Hostilities show no sign of a ceasefire between Zoopla and OnTheMarket.
Zoopla has hit out angrily at OTM boss Ian Springett’s latest update to members in which he announced the site’s millionth unique visitor and queried Zoopla’s own inventory.
Springett said he stands by what he has said.
Lawrence Hall, head of communications at Zoopla Property Group, said: “Whilst we have no desire to see an escalating war of words with OTM, we feel compelled to respond to some of the recent claims made by Ian Springett, which are simply not based on fact.
“As we have said before, we are a data-driven business and will let the numbers do the talking rather than making unsubstantiated claims and promises.
“OTM seems intent on ‘going after’ ZPG as is clear from Mr Springett’s statement.
“It is a curious strategy, given that ZPG has clearly built one of the largest audiences of property consumers in the UK, with over 20% of all online property eyeballs, and is widely recognised by most agents as their most cost-effective marketing channel.
“This strategy appears to be borne out of frustration at the lack of impact that OTM is having with consumers and lack of results it is getting for its members.
“Our mission is, and has always been, to be the most effective marketing partner for our members. We deliver exceptional value to our member agents and continue to support the industry in many ways.
“Our business depends on the provision of value to our members instead of forcing them to contract for extended periods and doing so exclusively.
“We will continue to do what we do best which is to provide innovative and market-leading tools for both consumers and agents. Our members are enjoying record levels of exposure, enquiries, instructions and value from us.
“At the end of the day, we are a marketing channel and one of the most effective ones out there.
“We provide agents with exposure to and enquiries from consumers. That is essentially what they pay us, or any other portal, for.
“Until OTM can match our audience then they are doing their members a disservice by not allowing them to advertise freely with others.
“The overwhelming majority of agents value our services, continue to list with us and recognise that we are working for them not against them.
“Some have left to trial OTM and we expect that many will return in due course as they recognise the value they have given up and that the OTM strategy is flawed. This is happening already.
“Our door remains open to members who are concerned and disappointed by OTM’s strategy and choose to return to something that clearly delivers.”
Hall’s statement of nearly 1,000 words went on:
“Dealing specifically with some of the recent claims, we feel it is important for agents to make decisions based on facts and not information that is either blatantly false or designed to mislead:
- OTM claims its millionth unique visitor – there is no source for this data to substantiate this claim and whilst OTM claims Hitwise data to be incorrect, it is the most widely recognised and used metric for internet businesses. Hitwise may not be 100% accurate but it is not far off. OTM may have recorded its 1 millionth visit but that is wildly different to its claim of unique visitors which is either misunderstood or deliberately intended to mislead. OTM’s unique visitors are likely around 20% of that figure. The Hitwise data would suggest that they meant visits and not unique visitors and on this basis, OTM has achieved the same audience in the last 3 weeks that ZPG gets in less than a day.
- OTM claims that its purpose is to offer a better cost alternative to existing portals, which it says are expensive. That simply cannot be the case since any agent who has left ZPG for OTM has traded their highly efficient marketing spend for an alternative delivering a fraction of the return. OTM would need to grow to around 50x its current audience size to deliver the same value as ZPG does today. You can’t really have it both ways – if we are expensive, then OTM must be exorbitant since it charges similar fees but delivers a fraction of the value.
- OTM claims that ZPG is not agent-friendly as a result of its valuation tool and various other consumer-friendly features. Firstly, we make clear that we only provide estimates of value and consumers should contact local agents for an accurate valuation. In fact, this tool is designed specifically to drive appraisal leads and instructions and does this incredibly effectively, delivering over 26,545 appraisal leads to our members in January alone. As for our other features, these are again all designed to enhance engagement and efficiency to the benefit of our member agents.
“We look closely at the value proposition we offer and that of our competitors and how we can help our members. OTM agents are likely to not be aware of the level of cannibalisation that is already clear from the data. It shows that much of the traffic to OTM so far is actually at the expense of its members with 97% of OTM non-brand natural search traffic so far coming from agent brand terms versus only 1% for ZPG.
“Agents are linking to OTM in an SEO-friendly way but the links back to the agents’ sites have been set up to provide no value back.
“So by branding branch windows and press ads and handing SEO juice to OTM, agents are now both leaking traffic to their competitors and paying OTM for exposure and leads that they were previously getting directly and free.
“And finally, the latest Hitwise data shows that far from catching Zoopla and Rightmove, OTM has not yet managed on any day since its launch to reach even a fraction of the traffic of PrimeLocation.
“As Mr Springett noted in his statement, the OTM TV ad will have aired over 3,000 times in February alone, so this must be very disappointing given the large TV and print marketing spend.
“It is clearly still early days but it is important for the facts to be known so that agents can make informed decisions that are in their best interests not the interests of others.”
* Ian Springett responded: “We stand by every figure we have previously stated and there is no question that on Saturday we welcomed our one millionth unique user to OnTheMarket.com
“What’s more, our momentum is continuing to grow as our membership base expands along with consumer traffic.
“We reiterate that we are confident in becoming the number two portal within a year.”
Comments (89)
If you are, as you say, a dyslexia sufferer, then I naturally apologise to you for any offence caused to you – or for that matter to any other dyslexic person – in that respect I don’t need you to apologise for me.
I can comfortably state I have no issues, especially with your condition. It affects my life also – but in a different way.
Furthermore, you can “expect” what you like about me – the simple fact of course is you do not know me therefore your expectations have no ground whatsoever. They will no doubt remain – I certainly don’t expect to change your view.
On the subject of expectations – I sincerely doubt that you would expect to enter a room full of lions and proceed to smack them on their noses with a sirloin steak and live to tell the tale – so why expect to chuck insults into the room aimed at pretty much everyone and get away with it scot free?
We, as Agents, have to put up with our own fair share of morons – including of course those who care to question our intelligence without knowing anything about us.
Like you – we put up with it – the difference however is that we made a choice to do what we do and be who we are – you had no such choice with regard to your condition but have also made yourself who you are.
“…beleive thay… …estate egents… sucessful… Agents are the not the brightest sparks”
Maybe they aren’t – maybe they don’t profess to be.
But usually they have at least a basic grasp of spelling and grammar. What’s your excuse?
I am chronically dyslexic and have been since a child….. so apologies for my spelling and grammar, and I apologise to others for PeeBee’s attitude, I expect he was a bully and has some issues (I’ve faced morons like this all my life)…… its about the debate, not spelling
why do OTM beleive thay can compete? Mouseprice offers free listing has 90% (substantially more that OTM) of the market listed and only get 1.4m visits a month!……you lot are in cloud cuckoo land, its just all about agents trying to protect their little world….. and prevent buyers having knowledge….. (oh by the way RM was created in exactly the same way…. by estate egents, careful what you wish for!)
Just to add:
“Rightmove.co.uk was started in 2000 by the top four corporate estate agencies at the time: Countrywide, Connells, Halifax and Royal and Sun Alliance. The website was initially free to list with charging introduced in January 2002”
If OTM does become sucessful why do you lot think this will be any different? Agents are the not the brightest sparks
Comedy Gold! Half term week means not paying full attention to PIE but catching up, deep in this thread is simply the funniest poster spat I have seen in a long time. Forget ‘comment of the week’ how about ‘Handbag spat of the week’?
Hi, this is a message to PIE.
Whilst we all enjoy reading your stories; can I ask that maybe for just one day we can have a different headline story than something to do with OTM, which is what it seems to have all been about for the last month. There are some other very interesting things happening apart from portal news zzzzzzzz.
Hi this is a message to ‘DG’
EYE posted NINE articles for our digestion this morning – ONLY ONE of them (that would be this one – the only one of the day that you have elected to post on…) has anything whatsoever to do with OnTheMarket… and it is an article concerning ZOOPLAs head of b1tching and ******** waving the company w1lly in the faces of their ex-customers because they decided the product wasn’t worth sticking with.
Try ‘the other’ news site – JUST AS MANY articles with AM/OTM as the subject – but you’ve got to fight through the anti-Agent MDT stories to find them.
Don’t suppose there’d be any chance of a comment on one of the other “very interesting things happening apart from portal news zzzzzzzz”?
You’ve got EIGHT to choose from…
Love the BOLD type
I’ll take that as a no, then.
Are you able to name two other interesting things that are happening relevant to PIE’s audience?
Great news for OTM to see the Hoopla boys trying to make a fight of it. AS my broker keeps telling me I imagine they must be a sell, not buy. Anyone for some nice cheap Aussie mining shares?
Old school **** wafting and mildly amusing but odd that the Zoopla chap has bothered to even unzip / enter the contest, a dignified silence would have been wise? – Jonnie
Give it up Lawrence, you are beginning to sound too much like Baghdad Bob!
“Your information is correct, but your interpretations are not”
More like any Onliner wanting to make a meaningless statistic mean something, Tike Nick… ;o)
For me the fundamental flaw still remains – surely RM are the true enemy; they charge around twice as much as Z and OTM, are more arrogant and inflexible than Z and are less ‘agent-friendly’ (in my experience) than Z. Yet if anything this whole Agents Mutual project is strengthening RM’s grip of control over agents by weakening the strong number 2 and therefore eroding what few checks and balances were in place. Even if OTM overtakes Zoopla traffic wise (which in my opinion will never happen) it will be a weaker number 2 than Z was pre-OTM. All this whilst at the same time projecting the image that High Street Agents are only interested in protecting their bottom line and not providing the highest levels of exposure available to them. This short-sighted and ill conceived behaviour from the member agents of OTM (whilst I understand their motivation) I believe will put all agents more at the mercy of RM and it’s shareholders than ever before. The only possible scenario which would benefit agents long term would be if OTM were to overtake RM as number 1…but I think we all know that’s not going to happen. I realise this will be an unpopular opinion and I have purposely tried to keep my thoughts to myself in recent months (due to popular demand!) but I’m afraid my exasperation has compelled me to rant once more.
Rivero – “For me the fundamental flaw still remains – surely RM are the true enemy…”
Yes but go back a long, long way and you will see that I was saying (and I’m not claiming to be the originator of the thought…) that Agents over the years have joined RM for many reasons – but fundamentally peer pressure… and then FEAR pressure has kept them on it.
And THAT is what has kept the majority on it now. The ‘what if…? factor’
Will that change? Answers, on a postcard, please…
OTM has already failed in my opinion by virtue of the insignificant volume of churn from RM. Everyone talks tough on here, has dumped the 2nd portal which most proclaim was not valuable to them anyway but continues to support the main source of everyone’s resentment…it’s ridiculous.
I’m with you on this one Rivero, they all should of dropped RM or both. No nuts
Success for Zoopla is No2… only because their strategy involves stock market performance and shareholder profit so they settle as No2 of 2?…. when agents don’t actually need a No2 as Zoopla don’t challenge Rightmove, that’s why they remain No2. The fallacy is that the portals rule with traffic, visitors etc….. convenient myth for the portal sellers! Does any real UK Estate Agent believe that if the UK Housing Stock is moved from existing portals to OnTheMarket.com…. that the public won’t follow the housing stock?….. Marks & Spencer once ruled the mainstream High Street…. not any more… the idea that Rightmove, on which UK Estate Agents advertise as part of their marketing, will always rule the UK Portal Market?….. it’s a convenient and easy future to project….. however the arrival of OTM has already signalled change….. the only real question is whether the UK Estate Agency Industry wants to be dictated to by the Service Provider that is Rightmove & Co or simply advertise via their own National Portal which is OnTheMarket. I’m sure the UK Estate Agency wants to get back to Online Advertising being a service that we select as part of our marketing strategy and not the magical portal nonsense that is pedalled by Rightmove & Zoopla who in fact are really serving themselves. Rightmove & Zoopla are the Portal Cafeteria where the customer arrives and takes what they are given knowing that next year it will be more expensive….. rather like the UK Rail Industry that kerps sh@fting the UK Rail Commuters annually! If OnTheMarket fails then UK Estate Agency can look forward to serving their portal masters as they grow ever fatter on their success at hoodwinking our Industry into believing that the only Portal Choice or Service is the one that they offer!….. and if that is the case there should only be 2 UK Estate Agents to choose from if we modrl our business on theirs. The competition in our industry should be between the agents with portals providing advertising and NOT dictating the direction of our businesses!
“Does any real UK Estate Agent believe that if the UK Housing Stock is moved from existing portals to OnTheMarket.com…. that the public won’t follow the housing stock?” Well this is all well and good but next to nobody IS removing their stock from RM are they?
Rivero… one portal at a time unfortunately… as long as OnTheMarket doesn’t settle for No2 spot we will get to Rightmove… I would have been delighted to shortcut to No1 however I accept that many needed to see the launch & growth. In the area I work…. Zoopla is a ghostland for property!… so not worth looking at….. it shows what happens when agents dump a non-performing portal.
Actually, how much are you paying for software? At least the duopoly give a return for your spend.
And there is my answer.
Another non-estate agent…. does it hurt that you can’t be a real estate agent….. just a virtual one….. all alone with your hits & bytes?
Zoopla? That’s a long statement against a company that you don’t consider a competitor? My company left Zoopla because No2 Portal is a waste of money!….. it is that simple. No statements from Rightmove against OnTheMarket.com and virtually no mention of them at a recent Rightmove seminar…. why?….. because No1 Portal is pole position! I’ve stated repeatedly on here I dumped Zoopla as I don’t need No1 & No 2 Portals….. why settle for advertising with the No2 Portal as well?….. commercial nonsense. Yes, Rightmove is the winner for now and Zoopla are spiralling to the ground trailing words which mean nothing….. because they are No2. We are with OnTheMarket.com with the intention of taking No1 Portal position…. anything less will be pointless as we have already seen that Rightmove dismisses any competitor from their lofty No1 position!….. which UK Estate Agents put them in! Sorry, Zoopla….. years at No2 count for nothing in my view. OnTheMarket.com will only be a real success if it secures No1 Portal position…. and I am prepared to dig in for 5 Years or more if it takes that long…. when offered the opportunity to dump Zoopla for OTM I didn’t hesitate!…. the only gamble I made was that UK Estate Agency cares enough about its industry and not just with individual firms & agendas…. so far, there is clear evidence that we do…. as OTM grows…. I hope that we succeed because the impact of failure on the future direction of our industry will be lifechanging. Zoopla accepted failure, why should we? The lesson learned from Rightmove is the best position is No1…. it’s where OTM must go!
You left Zoopla? You didn’t mention that you left Zoopla. When did you leave Zoopla? It went unnoticed that you left Zoopla. Are you still on Zoopla? What about Zoopla? Zoopla.
Are you Alex Chesterman? I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed someone as obsessed with Zoopla as you, GPL.
Your vendors must be delighted how aware of Zoopla you are, how interested in Zoopla you are, how much time you spend thinking about Zoopla, but not putting their propertys on it.
Did someone from Zoopla hurt you?
Tiresome DE, very tiresome! Pick up your Dummy and shove it back in where it belongs.
Jesus wept GPL, give it a rest. I genuinely think I would need to drink 17 cans of out of date Skol and eat an e-coli infested curry to produce as much sh1te as you.
Disillusioned?…..I will think of you when I w:p^ my @rs*.
……………Which one?
It’s concerning that you care.
They have got a point, you mentioned Zoopla 8 times in that ,what can only be described as a rant. Also a lot of times of this publication people including yourself have said “if zooplas so good why don’t you keep it to yourselves and mop up the instructions” same can be applied to ” if Zoopla is so bad why don’t you let your competitors waste their cash “. Truth is I know wher my business come a from down to each instruction and lead source . I’m averaging 80 leads a month from Zoopla per office and they result in 34% of my completions so far this year . Not trying to persuade anybody to do anything , just stating fact . It’s also fact that if you didn’t measure properly you won’t have a clue what impact dropping any form of your marketing will have
Danny rhymes with f-:/y…… good luck with Zoopla.
Is that a serious reply or have you let one of your kids have your iPad . A slightly more grown up insult would have new along the lines of GPL isn’t an anagram of “massiveb@llend” I would have gone with something like that
…. are you having a rant?
Question for GPL – who do you care most about? 1) your Client, 2) your Business, or 3) your Industry?
What answer are you looking for harry hood? What would yours be….don’t tell me number 1!!
Yet another new poster on an OTM related thread, what are the chances?
if you have to ask HH then you clearly don’t understand my profession…. that’s the interesting point on this forum…. so many folk that are not estate agents chipping in their tuppence worth about something they have actually never done…. let’s first establish your credentials, experience and whether you are worthy of an answer? Go ahead…. I’m listening….
There’s now even the threat of ‘smacking’ someone, according to a comment above! Crazy.
Come on guys and girls, this is the one thing that requires us agents to come together for once, no wonder ‘some’ of the public have such a poor perception of the property industry. Press releases from all portals will continue to come through, that’s natural and unstoppable. What you can control is your future spend on marketing, we are businesses (as well as agents). We all took risks when we opened and this is a relatively small one in comparison.
How many hits did Zoopla get in its first month or any other Portal?
Pretty much immaterial Herb, they didnt charge me or ask for a 5 year contract…. Its like saying how many users did google have on day 1… then i try and negotiate my ad spend based on that figure
Here come another 4000 ‘unique?’ hits to another OTM/Z story from Rosalind.
Now how do you classify ‘unique’ again……………………..
The reason why OTM has been the success it has been is because of the two portal rule, and already it has made enrodes in breaking the current Duopoly. That is the key to its success. In my opinion OTM has attracted the quality of brands and brands I am happy to be associated with and that will be the key to its future. Customers and clients also want to be associated with a quality product they can trust and no doubt OTM could not be better placed for that trust. I think in another six months we will see RM getting increasingly worried about retaining the stickyness of loyalty of its remaining high street agents. Unjustifiable annual fee hikes will continue to undermine RM long term future and will increase the anger amongst its remaining members for being loyal.
Yorkshire Agent I believe that your 6 months prediction may well be the watershed.
In 6 months agents will be either flocking back to or away from Z.
However I do not think a 6 months timescale will have much effect on RM in the vast majority of areas. OTM has made its long term aim much harder by actually strengthening RM at the expense of Z.
If RM was ever in the position that it felt threatened by OTM its easiest option would be to freeze rates to pacify agaents. That is your biggest gripe is it not?
And if the OTM membership increases will they REDUCE fees? Or spend more of the budget on Country Life to massage the ego’s of your top end vendors/clients (somewhere I don’t ever wish to see my hard earned readies disappear too.)
An interesting 6 months ahead before the waters clear methinks
“In 6 months agents will be either flocking back to or away from Z.”
Why on earth would any OTM agent go back to Zoopla after the way it’s treated it’s former paying customers?
The same reason agents stayed with Rightmove. Higher cost but higher/better leads.
Of course RM didn’t 1)right to my clients saying that I should use an agent on Zoopla because i’m not 2)get involved in a touting campaign 3) Come out with fudged figures/press releases 4)oh i’ll stop at 3 the list is endless.
Zoopla have lost, who in their right mind would now go back.
Another reason for OTM’s success to date might very well be that agents are heavily promoting it.
Heavily promoting it – JUST A BIT!! Its embarrassing, if only some of these businesses actually promoted themselves in the way they’ve allowed themselves to promote OTM, they’d be doing very well. Promote your own brand and website, not something that you are getting charged for. Some agents need to take a long look in the mirror and stop behaving like sheep. The combined cost of portals is still significantly less than what they were feeding to the local press and just repeating what they’ve always done.
The timing for this post would have been just right before RM and Findaproperty launched. It’s too late now, so agents must at least try to undo the harm that has been done – and that starts by removing the promotion of RM and Z and replacing it with OTM promotion.
I think that Zoopla are being a bit naive if they think we accept that statement. It shows how out of touch they are with agents and consumers.
while it makes some good argumentswith some facts and figure the truth remainsnthat we have been fed their friendly, self promoting facts for years.
As as an agent and business owner I can tell you I accept that their maybe some question mark on OTMs stats but I would rather have theirs lies than listen to any more of yours.
Pot out calling kettle black I would say is the most appropriate thing here.
for the record I’m not a OTM agent but have recently left Zoopla because I feel that their consumer tools are highly managing to an agent and my values are always having to do battle with their misleading information to sellers.
Consumer tools are highly Damaging to an agent.
Sorry typing in a rush. business calls
I’m left scratching my head – wasn’t the main purpose of OTM to challenge both Rightmove and Zoopla – this hasn’t done that as far as Rightmove are concerned and if anything you’ve played straight into their hands so you’ve just given them full permission to charge you what they want because you don’t have the guts to really challenge them however you’re letting Springett play out his pathetic fight with ZPG. This will all end in tears
It’s clear to just about everyone now it seems that the idea is to position as no 2 then push for the summit. There is risk, but less than doing nothing at all- or are you happy with a choice of 2 for all time? If you’re not feeling it now, give it a further 10 years unchallenged……by which time it’s too late. Pretty obvious stuff I have to say.
I totally support the notion that both Rightmove and Zoopla have got too big for themselves and the profit margin that Rightmove has, shows that if they wanted to cut agents some slack they could of done especially in the recessionary period when life was very miserable and not compounded by how Rightmove behaved. Zoopla were actually very good during that period, however Rightmove have held their nerve and are now re-enforcing their market dominance which is fair play to them – most agents would do the same if they could.
I don’t believe that 3 portals is in the interest of the consumer, they aren’t interested in how much agents are paying for the subscription, however they expect within the handsome fee that they pay the agent that they will promote their property on the best site that will attract buyers.
On the market will not deliver this any time soon and therefore its not in the vendors best interests and this is being driven by the agents beef with the portals. Are the agents dropping their fees, of course not, they rely on the portals for sales and therefore its better to have Rightmove and Zoopla on side rather than then opening themselves up to being an actual online estate agency.
Actually I think you are completely wrong: I don’t believe that two IDENTICAL portals are in the interest of the consumer, especially when one of those is specifically designed merely to attract visits and its functionality positively works AGAINST sellers. With OTM and RM you have a much better balance, you have RM for the volume and OTM for the style and classy feel, that doesn’t mean to say I don’t want to see RM’s dominance marginalised somewhat, but theres time for that, in the meantime however OTM IS really working in my area, the sellers LOVE IT! More importantly however is gives depth to the marketing of a property and as agents that’s what we look for our marketing to do.
I agree it’s playing into right moves hands but disagree people ddidnt have the guts. It’s. More a case that the strategy OTM has adopted is heavily flawed.
That being said the end result will as above all end in tears.. OTM have signed the death warrant of Zoopla but the slow process will see the. Re coup and come back and bite us all.
Was that an actual press release that used the phrase “at the end of the day…”?
This public squabbling reminds me of two inarticulate internet trolls arguing in the comments section of a Daily Mail story.
As usual, the only people looking good through this is Rightmove.
Zoopla said on Thursday 29th January…”OnThe Market achieved only 6000 HITS/VISIT on Wednesday 28th January”
Zoopla said on Thursday 19th February…” OnTheMarket may have recorded it’s one millionth VISIT”
It appears that Zoopla are a little dazed and confused?!
Blah, blah, blah, who cares….did anyone watch East Enders last night? now thats real drama.
It’s certainly seems to be the ONLY news you’ve been concentrating on all week judging by your incessant Tw@ttering… while the rest of the Estate Agency world has been out earning their fees.
Love that music lol
You are so gonna get a smacking one day Peebs! wouldn’t be surprised if someone like Phil here doesn’t track you down and fill you in.
Oh Brother! maybe I’ll be the one getting filled in!
There were rumours Lucy’s letting agency had become an OTM agent and you were high up on the list of suspects Gecko!
Mr Hall says ” Our mission is, and has always been, to be the most effective marketing partner for our members. We deliver exceptional value to our member agents and continue to support the industry in many ways.”
Would Mr Hall like to explain how following on from their openly aggressive tactic of mailing “Dear Householder” Zoopla are now reportedly looking to collect even more detailed data from the remaining agents who list with them through the real time data feed that is being developed.
Will the mailings to vendors be more effective if they are personally addressed to the vendor rather than Homowner? Will the marketing be more effective if the mailings for say financial services are coming from Zoopla rather than the FS departments of agents?
Is providing, albeit flawed, advice on value and open source access to comparable data to all and sundry really beneficial to those agents who provide the data to a trusted and supposedly fiduciary service provider?
Sorry Mr Hall but from where I am sitting Zoopla are doing little to support its member firms and this escalating war of words is a symptom of how little respect for, empathy with or understanding of your paying customers Zoopla actually have.
I know it is a bit touchy to mention print and digital in the same sentence but if someone stopped to think how A&N media offered a full service solution to the property industry it would become blatantly obvious how damaging having a spoilt child in the family is to the group. How in under 3 years the popularity and respect for Northcliffe , Primelocation and Findaproperty has been evaporated to the depths of this news story is simply beyond corporate incompetence.
The man doth protest too much methinks.
I agree. ‘We don’t want to inflame but here’s a 1000 words including some unsubstantiated claims of our own’. Quantify and name those agents returning at least Lauro….
If all OTM agents (plus staff) use the site – say 5,000 members x 3 unique machines (average) x 4 members of staff = 60,000 of the one million. Not great numbers! each device connected to the internet has an individual ID.
Come on Peebee get up! If ever there was an example to make the point I was trying to get over to you about hits and page views here it is. This is almost word for word what I was saying on EAT in Spring 2012. Rightmove and Zoopla are committed to this strategy of KNC numbers.
Less than 2% of the population move home each year yet according to Rightmove and Zoopla 144% of the population of the UK are trawling through property websites every month. AM do not have to play this stupid numbers game- tell it as it is then your dissenters are left standing trying to justify their meaningless, random somethings to the few in the crowd who still think the King is looking mighty fine in his new frock!
As I have said previously, take RMs target CTR……. 5% and above is considered good! The reason as they once said to me is “95% of its users are not serious buyers”.
I mean a 5% conversion target, imagine in all other areas of our business if this was our target! 100 valuations with 5 listings being acceptable and 6 better than expected!
I keep saying to Harree about the ridiculous suggestion selling the concept of 40 million Z hits on a valuation means anything…… owners prefer realistic numbers and ones they can relate to and actually believe, so 1 million -v- 40 million for instance! How many out of these numbers were buying.
Load of tosh and to suggest displaying logos is counter productive YES it is true this does send leads to a competitor property potentially BUT hold on, for how long have Z and RM had logos displayed by agents and pushed their logos in front of agents to display them.
“…owners prefer realistic numbers and ones they can relate to and actually believe, so 1 million -v- 40 million for instance! How many out of these numbers were buying.”
You cut your sentence short, Ric – unfortunately missing out three completely vital words. Allow me, if I may…
“How many out of these numbers were buying IN THAT STREET.”
That is the reality – a reality which I quote pretty much daily.
Hi PeeBee.
Completely agree.
Hi Ric, matey!
Just one question – are you completely agreeing because I’ve ‘come out’ – or just because I’m actually right?
;o)
If I understand you correctly I agreed because you took the statement of “How many of these were buyers” even further to “buying in that street” when I can go further and say “were even buying your type of house” not all streets have the same property type and price brackets, so further still the larges numbers mean bu99er all to me and most people I sit in front of.
How many times do we get asked on valuations “Do you have people registered for property like mine?” and the answer turns into a mini debate on “yes I have hundreds if not thousands registered” but about 3 to 6 perhaps who are likely to view immediately.
I often say on a valuation as an example I have people who have said they want a 3 bed semi on Acacia avenue with a conservatory and have £200k to spend, yet if I put a 3 bed semi on the market on Acacia Avenue with a conservatory and for £190,000 they would still not view, as more often than not the mailing list (mine is) is at least half full of “might moves” or “like to receive emails from me” without much intention of actually moving.
I am less harsh with these people now as emails cost nothing and phone calls much less, but in the day of having to mail out via the post and expensive non inclusive phone call deals, I would have had half the mailing list I have today.
So I think (as you can sometimes say/write the easiest things in code) I agree because you seemed correct…… as for “coming out” sorry I don’t follow what you mean? (I am being thick)
I was only messing with you Ric, matey… at one time we agreed on so many matters that I honestly thought I was you, just posting under another name! ;o)
Then AM/OTM came along and we began to differ in opinion. A lot. Either you/I/we were having bipolar episodes – or we are/were different people after all.
But I think it was Paul H a week or so ago that said I would get more ‘Likes’ from now on… apparently donning the shiny Gold Members badge; sticking a target or two in the window and all that palaver makes people forget that they’d have been drumming on the ‘Dislike’ button like a demented Duracell Bunny at pretty much every word I typed all of 2014 had it been an available feature… ;o)
Do I REALLY write in code? Or is it just that people always LOOK for hidden meaning because of an even more hidden agenda?
WYSIWYG, Ric. I hope you know from over the years I don’t wrap **** up in Christmas paper and try to pass it off as a pretty parcel! ;o)
Woop Woop PeeBee! Good on you.
I’ve been away for 10 days sunning myself, so a touch out of the loop…. great news you have joined absolutely brilliant.
No you don’t wrap things up, occasionally I perhaps do not go back to the beginning of threads and jump straight in on the comment which I read….. But with the above “coming out” I really had no idea what you meant, but I get it now.
I think like you say over the years we seem to have agreed on the whole, OTM I would like to think was not so much an area of complete disagreement as my argument has been different to most on here, ie not dropping one for the other but simply adding one to hope one day it will replace the other. Old ground but I only need to be on one good national portal and I would much rather it be OTM.
Incidentally my RM rep is due in next week.. not been to see me for about a year but now wants to chat…. I guess its my annual rate reduction for supporting them.
Genuinely glad you are on board, but no doubt like me, you will just be cracking on with it now and getting on with the job at hand, list list list so we can sell sell sell.
I am sure we will have a disagreement at some point in the future, but it seems on the whole our understanding of the basics are the same…
WOOP WOOP again!
“Robert May – 8.02am – Come on Peebee get up!”
I was up Sir – look above and you will see that I gave ‘badger’ a response at 7.49! ;o)
I need my ‘EYE-fix’ every morning – it’s a meal replacement.
Breakfast if for wimps – ain’t that right, Gecko…?
deliberately avoiding a Peebeeing though?
Benay – how very dare you suggest anything of the such-which… ;o)
He countered your life story with war and peace at 7 this morning!
I know, Benay – however I assume that it was this thread he was asking me to “wake up” to… which I already had.
I’ve since responded also to his post on the other thread. It is a huge pity that the subject thread will (or already has, for that matter) drop off the radar and be lost.
Mind you – thanks to your post here I’m happy to discover that there appears to be at least THREE people still reading it… ;o)
I look at OTM – during my day I will start with my home pc, move to my office pc, search with either my ipad mini, or ipad air. Plus I could use my iphone. So I am “five” of the million.
Yes, ‘badger’ – that is absolutely correct.
Then you will do exactly the same to RM & Z as you, I and all on your list below and more have been doing for years… and thus skewing THEIR figures in the same way.
What goes round, comes round.
The reality with the RMV and Z figures is they don’t differentiate between the agents constantly monitoring the market to tout for stock, further slewing the stats. Anyone would think the Springett and Zoopla/Primelocation had a history. He must make sure not to be drawn into a slanging match, and be a proper business head and deliver shareholder returns for HIS investors.
Poopla and OnTheMarket? Sod that. What about Bobby Beale!!
I ‘dog my hat to whoever create this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhPsWKlAnh0