Only a third of portal letting leads convert to enquiries, says proptech boss

The proportion of lettings leads supplied by the three big portals which are converted into enquiries on average has been revealed by independent research.

Digital platform Agent Response, which is the brainchild of midlands estate agency Nock Deighton, says its research shows lead conversion for lettings is best on agents’ own websites.

Knock Deighton chairman Mike Nettleton tells The Neg that while 37% of Rightmove leads are responded to by prospective tenants and prompt further engagement, this compares with Zoopla at 35% and OTM at 17.7%.

“OTM is lower because it relies more on Facebook to generate leads for agents,” he says.

But Nettleton (pictured) says agent websites have a ‘remarkable’ conversion rate of nearly 83%.

“I’m not anti-portal in fact if anything I’m very for what they offer, but I think agents could do a lot more to empower themselves to do something with their own data,” says Nettleton.

“I’m not knocking Boomin, but all the Bruce brothers have done is take that unused data and make use of it on their portal in a way that agents don’t on their own website.

“That is their business model – to say to agents “if you’re not going to use it can we have it please’ which is perfectly reasonable.”

Nettleton says that proptech firms like his need to do a lot more to help agents instead use that information themselves in an easy way.

He says the growth in services that enable agents to do something with their data is going to be ‘really important’ rather than allowing it be locked up in CRM systems and then used by portals.

For example Nock Deighton, which Nettleton says is a two to three million pound company, doesn’t get that many of its sales leads from the portals, but does rely on lettings leads more.