Poll Results: Leads, Not Uniques
December 3, 2009 by Alice Allan
After discussing the importance of lead measurement recently, propertyportalwatch.com asked readers what they see as the most important measure for a property portal.
The results are now in, and we found an overwhelming number of readers – 67 percent in fact – think the number of leads generated by a property portal is its most important measure.
The second most popular measure, albeit with just 13 percent of the votes, was the number of unique visitors a portal sees each month. The number of listings on a portal, the number of agent members and subscribers it has, and its number of page views, all attracted less than 10 percent of the votes.
While leads are clearly seen as the most important factor, it seems property portals still see unique visitors numbers as a vital measure of performance. The battle between the UK’s Digital Property Group portals and zoopla.co.uk rages on, while in the US, Australia, and Europe, leading property portals will consistently point to high unique user numbers to promote their dominance, often leaving out any reference to the number of leads they generate.
As Simon Baker pointed out in his article, the issue of measuring telephone leads can be problematic, particularly when phone numbers and open house times are listed on a portal and house hunters can simply jot down the details and turn up.
While there are plenty of examples of portals that skip over the issue of lead measurement, there are some, such as Dutch market leader funda.nl, which are focusing on ways to track the number of leads they are generating for their agents. Portuguese portal casa.sapo.pt recently touted its record of 51,500 leads generated in September, and US search engine trulia.com has been named “number one lead provider” by its partner, ListHub.
It’s definitely a slow process, but perhaps the tide is slowly turning as property portals realise unique visitor numbers are not the only measure of success.
What are your property portal predictions for 2009? Visit propertyportalwatch.com’s homepage to take our latest poll. You can also have your say below, or join our forum.
[Image: greek-language-lessons.co.uk]
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Engagement is worth a lot more than people just looking. I think the ratio would have favoured leads further should the definition of “important” been made clearer.
It depends on your position and strategy as to which holds the most importance and when so this is a difficult argument. The true important figure would be the conversion rates from uniques to the desired action “leads” and it is that number that should have the attention. Unfortunately, as you point out consistency AND reliability need to improve in respect of measurement of those actions before you could comfortable compare the two.
Of course leads are more important – because they are more valuable. A lead (phone call or email) is one step closer to a deal. RentLinx has always measured leads generated. We post them on our home page: 10,446 in the past 30 days. (And, we measure phone leads too.)
Yes leads should be the main thing. But Visits and UV give agents an idea of scale…. but, as we have seen recently, sites can be fairly creative in reporting.
Funniest I have seen in a while:
Visits + UV = Visitors and report that to the market as ‘consumers’
Saw another site reporting ‘hits visitation’ what ever that is