How Do Your Brokerage's Listings Perform on Zillow?

Any type of advertising or promotional effort that brokers undertake should provide some measure of return on investment (ROI). Depending on the type of promotion, the way you measure ROI will vary.

In the case of sending listings to portals, there are two primary returns you receive on your investment. The first and most important is that you're delivering on a promise you have made to a seller who expects their listing to be marketed to the widest possible audience, leveraging sites like Zillow and Trulia. The second return is the reach or engagement your listing is getting on those websites.

The truth is that brokers don't really care that Zillow gets 86 million visitors per month¹. Instead, the relevant metric is how many people engage with your brokerage's listings. To provide brokers insight into this key area Zillow Group, operator of the two leading real estate sites according to comScore2, unveiled a dashboard in January to brokers who send a direct data feed to Zillow Group sites, either through their MLS or directly from their brokerage or franchise.

As a broker, the Zillow Group Data Dashboard lets you measure the performance of your listings on Zillow, including the total number of times their listings appear in search results, the number of times listings were viewed, and the number leads delivered to your brokerage from your listings.

Having access to these metrics allows brokers to do more than just track ROI. For example, brokers can fine-tune the listing price of a home based on the number of search result impressions it receives. A price of $199,000 may deliver more search result appearances than a comparable home priced at $200,000 because of the psychology of how consumers search. Stepping the price up or down by only $1000 can make a dramatic difference in search exposure. Combined with your market expertise, you can leverage these metrics to optimize a listing's price, as ultimately one of the most important aspects of selling a home quickly is making sure the home is priced as accurately as possible.

An Easy Way to Manage Listing Data

The Data Dashboard lets you manage and track your listings on Zillow in a central, easy-to-use location:

• Control of data distribution settings with the click of a button
• View and manage the listings of multiple offices in one location
• Set lead routing preferences at the broker, office and agent level
• Link listings to your brokerage's website

The Data Dashboard is free to real estate professionals who participate in direct listing feeds. To learn more, email partners[at]zillow.com

¹Zillow Internal Tracking via Google Analytics, January 2015
²comScore Media Metrix Real Estate Category Ranking by Unique Users, March 2015