Online Real Estate Technology

Get Your Banner to Work, Not Just Look Pretty

Over the past few weeks conducting my office strategy sessions for business owners, the subject of banner advertising has come up. During the discussions, I’ve suggested some ways that the office can get the click through rate on their banners to increase. Most of the agent banners, when and if they are clicked on by a consumer,go through to the agents web site, and don’t really offer the consumer anything tangible to encourage them to click on the link. 

The major portals charge a fair amount for the privilege of having a suburb banner or skyscraper, you start to go a bit potty trying to remember all the names they give them,and I’ve found the account managers that service the agents aren’t all that creative in giving you advice either, it’s more a question of getting your money than worrying about the banner actually acheiving something for you.

So lets look at what the on line consumer wants when it comes to banner advertising, and then we’ll look at how we can maximise the value of the banner to really start to earn its way by generating click throughs.

Looking at some recent research on what a consumer will click on, a survey in the UK, found that over 51% of males & females will click on an add that is relevant to them and provided helpful information in what they were researching on line. On this subject, males and females are very similar in their responses. 43% of those surveyed said they would click on an add when it was useful and 33% responded that ”Money Off” offers got their attention.

Interesting side to this, is that more females responded to this type of offer than males. The results also varied by age, with younger readers more interested in special offers, and the baby boomers wanting more relevance & usefulness to them in the advertising . 

So with that in mind, lets take a look at banner advertising, I asked the business owner of one very big office the following question, “If you included an offer of a $50 petrol voucher on your banner, what would be the response?” He replied, “The clicks would go berserk” ,Why I asked? His response, “Because of a perceived value to the consumer”.

So with this in mind,where to start, first work out what you want the banner to do, then work out a strategy for the banner and decide the offer/incentive .

When you have a banner in the local suburb on the portals, people who frequent the site are searching for either real estate to buy, rentals, investments or information on real estate agents etc, so why not include a perceived value offer in your banner advertising, that is relevant to them and tie it to either a seasonal event or an offer. Change your creative on a regular basis, a suggestion could be to change it with the seasons, also monitor Google search trends and react to what is happening in the community. 

Make your account manager more accountable, by asking them to provide you with click through rates on your banners, they can get this for you, but not surprisingly, it’s not that easy for you to get. If you’re paying big dollars to own a banner, you really want it to work for you, so don’t be fooled by the “We don’t sell on click throughs,It’s there for your branding” sell job.  

Here’s one suggestion for you that has really worked well for a couple of agents, Instead of offering the old stand by of “ Click here for a free appraisal” why not use the following on your creative, “ If your current property is not selling, then ask me WHY“.

Play around with your banners to get them to drive response for you, at least then, you’ll start to get your monies worth from your advertising.

Here’s some  interesting research for you on advertising on the internet:

If you’d like advice on this post, please let me know, I’d be very happy to respond with more on this if needed.