Why rightmove should acquire propertyfinder
November 12, 2008 by Simon Baker · 7 Comments
Times are tough in the UK market at the moment and it seems to me that the best value creating play would be a merger of rightmove and propertyfinder and therefore increase the gap between rightmove and the rest of the market.
UK Portal Fees May Increase for Some
November 4, 2008 by Simon Baker · 2 Comments
Recently we reported on an announcement that fees would not be rising in 2009 for major UK portals primelocation.com and findaproperty.com operated by The Digital Property Group. But all is not as it first seems.
Consolidation in the UK Market?
October 30, 2008 by Simon Baker · 1 Comment
The UK property portal market is ripe for consolidtion. The question is who is most likely to merge and what impact could it have?
TV Ads for primelocation.com, findaproperty.com
October 29, 2008 by Emma Sorensen · Leave a Comment
In July of this year The Digital Property Group, a division of Associated Northcliffe Digital, reaffirmed its “commitment to a multi-brand strategy for its property portals” which include primelocation.com and findaproperty.com as well as homesandproperty.co.uk and findanewhome.com.
Rather than merging any of the portals DPG said it would be even more tightly focussing them on different segments of the market.
As other companies tightened their belts, Mark Milner, CEO of The Digital Property Group, went on to say that in challenging market conditions, The Digital Property Group had made a multi-million pound investment in print and television advertising for both primelocation.com and findaproperty.com. Some estimates place it as high as £17 million.
TV advertisements for both portals have been running in the UK all through the month of October. So why have The Digital Property Group gone down this road?
This week Milner was quoted in Estate Agent Today as saying “television advertising has proven to be very successful in raising consumer brand recognition for our portals.”
Separating the four websites is a consumer-facing idea only. All of the portals in The Digital Property Group are offered to agents as one package through a single sales representative under a value based pricing model.
Milner commented in July that the group will continue to keep the four portals as differentiated brands in the eyes of the consumer but believe that “offering our portals as a single package will enable agents to market their properties to a broad spectrum of the market in a targeted and cost effective way.”
Further justifying this decision, The Digital Property Group wrote: “Each of the four portals has a distinctive brand with segregated target audiences, demonstrated by the fact that only 16% of users search for properties on both the main web sites findaproperty.com and primelocation.com (Source: comScore April 2008)”.
For example, The Digital Property Group say that the findaproperty.com audience is mainly those in early property life stages – renters and first to third time buyers. Whereas primelocation.com apparently attracts an older, more affluent audience centred on later life stages and top end rentals. This is clearly reflected in the two rather different TV advertisements:
The findaproperty.com advertisement (above) clearly markets itself at a younger, less established audience to the primelocation.com advertisement (below).
propertyfinder Battles to be Top Dog
October 27, 2008 by Emma Sorensen · Leave a Comment
The UK property market might be slowing down, but the race to be top of the portal world never stops.
Will Networks Take on Rightmove in the UK?
September 22, 2008 by Simon Baker · 5 Comments
Over the last few months we have seen the rise of the “Network” in the UK - in particular the Propertyfinder Network and more recently The Digital Property Group (TDPG) from DMGT.
A network is a group of sites that, in total, reach a broader UV base than a single site. In fact, in the materials i was sent by The Digital Property Group, they claimed that “the gap between TDPG and Rightmove stands at just 355k unique users”.
So what makes up the Propertyfinder Network and The Digital Property Group. The Propertyfinder Network is made up of the sites owned by Propertyfinder - propertyfinder.com, ukpropertyshop.co.uk and hotproperty.co.uk. The Digital Property Group is made up of the property sites owned by DMGT - findaproperty.com, primelocation.com, findmeanewhome.com and homesandproperty.co.uk.
As a network, both TDPG and Propertyfinder are much closer to rightmove.co.uk than any of their component sites.
| Total Unique Visitors (000) | |
| RIGHTMOVE.CO.UK | 2,400 |
| The Digital Property Group | 2,045 |
| Propertyfinder Network | 1,501 |
However the real question is, are these “networks” a real threat to rightmove.co.uk or are they just another marketing spin on the numbers to make the gap between rightmove.co.uk and the rest look smaller than it really is?
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