AG Flash Poll – studying where real estate leads come from

The majority of our leads come from our website, but Trulia and Realtor.com do send traffic our way and we get about 1-3 leads a month directly from r.com.

While I get far more leads from Zillow in quantity, they aren’t the best quality leads. I get fewer leads from Trulia but have a better conversion ratio from contact to contract. I spend three times the money on Realtor.com with amazingly poor results and without a doubt it is the worst of the bunch for ROI by miles and miles. Why am I still there? A one year contract to fulfill!

When I reallocate my considerable advertising budget the mix will change dramatically. I’m not sure WHY people going to Realtor.com aren’t getting to me as leads when I get literally tens of thousands of listing views according to the Realtor.com reports. THAT would be interesting to research…how many raw leads are generated by each of the third party aggregators (and make no mistake that Realtor.com IS a third party…). The only thing I can think of, my “AHA” thought about this, is that consumers feel less resistance to asking for help or contacting an agent on Zillow or Trulia than they do on a “Realtor site”.

Those surveys we’ve all seen many times that put Realtors at the bottom of the food chain in the consumer’s eyes might reflect why I get literally over 100 leads from Zillow and Trulia for every ONE lead from Realtor.com. Either the leads from my listings are getting cannibalized and sent to other agents who are buying zip codes, OR the “uniques” on Realtor.com are actually Realtors and customer of Realtors who aren’t paying MLS fees but use Realtor.com as a free MLS-like research tool, OR whether my ISP is blocking hundreds of leads from Realtor.com (because they certainly aren’t getting to me while the Zillow and Trulia leads continue to flow in)!

So the question should be “Of these online sources, where do you get the leads that have actually converted int listings, showings, closed sales and commision checks?” I’ve always said you can’t take a “hit” to lunch…we need to generate leads that are looking for a real estate agent and have an interest in buying or selling real estate. So…how many leads have turned into appointments, how many are active buyers and sellers in your pipeline today from each source, and how many leads from each source have turned into closed sales? I’ll pay for leads that convert to buyers and sellers. I think if you took the Realtors, ex-Realtors, wannabee Realtors, appraisers and our families and friends out of the unique count the nubers would change. Of course it would be just as interesting to know how many Realtors, appraisers, banks, insurance agents, etc. visit Zillow each month to get a “Zestimate” and have NO interest in buying or selling real estate…they just want the data, accurate or terribly inaccurate and incomplete, they want data but it sure helps the numbers if you’re counting uniques.