Rightmove has responded to concerns about its new email lead mapping tool, emphasising that it does not give details as to specific seller or buyer leads, or which agents have been sent those leads.
One agent posted on Eye on Friday their concerns about the new tool.
The post said: “RM allows you to see where emails are sent from your competitors locally.
“Flip the coin RM is letting YOUR COMPETITORS know where your sellers are registered.”
We drew Rightmove’s attention to the post.
Yesterday evening Rightmove emphasised that the tool, used by account managers when they are with agents, simply displays ‘pins’ on a map showing where most searches are taking place.
It said the tool does show how many people are looking to move from one area into another and who could be buyers and/or sellers – but does not give further information.
Rightmove said that the tool is to help give agents a picture of all home-hunting activity taking place online in their local area.
A spokesperson yesterday evening emphasised to Eye: “We do not disclose any information about the queries that have been sent to agents. All leads are displayed as map pins to give agents an overall indication of home-hunter activity in the area.”
They also stressed that the tool, available as part of standard membership, was created in consultation with a number of agents “to ensure the data would add value to their business”.
The tailored maps plot all email leads that have been sent by home-movers via Rightmove in an agent’s chosen area, revealing both those people searching for a home nearby and those who may be relocating away from the area.
Rightmove said the purpose of the tool is to help agents find out if they are marketing in the right areas within their patch, and to indicate where they might find potential sellers who are relocating.
It said it is one of a number of innovations launched to help agents grow their business. While it is currently available for sales agents, it will also be rolled out for lettings agents within the coming months.
Rightmove’s agency director Alex Cubitt said: “We wanted to find a way of making the millions of leads we send to our customers every month even more useful, and the feedback we’ve had so far indicates that agents are finding it really valuable.
“Since we launched the tool we’ve had a number of cases where agents are altering their marketing both offline and online after taking advantage of this exclusive insight into local home-hunting activity.
“Each of our customers will find a way to use the insight that works best for their business, and anyone interested in trying it out can speak to their account manager to set up a review.”
There is a short video here
Comments (11)
Account Manager?
and in the real world?…. Sales Manager!
So you call up trying to ‘activate’ the feature but told you need to speak to an account manager.
Then told its a week until they can fit you in to run through it! (Glad my subscription fees mean i am a priority).
Asked can i not just use it now, told no needs to be run through with an account manager. Whats the guess when i speak with them i will be charged if i want more than 1 postcode!
Stats, Stats, Stats…. and more Stats!? Rightmove ANALysts!
and where is the Holy Grail of Stats Rightmove?….. all those member fees and still no viable Stat that qualifies BUYER, BROWSER, TIMEWASTER!… ah yes, the estate agents job!
So I’m clear here, you can keep releasing ever increasing ways of drilling down Stats in various business areas and you list properties along with other related/unrelated/competing services… you can’t give real buyer stats… and your USP is simply that your brand is the biggest and attracts the largest number of visits… for what?… ah yes…. properties!…. and these are your properties then?… no?!… no?!… gosh it seemed to me you had it all sewn up?…. but the thing that people visit your website for… properties!… estate agents place them there…. wow!…. seems your business is dependent on on those properties being advertised there?
I wonder what would happen if those estate agents advertised their properties on another portal instead… what’s that you say?… your stats still show that the public would still visit your portal as it is the No1 in the UK… so…. the public would keep visiting the No1 empty property portal shop…. that seems odd?… you’re saying the public wouldn’t go where all the property is being advertised?…. the public would just keep going to that big empty Rightmove Portal Shop?
Ah… you say you think your latest plan to make agents think you are really helping them will prevent them going anywhere else.. then later on having created the really helpul agent stat/lead feature premium thingy…. you will start charging them for it… that thing that you created…. that feature thingy?
Mmmmmn?!?…. all seems to good to be true Mr Rightmove… what’s that… oh yes, I will have a glass of your NEW Rightmove Water!…. lovely…. how much?… free?…. lovely…. and your stats say, best water ever, no better water available… and it’s in a Unique Raindrop Shaped Bottle….. amazing!… but you will be charging for it later on?…. really?!…. but it’s just water… ah, yes…. the Raindrop Shaped Bottle…. that’s amazing!… funny how packaging can make something look!
wilko – the traffic that RM generates are “your” buyers?? I think not.
Judging by this dig at me I can only think that you didn’t understand my post.
You are a pro agent so when a seller asks you “have you got any buyers looking in my area for my type of property” you reply;
“No, I don’t have any buyers but I’ll try and attract some for you?”!!!
I would suggest you would say; “I have many buyers looking for property like yours, and feel I could get a good price for you”?
But if you feel you need to buy data from RM to tell you where sellers and buyers have registered locally then perhaps I’m wrong….and you aren’t the pro agent, (who knows his patch) that I thought you were.
“It said it is one of a number of innovations”
An innovation?????? Since when has a pro agent needed to pay for data telling him where his/her buyers like to look!!!!!
Another classic example of how RM don’t know their customers needs.
This is typical white socks direct marketing, door to door knocking mentality. RM again show very little respect for their agents (their customers). If one was to accept all the hype of millions of hits etc on RM, why is that all the properties are not sold within hours and my/your telephone isn’t buzzing every single minute of the day from just a fraction of the stats. What this story does confirm is that RM DOES HAVE THE DATA that it can use as it pleases, even if they dodge the question.
Would be good actually if RM caught all the agents IP addresses, then they could show the real figures for visitors, surely 50% are agents checking and uploading, then another 30% are vendors and landlords checking their listing each day, leaving probably 10% for zoopla checking lol and 10% actual visitors looking for property. This would I know make their figures look poor but that’s more realistic.
I heard that if you ask to try it out, the Rightmove spies load a virus to your computers that permanently shows their soaring share price in the top corner of your screen, removes the colour purple entirely from the machine and displays yesterday’s unique page views across all 3 portals everytime you boot up!
Did you know it is possible to solve the exponential growth equations of both their share price and unique vistor numbers? Using the Ln (logarithm) function of a scientific calculator the subscriptions function is 1.o7 and uvn is 1.18! In laymans terms 7% compound on fees, 18% on unique visitors.
try it Ln £1000= 6.9 Ln 93,000,000= 18.34.
They are now funding space exploration in cahoots with Richard Branson. By 2021 the population of the inhabited universe will be smaller than the claimed unique vistors to Rightmove each year.
I had a demo of this the other day , I must say it actually looks pretty good. The only problem is the free for now price tag. Rightmove are like a street dealer , first one is always free