Don’t Be Fooled - 7 Questions to Ask When Determining a Rental Syndication Service
January 11, 2010 – 9:40 amRental syndication, or the process of distributing rental properties to many different points on the web, is a necessary service if you are looking to rent your home or apartment quickly. When Rent Marketer launched in 2006, and Apartment Marketer in 2008, there were very few rental syndication services. Today, there are many different sites that say they distribute rental properties. However, don’t be fooled by many of these services. You may be surprised when doing a little research.
What to look for and ask when determining which service to use.
- Ask. How many “Unique” sites are in your network?
- Many distribution services post to sites that power other sites. Oodle for example, powers many sites like Facebook, Wal-Mart Classifeds, AOL Real Estate, etc. Many distribution services post to Oodle and count these Oodle “Powered by” sites as unique sites in the network.
- The difference between “Powered by” and “Unique”
- “Powered by”
- One site powers the search of another
- These sites tend to have lower lead volume than “Unique” sites
- There is not a lot of economic incentive to drive traffic to “Powered by” Pages. i.e. - Walmart is not likely to spend money and send people away from their core site to the “Powered by” site.
- “Unique”
- Sites that run on their own
- Usually focused on a specific vertical like rentals
- Economic incentive to drive as many leads as possible for their clients
- Tip: As a rental advertiser, it is important to be on as many “unique” sites as possible. Being on “powered by” sites is also important, but depending on them alone will not drive the ultimate number of leads.
- Ask. Is there additional cost to post to paid sites in the network?
- Some sites post to paid services
- Tend to have additional costs per paid site
- Tip: Find services that post to paid and free sites for one monthly fee or a cost per lead.
- Ask. Do you post to “Military” and other similar sites?
- These sites are called “uber vertical” sites
- Tip: Ask to see if the service posts to Military, Local, University, etc related sites.
- Ask. Do you post to the “long tail” of rental sites
- The “long tail” is a term coined by Chris Anderson where he argued that products that are in low demand can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the distribution channel is large enough. As it relates to rental leads, these sites in the “long tail” are smaller sites that drive relatively few visitors, but in aggregate, make up a large percentage of the lead volume.
- Recent research from Apartments.com and rentBits, found that over 90% of all renters search across multiple sites when looking for a rental. Many of these sites, are found in the “long tail”.
- Tip: Use a service that allows your property to be on as many sites as possible, including sites in the ‘long tail’.
- Ask. Do you post to local rental sites?
- Over 70% of rental searches start on a search engine
- These Keywords are “long tail” words like 2 bedroom home for rent in denver, colorado.
- Geo terms and geo rental sites perform well in those specific cities
- Tip: Post to services that also post your properties to your city specific rental site.
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Ask. Do you track phone and email leads at the property level?
- Many sites just track email leads.
- Phone leads are even more important.
- If you have multiple properties, it is important that the system tracks each property separately.
- About 2/3’s or all leads come from phone calls
- Tip: Use a service that tracks phone calls and gives you the called number just in case you miss a lead.
- Ask. What technology do you use to post ads?
- A vast majority of the syndication sites use a technology called XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) to communicate and post listings to other systems. This is an efficient way to post but has some limitations
- Usually takes up to 24 hours for ads to be live on the different sites. Changes to the ads also take up to 24 hours
- Error feedback is hard to obtain. How do you know your ad is accurate?
- Less than 10 percent of the rental sites accept XML feeds
- Smaller sites do not have the capital or the knowledge to accept XML
- Tip: Look for rental distribution services that use a combination of XML and other technologies to post properties on a larger network.
One Response to “Don’t Be Fooled - 7 Questions to Ask When Determining a Rental Syndication Service”
thanks for your posting.
These are great tips, and like when we get them. It lets us know our potential clients and clients are doing their home work. Great job
By mike on Jan 12, 2010