If you are forking out a small fortune each year in Google AdWords, then you may well be wondering if it is worth it? Well . . . 40% of the seven-figure spend by one agent, Express Estate Agency, when tracked, was found to result in no sales.
Express Estate Agency, which is not only online but specialises in quickly-completed sales on a ‘no sale, no fee’ basis, also uses Rightmove, Zoopla and Facebook, and claims to sell 300 properties a month.
It was approached by Google specialist Dream Agility to take part in a study on sales conversions where leads are generated online but completed offline.
This, obviously, makes successful sales hard to track back to their origins.
Dream Agility is trialling a new tracking tool aimed at helping businesses to know where their sales – not just the number of leads – are coming from, enabling them to make spending decisions based on actual revenues, not just the number of leads generated.
Until taking part in the trial, Express Estate Agency measured its marketing spending decisions about AdWords based on the number of online valuations generated.
In the trial – which took place over two months this summer – the total number of sales were tracked by keyword, search term, device type, and day of week and time of day.
The trial found that 40% of Express’s spend failed to generate a single sale, and 50% of offline sales driven by AdWords were from the second page of Google.
It also found that just five keywords were responsible for 10% of total AdWords transactions.
Director of the research, Dream Agility CTO Glyn Powditch, said: “The disconnect between online advertising, real-world customer engagement and the attribution of actual sales value back to the original advert, causes huge unnecessary cost.
“If looked at another way, there is a massive opportunity to plough investment into adverts that truly work to grow sales independently of property sites such as Zoopla and Rightmove.
“Other low-cost initiatives to attract customers directly include exploiting local media as part of an effective marketing strategy.
“Our study illustrates that, given the right information, seizing greater control of your advertising can reap huge financial rewards for property agents.”
Mark Brogan, director of Express Estate Agency, described the findings as “exciting”.
We asked Dream Agility if the findings could be applicable in the more usual estate agency sector, where both online and high street agents could use AdWords, but not have the added complication of being “quick sellers”.
A Dream Agility spokesperson said: “Our technology is applicable to all lead generation businesses large or small, short-sale or long-sale.
“We are arguing that we can provide the means for, in this case, an estate agent to simply record a precise value to a sales lead that ultimately ends in a successful transaction. Combined with business data held within our platform, this furnishes intelligence that is critical whatever the advertising budget.
“Something is generating the sales, but what? Which keywords brought about the transaction? Which advert, with what content, and in what location was responsible? Should more, or less, money have been spent to sell that property?
“These are the questions that, with our tracking pixel, we can put an answer to.”
The spokesperson also said that the firm will be doing trials of ‘what advertising really works’ among online agents.
Comments (14)
If done correctly Google Adwords is an exceptionally cost effective way of generating valuation and sales enquiries.
If done incorrectly it is exceptionally ineffective and costly.
If done correctly Google Adwords is an exceptionally cost effective way of generating valuation and sales enquiries.
If done incorrectly it is an exceptionally ineffective and costly.
The headline on this story is
Google AdWords cost this agent dearly – but is it delivering?
But the URL has a slightly different take:
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/google-adwords-cost-this-agent-millions-but-is-it-a-hoax/
Just saying……
They havent filed accounts since June 2015 (never a good sign to see accounts nearly 6 months late)- these showed a £65,000 loss on a turnover of nearly £7.6m. Yikes- no wonder they want to get a handle on their marketing spend! Their sales also dropped from around £9.7m to £7.6m 2014-15 if they have seen a similar downturn 2015-16 then there is some serious trouble ahead. Given their apparent size and yrunover, forst time Ive heard/come across them.
I’m looking forward to “Rummage4 AdWords”.
We won’t be doing adwords; to me that’s a bit like walking in front of a car with a red flag to prevent motorists suffocating above 5mph.
On Friday Peebee paid me £1 to put him on page 1 Google (as a test) this lot paid £11,780.82 but were nowhere to be seen. That makes the point; unless the £millions puts them everywhere, £4.3million put them somewhere but it was the wrong somewhere.
As the url in the address bar asks; “” ask Peebee!
“” = google-adwords-cost-this-agent-millions-but-is-it-a-hoax
(it looked like Eye was accepting screengrabs, they display but don’t post)
Why don’t you just ask your vendors and purchasers. It’s what we used to do.
….. why do we again use outside companies to give us alogarithm generated information from people that we have contact details for. No wonder we rely on Rightmove and Zoopla.
One for the techys this one, however, surely their sales leads are coming from portals not direct visitors to their site
your site is for selling your service nowadays – you’ve given the power to sell your stock to others
They have, according to Zoopla, 3216 listings as of me pressing ‘Post Comment’.
in the last 30 days, they have ‘listed’ 387.
Some might think that it looks like we’ve got another “We sell 126% of our stock two weeks before we even list it – we’re that chuffin’ brilliant” brigade spewing out their MDT in the hope that it sticks with someone… somewhere… some time…
WOW!!! 53% of their stock is “price reduced”…That’s high by anyone standards!
Don’t know about them specilising in selling property quickly….
Looks more like they specilise in reducing the price until it sells.
But what makes them different I hear you ask? – http://www.expressestateagency.co.uk/what-makes-us-different/
….The bile on that page is laugh out loud funny.
Financials not looking so hot either – https://www.endole.co.uk/company/07914454/express-estate-agency-limited
FYI – the 300 properties sold each month is a 2014 statistic.
Is this an advert for dream agility?
Wow. Express agency spend a lot and claim to sell 300 homes a month: