by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
I’m pleased with the first week’s run of my EZ Ads on Zillow; my hypotheses were mostly correct and I received a $500 loan commission from the ads. I’m making ten times the investment so that works for me.
From Zillow:
| Loans For Long Beach |
|
04/12/2007 | 774 | 2 | ||
| Downtown Condo Loans | 04/05/2007 | 04/12/2007 | 781 | 5 | Running | |
| Verrado’s Lender | 04/04/2007 | 05/04/2007 | 157 | 3 | Running | |
| FQ Story’s Lender | 04/04/2007 | 04/11/2007 | 816 | 8 | Running | |
| Del Mar’s #1 Lender | 04/04/2007 | 04/11/2007 | 888 | 8 | Running |
Let me walk you through my initial analysis:
1-I picked Long Beach, CA (first two ads) because I do business there. There aren’t a lot of posted listings and the price point isn’t that high. The OC Register suggested that higher price point neighborhoods attract higher users on Zillow . Long Beach has an active historical district so I need to ask Laurie Manny about the right zip codes.
2-Verrado is an upscale neighborhood in the suburban Phoenix city of Buckeye. I picked it because Tony Marriott lives and works there. It is not fully developed which accounts for the low impressions. I did receive an e-mail from a seller discussing lease options so one of the three was a real inquiry. There aren’t many posted listings there so this success is an anomoly to me. This neighborhood has promise because most professionals will forget it and it has a high price point.
3-F.Q. Story is an historical neighborhood in Central Phoenix where Greg and Cathleen market. I originally picked this zip code as a juvenile prank so my mug would show up next to Cathy’s listing; I wanted to needle Greg. What I didn’t count on is that the homeowners there are maniacal about real estate. FQ Story homeowners pour so much of their heart and money into their restored homes. They are well educated and tech savvy. FQ Story is the perfect target market for Zillow. I’m going to stay in this neighborhood and amend my ad to say “No Cost Historical Renovation Loans”. The homeowners have good credit, plenty of equity, and a need for a home equity line of credit for remodeling. It helps that Greg uploaded some 30-40 listings.
4-The final advertisement is targeted at zip codes near where I live. I uploaded 60-70 listings to Del Mar and Solana Beach and posed 20-30 questions in the Q&A; my name is all over those towns. I received two inquiries: Sunday, a friend at church said he saw my ads and asked if I could help him with a valuation. Earlier today, a past client called looking for a HELOC and attributed the call to my impression ad on Zillow.
INITIAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT EZ-ADS ON ZILLOW:
1- Reach for the higher price point neighborhoods; they attract more eyeballs
2- Historical neighborhoods breed more interested homeowners.
3- Advertise in zip codes where there are many uploaded listings, preferably your own uploads.
Greg Swann says:
Very, very cool.
Just so I understand, your investment in five ads brought you 26 client contacts in one week?
April 10, 2007 — 11:23 pm
Laurie Manny says:
Brian,
Your conclusions would be in line with the Demographics of Internet users. Higher Income and Education accounts for the highest percentage of users.
You want Zip Codes for the Long Beach Historic District? Long Beach has 17 Historic Districts. Based on your findings, I would suggest 90803. It contains much of Long Beach’s highest priced real estate and is home to Bluff Park, an upscale and pricey historic district.
April 10, 2007 — 11:53 pm
Brian Brady says:
your investment in five ads brought you 26 client contacts in one week?
No, Greg. 26 clicks in one week. 2 client contacts
Thanks, Laurie. THAT is what I wanted. Do you have a suggestion for ad verbage, Laurie?
April 11, 2007 — 12:29 am
Laurie Manny says:
Elitist verbiage, A paper neighborhood.
April 11, 2007 — 1:37 am
CJ, Broker in L A, CA says:
Brian, we signed on for EZ ads, too. One thing that wasn’t clear in my mind … is it 1 cent per click, or 1 cent per each time the ad is served? I think it is the latter… which is fine … I just wasn’t sure. I suppose I could go back and read the fine print at Zillow…
April 11, 2007 — 5:16 am
David G from Zillow.com says:
Brian – thanks for the update; good feedback.
April 11, 2007 — 7:16 am
Jonathan Dalton says:
> 3- Advertise in zip codes where there are many uploaded listings, preferably your own uploads.
Just do it in the right order. I was going to post some homes for sale in my target zip code until I realized (after only one, amazingly) that I’d be burning through my own impressions.
I’m at 2,037 impressions and 4 clicks. Time to adjust the wording. Unfortunately, the requirement of my brokerage info kills off one of my four lines.
April 11, 2007 — 8:22 am
Tony says:
Jonathan
We talk about exactly that phenomenon in our recent post about Zillow (http://forsalebylocals.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/maybe-we-do-understand-zillow-after-all/)
“So, it’s equally likely on the Zillow site, that an active core group of real estate service providers will generate a high percentage of page views as well..particularly zip codes that have a high service provider participation rate. The difference being that the page views at zillow are subsidized…well…mostly by other service providers. ”
It’s a master stroke by Zillow…get bloggers to drive service providers to the site and generate page views that basically have no chance of conversions. Thanks for confirming that this is actually happening.
April 11, 2007 — 9:25 am
David G from Zillow.com says:
CJ –
It’s a penny per impression or ad view. Clicks are free 🙂
The reason we are not selling you clicks is because Realtors and other RE-pro’s told us they prefer to receive phone calls and e-mails than visitors to their website. Cost-per-click advertising doesn’t allow contact details in the ad copy so, we decided to rather charge you per impression and give you the ad product you need. It costs you 1c each time your ad is served.
Clicks are far less important when your phone and e-mail are included in the ad-copy. So, when measuring the success of your EZ Ads, you probably want to pay less attention to clicks than calls and e-mails received.
Lastly, when you think about your EZ Ads strategy, something Brian understands very well is that you’re not just trying to generate leads, you are also building brand awareness. That’s another area where EZ Ads are clearly superior to the generic text-based click-through advertising. The image you can include in your EZ Ad can be compared to putting your face on a local billboard. That brand awareness won’t necessarily cause your phone to ring today – but has the long-term benefit of branding you as the real estate expert in your neck of the woods.
I hope that makes sense.
April 11, 2007 — 10:00 am
Brian Brady says:
Do it in the right order; agreed Jonathan, agreed.
If you’re uploading listings, it’s costsing you 2-3 pennies because you’re burning through impressions.
FWIW, I’m at the ASU/Mercado in Cen Phx. I ran into a problem logging on the free net and the IT guy came out TO the courtyard to help me. ASU is going to take over the post-secondary education world with this service.
April 11, 2007 — 10:45 am