On Friday, 12/07/07, Borrell Associates published their second recent advertising forecast report, "2008 Outlook: Local Online Advertising". It looks like Pearl Harbor for Real Estate print advertising and Midway for online Real Estate advertising. It's interesting to see where we were, where we are and where we're going.
Borrell reviewed the "Big Three" of classified ads: Automotive, Job Recruitment and Real Estate. These 3 will get 38% of the online ad spend, but only 18% of the total ad spend. Advertisers in the Big Three have gone online twice as much as other advertisers.
Recruitment advertising has already gone 50% online, more than doubling Real Estate's 24%, and more than quintupling Auto's 9%. With over 75% of home buyers starting their search online, over 80% of home buyers using the Internet significantly in their search, only 10% of homes for sale ever in print and almost 100% of the homes for sale on the Internet, I'm surprised online Real Estate advertising hasn't taken over from print yet (predicted now in 2010).
The growth in online advertising across all areas has been great. But the area with the highest predicted growth rate is local online advertising. As local Real Estate advertisers see the promise of local ads offered by Big Search and the venues for local search expand to include Zillow and the Local Newspaper Syndicate Websites, more ad dollars will move online and more online ad dollars will move to local search.
Zillow is now the only pure play for local Real Estate advertising. If you're an agent, a lender, a Real Estate lawyer, or a home inspector wanting to advertise on all the properties in a given Zip Code, Zillow can deliver those ads with their EZ-Ads Program. If you want to target by location and price, Zillow can also deliver those ads with their Direct Home Ad Program. Aren't Verticals great?
The "Big Three" of Search: Google, Yahoo and MSN, have only scratched the surface of local search and local search advertising's potential. Most local advertisers have not yet warmed to local search with their interest or with their dollars. And the local ad delivery platforms are still crude, blunt and in their infancy.
With more homes to sell, a longer wait to sell them, smaller commissions, increased costs and smaller ad budgets; a move to significantly more online search advertising may get delayed.
Borrell predicts local search advertising will double in 2008.
Another interesting note from the report is: newspapers, slow to offer free online versions (free content as in the Google Model) with a Pay-Per-Click model and late in the race with online ad delivery, have taken the lead in the delivery of online video ads, "newspaper companies are at the forefront of online video sales."
Much like "The Golden Rule" there's "The Content Rule": "He who has the Content, makes the rules."
If "All Real Estate is Local", then most online Real Estate advertising will be local too.
Posted by: Cliff Jacobson
Adapt Or Die! Happy Searching.
WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing
I think I have to disagree, Zillow isn't the only "pure" play for local real estate advertising....for one thing Zillow doens't have any data for my town. Second, I advertise with HouseFront, who also allows you to advertise to any zip code or even any specific home (which is what I use on my homes for sale). Besides that, love the article right on the money, all I look for when advertising is local, local, local (it's usually cheaper that way too)
Posted by: Greg | December 10, 2007 at 12:08 PM