could be complete fabrications. The facts are simple, most numbers presented in this table each month, when compared to independent third party measures, are grossly inflated. For example, in the latest comScore MediaMetrix report for November, the following UK only unique visitor figures were reported:

• Rightmove 3,009,000
• propertyfinder.com 1,168,000
• Findaproperty 1,128,000
• Primelocation 1,116,000

comScore tracks the actual internet usage of a panel of 25,000 web users across the UK. This panel is created to accurately reflect the UK population. It accurately tracks work and home usage and in our experience is extremely accurate at tracking traffic from UK based visitors.

Obviously these figures are substantially lower than the figures in Bob's column. So unless over 45% of Rightmove, Findaproperty and Primelocation's traffic comes from overseas visitors, which is highly unlikely based on our own experience, we have to question the validity of the numbers presented by Bob's comparison.

The position we put to Bob numerous times was that propertyfinder.com did not agree with his using information that was not verified and was therefore potentially misleading. We provided Bob with the comScore information on the UK market, however, he chose not to use it.

propertyfinder.com strongly supports the transparent reporting of traffic information to the industry, but does so using verified information. Should Bob choose to insist on a clear definition of the information he requires, and require that all informationbe verified by an independent third party, then propertyfinder.com would be happy to be a part of any industry comparisons.

Warren Bright

CEO

propertyfinder.com 

*This article appeared in the February 2007 edition of Estate Agency News. The article Warren Bright refers to can be seen below:

Major portals' traffic stabilises

THE traffic generated by the major property portal sites appears to have stabilised after five years of continuing increase — but the overall use is still massive and virtually every property for sale in the UK must be on one of the portals.

Since our last survey in the August edition, property numbers have gone up by some 60,000 or four per cent, with Prime Location increasing by the largest amount and Rightmove still increasing their already dominant numbers to just over 800,000.

There has also been quite an increase in overseas property numbers — now at over 150,000 between these four major portals.

In the main, the figures speak for themselves but there has been some rationalisation of the way the figures have been calculated and indeed in the structure of the sites, so the reports reflect these new structures.

Find a Property have totally revamped their site and the numbers reflect this, while Rightmove have changed the way they measure offices. Property Finder were not prepared to release their figures and so have been excluded from the table.

There is no doubt that Rightmove continue to be the major player and that the value of Fish4 is being questioned but Find a Property are expanding in the North at the moment and many agents are starting to re-evaluate Prime Location for their appropriate offices.

It will be interesting to see what impact the new ownership of Think Property has on the influence that they have and whether the other software suppliers will be prepared to co-operate with Vebra to facilitate uploads.

I am going to try to focus this quarter on probably the most important aspect of promoting properties through these major portals — the cost.

Rightmove have increased the actual monthly charge to agents — it is now £300 per office per month for offices outside the Central London area and £360 inside.

Prime Location are still more at £360 and £450 respectively while Find a Property are still offering flexible rates and Fish4 are staying with their pay per lead structure — £1 per e-mail and 30p per click-through.

It is not the actual cost per month that is the issue — more importantly it is the effectiveness of the portal at delivering value to your offices.

And value is not confined solely to the number of inquisitive buyers or renters.

It is important also to look at the role the portal plays in enabling you to get instructions and to manage your business.

As far as the the potential buyer/renter leads are concerned, you need to know the number of leads that come through to you.

The portals can provide these in terms of e-mails, clicks to your site (where applicable) and increasingly in direct telephone contacts to you from the dedicated numbers they provide on the sites.

All the major portals are now measuring these numbers, although Fish4 were not able to provide them to me in the timescale required for this article.

I can calculate the average number of leads per office — Find a Property and Rightmove lead the way at 106 and 105 respectively — but you need to do the calculation for your own offices using the actual data for them.

Once I have the number of leads it is simply a question of calculating the cost per lead. The average ranges from approximately £2 with Find a Property to £5 with Prime Location and £3 for Rightmove.

You will now have one factor for your own individual matrix.

On the question of instructions, do you measure how many you get as a result of your association with the portal — or even the converse: how many do you not get because you are not able to offer a particular site?

It may be that one portal is more relevant in one particular market. Rightmove have certainly achieved a high public awareness in the overall market but maybe Prime Location has an extra edge in the top end? You have to try to measure the results.

One of the important factors in your relationship with your portal is the way that you use the information they provide to give your office(s) a competitive edge.

The majority of offices may be members of Rightmove but very few actually use all the tools that they provide and so some can still gain an advantage by utilising all the facilities.

One of the most obvious ways that portal membership can be leveraged is actually when talking to clients and that comes down to the belief that the individuals in your organisation have in the benefits that accrue.

A friend of mine recently wanted to market her house and she told me of the different approaches from the valuers.

Some paid lip service to the fact that they advertised with ‘x’ and ‘y’ but others spoke sincerely of the benefits and the results that the office achieved.

Training and making sure that everyone in the office is aware of your net presence is absolutely vital.

Of course, there are sites other than the ones that provide me with the data and many of them may well provide value to your business.

The principles I have described above should help you to evaluate them.

Bob North, Estate Agency News, December 2006 / January 2007