There are literally hundreds and thousands of property portals around the world and as an agent or broker you need to choose which ones to advertise on.

So what should you take into account when parting with your precious advertising and marketing budget?

Here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for Choosing a Property Portal:

1. Always consider advertising on the dominant player in your market, if only because you might not be able to afford NOT to be there. But give careful consideration to how you advertise, do you need to stand out or are you happy to be one of the crowd?

2. Look at where your competitors are advertising. Do you want to join them or try another tactic (and portal) to beat them?

3. Listen to your customers. If they are continuously asking to have their properties advertised on particular sites, don’t ignore them.

4. Don’t lose sight of value. Consider each portal in terms of cost of subscription versus the package you’re offered. Take into account: web traffic (number of unique visitors to the site and page views) any marketing the portal does; the reports and analytics the site gives its subscribers; and the extra advertising options available to you on each site that could help you trump your competitors. The most expensive might not always be the best.

5. Understand your market. Would a niche property portal suit the property you’re advertising best? There are niche portals for executive leasings, prestige properties, holiday rentals, and student accommodation, which can often offer you the chance to better target any potential customers.

6. Trial several portals. Take a trial run on a number of portals over the same period of time, advertising the same properties, and compare the results. Don’t succumb to marketing hype and wild sales promises. Ask for facts and figures to be supplied, and understand what they mean (read our article about understanding the stats). If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so test it out first.

7. Breadth versus depth. Whilst breadth of coverage is important, it’s also necessary to consider depth of advertising. With a limited budget available you’d be better off being a premium subscriber on 2-3 sites than a standard subscriber, getting lost amongst the rabble, on 4-5 sites.

8. How easy is it to get your properties onto the portal? You don’t want to spend your days doing data entry (unless it’s a rare one-off for a particular property). Does the portal offer a data feed?

9. What extra consumer-friendly features does the property portal offer? How many pictures can you load, what about floor plans and virtual tours, and are there maps, driving directions, walk scores, or extra widgets you can add to your own website? Consumers are often attracted by the portal’s add on neighbourhood features.

10. Would you enjoy searching for a property on the portal you’re considering? Never lose sight of the bigger picture: portals should be easy to use, consumer friendly, and attractive. If you don’t like using it yourself then a user probably won’t either.

Once you are up and running on a portal you should continuously monitor how you are tracking on that site, reviewing your statistics on a weekly basis.

[image: flick/the_toe_stubber]