Zillow makes money by selling ads on the site. To be a successful media company, you need to make sure your customers are making money from their ads. To help our customers do this, it is important to look at what the best performing ads look like, and the lowest performing, because ad content is crucial to performance. Actually, these findings can apply broadly to any advertising campaign, not just those on Zillow.
If you take one thing away from this, here it is - LISTING ADS PERFORM A LOT BETTER (in terms of click thrus) THAN AGENT HEADSHOT ADS.
Observations from the Top 50:
100% of the ads were of listings
45 of 50 of ads were an exterior home shot, 3 were interior, 2 were aerials
42 of the ad mentioned a specific area (neighborhood, city or addres)
8 central messages revolved around Short Sale, Foreclosure or price reduction
2 were Open Houses ads
0 photos were renderings, all were actual photos
0 ads promoted a specific person, business or brand
22 of the ads have a specific price in them
7 had a phone number on the ad
50 of the photos were taken on a sunny day
Observations from the Bottom 20
18 Of the ads were promoting an agent/broker/brand
1 had no photos (and no clicks)
1 had some type of call to action on the ad
To protect the innocent, I'll just type the more popular tag lines from these ads:
Buying or Selling?
Let's Make It Happen!
Greater [City] Expert
[State] Specialist (you specialize in the whole state?)
Call For Results
Buyer Rebate
Luxury Living
I'll Get Your Moving
Need Perspective?
Local [Large City] Expert (would be more effective if neighborhood name was used)
31 Yrs Selling Experience
Certified Mtg Planner (does JoePublic know what Mtg is?)
..and the most common No tag line - Just company name
The Top 50 ads on the site this week:
In case you aren't familar with Zillow Showcase Ads, they are zip code targeted ads that can be updated at any time. Here is a page on Zillow to read more about Showcase Ads and get started. If you want to get an idea of cost, you can call 1-866-324-4005 and one of our marketing consultants will be glad to give you a local quote, as prices vary depending on much traffic your area recieves. The marketing consultants would also be happy to consult with you on creative, whether you are a new or existing client.
If you are a visual person, please watch this video with more information about how the ads work:
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"An additional point is that GREAT advertising always has a "hook" - something that differentiates the product or service. Examples:
BMW doesn't market themselves as the car with four wheels and a windshield, its "The Ultimate Driving Machine" (trying to emphasize speed)
McDonalds isn't, a kinda cheap burger and fries its "I'm lovin' it!" (try to emphasize the personalized nature of the food)
To many agents market homes and themselves without differentiation. "5 bed, 4 bath, call 212-777-777" is not a promotional position ("large home, incredible views"). "
In my listing presentation, I've always told my sellers "Every company has a certain amount of money to spend on marketing. Our company believes that sellers would rather see that money spent promoting THEIR house in an ad than MY face." Looks like it works better for attracting buyers too.
I have often thought about advertising on Zillow, however, I only want to spend my advertising dollars on sites that allow me to post blogs about our niche which is mobilehome and manufactured home foundation inspections, installations, retrofitting and repairing and providing the required engineered certification, affidavit of affixture, 433a documentation that is required to get a manufactured home financed on private or resident owned land.
I have contributed to several of your discussions on the topic but they only allow a very scant amount f information. Active Rain allows, accepts and encourages very comprehensive posts which allow us to get our message across in detail. This topic is a very confusing topic to most RE and Mortgage agents and brokers so the more information you can provide the better. Is there a way that we can post comprehensive blogs with photo's and video? If so let's talk advertising because we offer our services nationwide and we certainly have the advertising dollars to spend.
John-
It is tough to compare ActiveRain to Zillow, because we aren't a blogging platform. We do have Zillow Answers. So I think your best bet is to find questions people have asked about your area of expertise and answer them. You can sign up to be alerted when there is a question on the site that matches your topical internet. Here is a video on how to best use Zillow Advice- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tbf3QnfEGk.
Any advice you leave will link to your profile page, so make sure that is completely filled out. You can include all kinds of information and links (that are followed) in the marketing text.
Finally, you could use the ads as a teaser with this information and link it over to where people can find more information. That may be your best bet.
Hello Sara,
I have a profile on Zillow and sometimes use the "start a discussion" feature. Unfortunately, I had very bad experiences. I find a lot of people commenting on Zillow (real estate pro and non-pro) to be very negative or plain insulting. It is my unfortunate experience and it is being shared by other colleagues at the office. Very low comments quality overall versus other sites such as Trulia. It reminds me of a free for all anonymous forums. Sorry about providing this feedback...
Cathy Chaudemanche
Admittedly I'm a blog and social-networking newbie let alone a computor guru. So many of the nuances and buzz words you folks toss about everyday is way over my head i.e. "teaser" "link over" "link back", etc. I will watch the Youtube link. Is that the proper way to refer to it? Not being facicious I really need a "neophite course" in all the nomenclature to be brought up to speed. I'm 64 years old today and all 5 of my grown children and even some of my grand children are way beyond me.
Catherine- When professionals get spammy, you're right the community can turn on the poster. When professionals answer questions in a helpful way, the community can be very thankful.
ActiveRain and Trulia both have blogging platforms, which is essentially a way to broadcast any information you choose. The Zillow Advice is a question and forum platform where people ask questions in hopes of getting helpful answers. When they are helped, they are likely to take the relationship offline, at least that is what we hope happens.
I took a look at what you are doing in Zillow Advice. It seems most of your contributions are broadcasts of information. For example, asking the question "how to get the best price in NJ" and then answering your own question. Basically cutting and pasting a blog post isn't how a forum is typically used, and users can backlash against this.
I would encourage you to find questions that people are asking in your area, and answer those with same type of information that you are broadcasting. Because the information you are sharing is really good, it just can be percieved as a bit spammy since you are basically answering your own questions.
John and Janis- Well, if you want to learn, you've come to the right place. Active Rain will help you out tremedously! My advise is to just take is slow. Don't try to learn everything about every social media site at once. Pick one a week, get your head around it, and then move on to another one the next week.
Really, the idea around social media and internet isn't too different from concepts you have used in your every day life and with tranditional media. You should still treat people the same as you would in person. Just the technology has evolved with how you do this. Good luck!
Benito- The content of the ad will determine click thru rate more than the location. But it is important to know the click potential, when is dependant on how much traffic the area is getting. Click on this link to visit the self serve advertising section of Zillow- http://www.zillow.com/advertising/Agent.htm . When you go thru the ad buying process, we are clear about the traffic in the area, because this determines how much the ad costs.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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