OnTheMarket has upped the ante against Rightmove, claiming that it is hiking its prices to agents while its leads are continuing to fall.
OTM has also told its member agents to beware of leaving Rightmove and RightmovePlus open on their computers, as this could count as time on site which “may be adding to Rightmove executive bonuses”.
In an email sent to member agents yesterday, OTM boss Ian Springett suggested it was also incorrect to say that most agents who had left Rightmove had quit the industry.
Rightmove’s latest results demonstrate a 4.6% year-on-year drop in agency branch members.
Rightmove had suggested that “most of the agents were low-stock low-spenders and that many had been forced to leave the industry”.
But Springett said a number were still in business, but no longer on Rightmove. He added: “We know that a fair proportion are with OnTheMarket.”
On leads sent to agents, Springett said: “Having reported enquiry numbers in every results announcement since 2013, Rightmove chose not to publish the metric in its regulatory report for the half year to June 2019.
“However, responding to a direct question from Will Packer, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, in its webcast Q & A, Rightmove confirmed that leads had fallen 7.6% compared with H1 2018, reducing the leads total from 22m to 20.3m.
“This reduction in leads continues a trend which started in 2015 when Rightmove leads to UK advertisers peaked at 49.8m. By 2018, the number had fallen to 42m.
“For Rightmove’s UK property advertisers, the impact is significant. The average monthly leads they receive has fallen from 210 in 2015 to 168 in the first half of 2019.”
Springett claimed: “For every £100 an agent spends, Rightmove’s advertisers now receive 16 leads compared with 28 in 2015.”
He went on: “Rightmove attributed the latest substantial fall in leads to its recent action to improve lead quality – specifically, ‘asking more questions’ on the enquiry forms, which, it claims, deters the less motivated enquirers.
“A more straightforward explanation is that portals do not create enquiries and there is a finite stock of active property-seekers at any one time. Portals compete to be the channel to connect these property-seekers with the relevant agents and OnTheMarket is gaining share.”
Springett’s email to his members also said that Rightmove’s focus on ‘time on site’ is a key metric.
He said: “Every minute which agents spend on Rightmove/Rightmove Plus, including minutes when they leave it open on their computers, may be adding to Rightmove executive bonuses.
“This is because Rightmove focuses on ‘traffic market share’.
“Time on site is explicitly outlined in Rightmove’s 2018 Annual Report as a key strategic target in determining executive bonuses.”
Springett conceded that agents do spend more time on Rightmove than other portals, but said that this reflects Rightmove’s historic position as as a reference site for tens of thousands of property professionals in their daily work.
We have approached Rightmove for comment on this last claim.
Rightmove has previously agreed with OTM claims that it has reduced the number of leads, but says that this is entirely deliberate, as it has chosen to prioritise quality over volume.
Leads to agents from Rightmove down 35%, OnTheMarket boss claims
Well at least hes been clear on the OTM USP. If you dont like giving lots of money to RM, give less to OTM, their execs will appreciate it more.
Dont worry about ROI though
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ROI…?! Given the exorbitant increases imposed on those who have not yet left RM, the ROI is looking more and more pitiful/unjustifiable (and possibly non-existent)…
Take for example those (my firm included) that have left and have seen little to zero decline in revenue/actual deals done (in fact, we’ve seen an increase since leaving!)…
It could be said that being on RM, (when comparing with the other available portals) produces a negative ROI…
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Hellos Eyereaderturnedposter12
I am intrigued and going to be nosey if you don’t mind. We too have considered leaving RM, like many others no doubt, but to date, have not been brave enough to try as the majority of our leads from from them and not Zoopla… approx 70/30 split.
Could I ask what you did to make it work for you? We are not a market leader in our town but, we are established for almost 20 years. Did you go public about leaving or has it all been organic and just happened? Sorry for being nosey, just wondering whether what works for you may work for us?
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Hi JamesDB,
What works for us, may not work for all- however the process was as follows (bearing in mind many factors will play into how any one firm may deal with such a move both present and historic, both in terms of company ethos and working methods, geographic location, company/portfolio size- The maths is up to each CEO/Director/MD/Owner, to carry out):
a) Assess the Cost Vs. Benefit of being on RM (various metrics will play into this assessment). These may differ from firm to firm.
b) You must understand that a portal doesn’t create ‘deals’, your staff and their quality do. If you’ve got good/great negs, managers and listers, they don’t need to be on all portals.
c) You must also understand that RM has a very effective marketing (read: propaganda) strategy/department, and this requires ‘breaking down’, section by section.
d) Your teams must ‘buy into’ leaving RM (or any other portal) initially… If they don’t, your clients certainly won’t ! It is your staff who primarily deal with clients/general public- So they must believe in their own skillsets/quality and not believe that business will grind to a halt if they aren’t listed on RM (because it simply won’t) N.B. This is not as easy and swift as it sounds… it takes a softly, softly approach- Perhaps try cutting your feed to RM for a two week period, or asking your staff to carry out an enquiries Vs. Deals completed exercise, that you will have already carried out (If they discover the reality themselves, they will have far more confidence in your decision, and eventually will agree with the idea of leaving RM).
e) You must understand that volume of enquiries (which will reduce) is not your concern…quality is. Volume just creates ‘busy work’, not deals.
f)We joined OTM (initially fee-free) some nine months ago as a replacement…It was free for a period (with no tie-in), so we had nothing to lose exchanging RM for OTM. However, we entered a trial period with OTM BEFORE leaving RM (five months or thereabouts), by way of boosting confidence within our offices, that enquiries weren’t going to dry up (and they didn’t).
g) Serve your notice to RM, and have a fervent belief that your operations will not suffer. They will try everything to get your business back (threats, coercion and sweeteners). They weren’t interested in supported their paying subscribers when they voice their concerns…support should be reciprocal.
We did not ‘go public’ in respect of leaving RM, for the simple reason that our belief is that RM isn’t ‘be all and end all’ and I did not view (with data to support this) it would be detrimental clients…and it hasn’t. To date, I believe that we’ve had three Landlords query our non-listing on RM, but their queries were adeptly dealt with by our teams.
It has also had the additional benefit of allowing us to discover which of our competitors have far less belief in their own operations- Notably those that attempt to poach clients by saying ”well, they’re not on RM”…So what?
As I’ve said before in previous comments in this subject, RM is just a well veneered business, and with a now increased choice out there for Agents…RM looks less and less attractive/justifiable.
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Excellent post. More of this please.
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Thank you so much Eyereaderturnedposter12.
I could not have asked for a better written reply. I will be talking to the team here about this and gauging their reactions to possibly leaving the beast that is RM. I agree completely that if they don’t buy in to it, then it won’t work,or certainly not as well as it could.
You never know, we may just do it and leave! #watchthisspaceRM
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Eyereaderturnedposter12, I’d like to know more about convincing my staff they think if we leave it would be the end of the world they only believe in their own examples of what site they look at and not really understanding the data in front of them, I’m on the verge of signing up with Zoopla after a in-depth meeting with a rep who have offered a no brainer deal, so will have all three portals for a couple of months to compare enquires and leads, without posting my identity on PIE and If you would agree to a chat I’m sure I could exchange my contact details through PIE. Please let me know?
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My pleasure, I’m always happy to share our process…
Apologies HITMAN, I’m a great fan of anonymity (and I fear my advice would fall short of expectations in any case- When it comes to people management, I get it wrong as many times as I get it right- but I would like to believe my errors get a little smaller on each occasion!)…
In respect of convincing staff to buy into the idea- we used a pretty simple method. I produced a spreadsheet (on good old-fashioned real paper) and asked them all to mark down the enquiry numbers, source of enquiries, enquiries converted to viewings and those that ultimately converted into deals. I asked them to do this for a month (albeit a month is a small sample and seasonal/annual…
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…are ever present- ( remembering that the aim of the exercise is not to produce an accurate report, over a long-term period…it was to help to move staff psychologically toward a more accepting mindset in respect of dropping RM [based on research I had already carried out over a longer sample period (six months, based on imperfect data])…
many an eye was rolled the prospect of filling in spreadsheets for a month, but I insisted, went to each branch each day to sit down for five minutes with each neg and each manager- eventually we got an interesting data set from the offices…based on that data, most (not all) conceded that much of their day was wasted chasing RM applicants (more so than Z and OTM). The data also showed RM didn’t account for nearly as many actual deals done, than they had assumed! I then showed them, (In a sort of ad hoc presentation format) our invoices from all three portals- they were asked, if it were your decision- what would you do? The majority, by that point openly gave their opinions which echo mine…
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P.s. if the above seems a little rambling,it is on account of the fact that my partner has dragged me to the cinema to watch the Lion King…I don’t remember it being that good the first time around, and my suspicions have been confirmed, hence I’m sat outside reading the comments on PIE…Hakuna Matata
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RMEXIT is the 31st October 2019 everyone is handing notice in September and leaving RM
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The last cries from a man who knows that he’ll have run out of money in H1-2020.
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They’ll still have cash reserves going into 2020?
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Further confirmation of Rightmove being a bloated, overpriced, poor value, poor service property advertising portal.
Rightmove’s only has one interest, protecting its share price. We, the paying Subscribers, are merely collateral damage.
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It’s remarkable. One can’t get anyone at Rightmove to respond/return a call!!!!!!!!
Yet, I post a Negative review on Trustpilot and I get an email reply 11Hours later via Trustpilot!!!
An actual response from posting through Trustpilot versus none when contacting Rightmove direct, despite me paying them ££££’s per year!
It says everything about Rightmove, they respond only if they think their “public image” is in danger
So there you have it folks, forget Rightmove customer service/your account manager – post your complaint about Rightmove via Trustpilot as you stand a chance of receiving a response
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I think RM is making soooooo much money that when I phoned them yesterday about adding one of their services (which will cost more money) they said they would phone back.
it’s about 24 hours and still not a peep from them.
Do I phone them?
thumbs up I phone
Thumbs down I don’t
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****… clicked the wrong thumb… meant to say NO, and now here I am typing this out to explain my actions!! God its been a long week and its only Tuesday!
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Don’t worry about that Rightmove Plus still isn’t working let alone left open! They promised this would be fixed as a priority 5 days ago and here we are still. It’s not as if they’ve not got the money…..
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Yes, Rightmoveplus DEAD for over 2 days – it would be comical – if I wasn’t paying well over £10,000 a year
Rightmove clearly have their thumbs in their ears when it comes to responding to subscriber complaints
Rebrand Rightmove to – LaLaLaLaLaaaaaMove
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Back in Jan 2014, 9% of Estate Agents were spending over £1k per month on Rightmove.
Move forward to June 2019 & 61% now spend more than £1k per month.
25% actually spend more than £1.5k per month!
Has the value of their ‘offer’ kept pace with their pricing?
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RMEXIT is the 31st October 2019 everyone is handing notice in September and leaving RM.
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