Online home search engines have revolutionized the way consumers buy and sell homes. While these sites have the potential to bring in a considerable amount of revenue for any real estate business, pricing and quality of leads from these sites vary from traditional real estate leads. Below are a few variabilities that differentiate paid online leads that agents need to know, and a few tips for converting them.
Three Ways Leads Differentiate From Online Home Search Engines
- Cost per lead is usually determined by zip code.
Targeted zip codes are usually the primary determinate for pricing online home search engine leads. Online ads on sites like Realtor.com and Zillow are typically priced by cost per impression or cost per click. Cost per impression is the number of times an ad is seen, while cost per click is the number of times an ad is clicked on. The more buyers and sellers who search within a specific zip code, the more it will cost to advertise within that zip code.
- Listings aren’t always exclusive to a single agent.
Property listings on online home search sites usually contain one or more real estate professionals as a point of contact. Listing agents may want to conduct extensive research into advertising rights before choosing a site to purchase leads from. Exclusivity to leads that request more information on a listing vary depending on the site’s policy. In some cases, leads are sent round-robin to other agents that have purchased leads in a designated zip code, even if one agent is listed as the main point of contact.
- There might be unforeseen competition.
Realtor.com only allows licensed real estate agents to post properties on the site and has the largest listings website in the U.S. with 97% of all listings within all multiple listing services boards. With Zillow and Trulia, agents may face competition from for-sale-by-owner listings.
How To Convert Leads From Online Home Search Engines
Through overseeing operations as part of several companies within the real estate tech space, I’ve gained extensive insight into best practices for converting leads from online home search engines.
Stay in familiar waters: Regardless of which platform an agent purchases, they should purchase leads in zip codes they’re familiar with. Even if a market doesn’t have any multimillion-dollar listings, agents will be better off converting leads when they have some experience to speak of.
Build a system: With online leads, agents have no prior relationship with the client making them harder to keep track of. A solid system can help agents nurture, manage and ultimately build a relationship with online leads.
Strategize follow-up: All online leads require nurturing. Even if a lead is ready to purchase a home tomorrow, they still need to get to know an agent before they invest in their services. Many systems offer instant follow-up with online leads. Few offer intelligent, behavior-based follow-up. Robust systems leverage data taken from a leads’ online home search history to craft personalized email and text messages. It’s 2018 — most consumers can differentiate a drip-email campaign from a personalized message.
Integrate platforms: The best systems will allow for integration with major real estate home search sites. This saves time and money for brokerages and teams when they don’t have to manually sync contacts from an online home search portal to their customer relationship management system (CRM).
Manage wisely: A predictive CRM system can help agents decode where in the consumer life cycle stage an online lead is. Predictive CRMs use lead intelligence software or data points from a lead’s home search history to determine how likely they are to buy or sell a home one month from now, six months from now and so on. Still, some real estate CRMs, including my own, take it a step further and notify agents which leads are transaction-ready and which require additional nurturing. Agents need not be afraid to diversify with new lead sources. The internet may be chock-full of horror stories from agents who wasted time and money on paid online leads, but most don’t tell the full story. Agents should ask colleagues not only what sites they capture leads on but also their strategy for converting said leads. The bottom line is real estate will always be a people business. Agents who understand how online leads are generated and how to personalize their online buying and selling process will experience the greatest success.
Source: Forbes
