An agent says he was surprised to find these two Zoopla-sponsored adverts on his Facebook news feed.
One is for Express Estate Agency, looking for valuations.
The other is for Purplebricks, also looking for valuations.
Both appeared last week, the agent tells us. These are his screengrabs.
We have given Zoopla opportunity to comment.
Comments (10)
This is banner re-marketing – a new feature which Zoopla have rolled out. They’ll be appearing on google as well.
We’re piloting it to see how it compares to our other sources of leads.
The agent really needs to charge his phone.
When I saw this last week on my facebook fee I tweeted about it and within the hour Zoopla was on the phone offering me the same service, obviously I would have to pay for it. At 1st I was insulted that they could openly sponsor another agent, especially a call center one. The thinking about it, I realise that Supermarkets play the same game with their suppliers, i.e. pay us more and we will put you at eye level or have a display with 2 for 1 offer etc. However the one difference is Supermarkets pay the suppliers for their goods and together offer discounts. Zoopla on the other hand not only charges its suppliers, us, to display our goods but is now able to offer those with deeper pockets that eye level display. Just like featured properties, the more money you have for marketing, the better your properties will be displayed. I don’t see much wrong with this, there will never be a web portal that pays you to display your properties to the public as this type of model won’t work. Zoopla are a plc and have to up-sale everything and are very clever with the way they do this, hats off to them.
Sorry old chap, but are you really having a pop at a commercial organisation for charging for a service?
HarryN, sorry…did you read my last sentience. Whilst I do not appreciate and unfair playing field I do understand the rules of the game.
That made me laugh…
So what you are bascially saying is, you would rather offer your customers less options to advertise there property than giving them even more options then. Not a very good estate agent are you, clearly. As all Zoopla are doing here, is doing just the opposite. Offering there customers, more options. Choices, it’s quite simple.
Well cherry picked Rosalind. Very balanced. Again…PIE dies with OTM perhaps?
I think you will find that this is more to do with Zoopla offering Facebook as an advertising option to their customers. It is likely that they will be an authorised Facebook partner which will allow them to sell Facebook’s ad products.
The sponsored element is just the way the adverts appear to make the distinction that the advert is not from Zoopla directly.
This is clearly a deliberate bias on the part of this website to influence its readership and attack Zoopla.
The attempt at spin on the FT story today (that I have copied in full for the benefit of PIE readers at the bottom of that story) is shameful.
Come on guys – you can do better than this.