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Rightmove Featured Agent Banner Ads - Do they work?

According to Google’s Display Benchmarks Tool, the average banner ad gets clicked once every 1,666 displays - which is click through rate 0.06%.

We have all programmed ourselves as humans to ignore the poorest advert experience ever created created by man kind  ... the banner ad.
We are all busy as people in this new 21st century world. We don’t have enough time and so are concentrating on trying to get all our ‘things’ done, yet banner-ads are an irritation at best, and ignored and not even seen at worst. 

.. and don’t get me started on those banner ads on mobile websites. My chubby fingers (as I’m sure yours do) click on annoying those banner ads by error.

 Estate Agents and Banner Ads

 So, why do us estate agents continue to use them ... even at the high altar of UK estate agency .. Rightmove

Take a look at these awful selection of REAL Rightmove banner ads (featured agent ads). Its all .. with message such as ..
  • Click here for an instant valuation in 60 secs
  • We are the local experts in [insert name of town]
  • Local People .. Local Knowledge
  • Click here for an instant valuation in 30 secs  (twice as quick as the 60 sec val!)
  • Where others try .. we succeed
  • This little birdy (picture of Robin included) told us you were selling this Autumn
  • Benefits of a High Street Agent with Fixed price fees
  • Looking to Sell your Property? Speak one of our team today
  • 5* Google Review – [based on 8 reviews in 16 months]















I am sorry .. but these are truly awful Rightmove Featured Agent banner adverts

The Solution?

Going forward, I believe that estate agents will need to ask a different question of their marketing and featured agent banners

Instead of asking their potential vendors ‘What can I sell you?’ … surely they should be asking them .. ‘How can I help you?’.

Let’ s all be frank, estate agents and their marketing, don’t know how to be helpful.  

For example …

  • 30 sec instant-val ads arent all they seem to be .. they are thinly veiled ‘Give us your email addresss’ so we can bombard you with spam in return for a valuation you already knew already…. And again, let’s be frank .. every man and his dog has instant vals plug ins on their site.
  • Estate agency magazines and freebie newspapers available from the local Coop or Tesco’s full of properties you are selling .. again – trying to sell stuff
  • Half Price fees A5 flyers, landlords wanted leaflets .. again try to sell stuff
  • …. and then I have Yopa sending me a letter every four weeks because their algorithm probably suggests that because I haven’t moved for 21 years and in my 40’s, I must be due a move soon


All of these banner ads, A5 leaflets etc etc direct mail are all forms of content.

Yet nobody’s hooked to them, nobody would miss them because these adverts simple ask, “What can I sell you?”

When was the last time you went to a free val and some produced a flyer more than a month old  and said, “I called you because you dropped me one of these ‘PROPERTIES WANTED / CHEAP FEE DEALS (always subject to t&c’s) a year last December”

My Mrs has hundreds of editions of BBC Good Food in the attic.  How many people have saved every one of your estate agency flyers? .. In fact any advert or flyer? None exactly!

My intuition tells me those estate (and letting) agents who realise the advertising in the future lies not in adverts as we as an industry knowns them today, but instead, helping all those potential home-movers on all Rightmove get things done, interest them, help them or intrigue them.  

Talking about stuff that is relevant to them (not us). Not trying to sell them something.. not matter how it is disguised (eg Give us your email address for a not so Instant Val)

Isn't it funny that at Lettings Live last year .. a huge conference for Letting and Estate Agents, the boss man of a HUGE portal singled out this featured agent banner below and held it up as an example of what good looked like.. also funny that these types of RM featured agents ads have in the past got up to 500 clicks per month - a lot compared to the national Average of clicks on RM banners of around 25 per month .. 


No hardshell Rightmove banners here ... No hard sell, no give us your cash, give us your business .. just a blog a local property market in Chelmsford ... here is the link to the blog the ad referred to ...   http://chelmsfordpropertyblog.co.uk

This Chelmsford estate /letting agent understands that local relevant and interesting content that is useful to the person consuming it (i.e. Chelmsford landlords and Chelmsford homeowners) will grab the attention and engagement of this every same Chelmsford landlord and Chelmsford homeowner)
What is stopping you creating a local property market blog on your town and talking about what is happening in your town's property market?


and if you need more inspiration .... here are other agents giving info on their local property markets .. examples like this ..
  1. This agent in Leicester looked at property prices in a school catchment area .. 3,500 views on Facebook in 30 hours – all from the parents (and their friends) who viewed the video on the Schools facebook page https://youtu.be/DoJAO67lLBQ
  2. This agent between Southampton and Portsmouth is doing a countdown of the 30 most saleable streets in his area. Again, pushed out on Facebook, loads of people have seen this on the Community Facebook page https://youtu.be/0cpqqSgMdxM
  3. This agent in Hertford does a weekly show about the town .. 7,000 views in a week .. I wonder why they are a top 3 agent in their town, listing in excess of 25 property a month on decent fees after less than a year .. strange that ..  https://www.facebook.com/gomovehome/videos/1796960617042469/

ValPal

... and if you real must have a ValPal/RoboVal app ... why not switch off the insistence for the punter to give their email address for an Instant Val?   

Give them the option

Sounds weird doesn’t it ..until you realise there is still a very subtle way to get them to use your estate agency without it  .. in fact … I have recorded a 90 sec podcast about this .. link here .. https://soundcloud.com/christopher-watkin  (go to Nov 2017 for the relevant podcast)