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Latest property news
Zoopla hires tech heavyweight to tackle OTM
Zoopla is clearly hoping to hire its way to victory in the battle with OnTheMarket, if its more recent addition to the website’s senior team is anything to go by. ZPG today announced that Vin Murria, one of the UK’s leading tech entrepreneurs and winner of the Cisco Technology Woman of the Year gong in 2012, is to join the group as a non-executive director. Murria has an impressive CV of starting or heading up companies that go on to be sold for £100m or more including, most recently, Advanced Software Group plc, an AIM-listed healthcare and business management software solutions company she founded in 2008. Her appointment is designed to help Zoopla, which has been looking increasingly beleaguered recently in the face of OTM competition, to gain the initiative. As well as mounting an aggressive campaign to rubbish OTM, Zoopla has been buying up companies recently to build a property-related portfolio including in April this year, Uswitch.com for £160m. Murria’s expertise in this type of ‘acquire to grow’ way of doing business is clearly a skillset that DPG chairman Alex Chesterman, who built Zoopla largely by snapping up struggling portals such as FindaProperty, Propertyfinder and ThinkProperty, admires. And although…
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Latest property news
Zoopla share prices dip after Ofgem probe
Shares in The Zoopla Property Group (ZPG), which recently acquired energy provider comparison site uSwitch, dropped by 15.9p to 258.7p at the tail end of last week, following an Ofgem investigation into whether two or more companies providing a supporting service for the energy industry breached competition law. Following shareholder and FCA approval, ZPG last week completed its acquisition of uSwitch, the comparison website and lead generation engine for energy and communications switching. But while ZPG said that the deal was designed to reaffirmthe company’s mission to be the most useful resource for consumers and most effective marketing partner for professionals operating within the property industry, the acquisition may actually prove to have been badly timed. The concern for ZPG is that uSwitch, along with MoneySupermarket, has been asked by Ofgem to provide information in relation to an investigation over whether companies supporting the energy industry have broken any rules. Despite the pending investigation, the enlarged ZPG group is now working on developing products which will directly benefit ZPG members by allowing them to source the best gas, electricity, broadband, TV and phone deals in the market and earn fees whilst saving money for their clients. The aim is that…
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Agencies & People
Zoopla loses nearly a quarter of its agents
Despite a significant increase in web traffic, a growing number of estate agents are cancelling their subscriptions to Zoopla to join rival site OnTheMarket.com (OTM). Shares in Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) dropped last week, after the firm reported that the number of estate agents listing their properties for sale and to let on the Zoopla website had dropped by 23 per cent over the past 12 months, largely due to the recent launch of OnTheMarket.com (OTM) which continues to have an adverse impact on its business. OTM, solely owned by the agents that list on the website, with more than 5,000 estate agency offices now signed up, has had a dramatic early impact on the market with its ‘one other portal’ rule requiring their member agents to stop advertising on either Rightmove or Zoopla, with the vast majority of agents opting to drop Zoopla. Ian Springett (left), Chief Executive of OTM, said, “Since our launch four months ago OnTheMarket.com has already taken almost one quarter of the estate and letting agent members from Zoopla Property Group. Less than 10 per cent of OnTheMarket.com’s member firms are using Zoopla as their other portal.” “In addition, OnTheMarket.com has already overtaken Zoopla in…
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Agencies & People
OTM is here to stay, says Ian Springett
OnTheMarket.com (OTM) has hit back at claims that its portal is struggling to establish any meaningful audience levels. Just over three months since the launch of OTM, competitor portal, Zoopla, has claimed that OTM is failing to have a significant impact on the market by citing data from independent web monitoring firm Hitwise which shows that website traffic to OTM fell by 13.5 per cent in April. But Ian Springett (left), Chief Executive of OTM, has described Zoopla Property Group’s (ZPG) claims as “inaccurate and speculative.” He said, “It is a fact that less than 10 per cent of the agent members of OnTheMarket.com have chosen Zoopla as their other portal. And it is a fact that the Hitwise figure showing a reduction in traffic of 13.5 per cent in April is wrong.” OTM reports that it has attracted more than 10 million visits since launching over three months ago, and that traffic levels have remained buoyant in May to the extent that OTM has just experienced its highest ever number of weekly visits. To date, OTM says that its users have viewed an average of 9.3 pages and spent an average of 6.5 minutes per visit. What’s more, with…
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Agencies & People
Zoopla acquires price-comparison website uSwitch
Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) has announced that it is to buy online price comparison site uSwitch in a deal worth up to £190 million. ZPG, which also owns a number of other websites such as Prime Location and Smart New Homes, said the agreed deal, at £160 million plus a performance-based earn out of up to £30 million, believe that the deal will help it deliver a wider property service to people seeking the best deals online. uSwitch, owned by Ulysses Enterprises Limited, enables consumers to find the best deals from utilities such as electricity and phone bills. It had revenues of £62.9 million and earnings of £16.2 million last year with 50.3 million online visits. It claims to have saved customers £112 million last year on energy bills alone. ZPG said that the deal to acquire uSwitch will allow its members to benefit from increased engagement with home movers and greater insight into their property requirements along with enhanced exposure to the further differentiated ZPG audience. ZPG is also developing new products that will create revenue opportunities for its members around home services switching. Alex Chesterman (left), Founder & CEO of Zoopla Property Group said, “This is a transformational…
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Agencies & People
Zoopla and Rightmove provide ‘competitive advantage’ – Connells
A detailed analysis of email leads delivered by Zoopla and Rightmove throughout 2014 show that the level of duplication between the two major portals is lower than previously thought, the Connells Group has claimed. Internal data from Connells reveals that of all consumers who sent email leads through the major portals, 93.8 per cent were unique to either Zoopla or Rightmove with only the remainder duplicated between the top two portals. What’s more, Connells claims that for the highest value market appraisal leads, 99.9 per cent were unique, with just 0.1 per cent duplication. David Plumtree (left), Group CEO Estate Agency Connells Group, said, “With the recent launch of Agents’ Mutual we were keen to confirm the value delivered to our network by the major property portals, reaffirming the low level of duplication of leads between the two main players, which has continued into 2015. “The value of being on both Zoopla and Rightmove is clear, and remains the best choice for our customers and network of agency offices in 2015.” As a shareholder in Zoopla, the Connells Group has opted not to sign up to OnTheMarket.com (OTM), which launched earlier this year. Meanwhile, Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) has confirmed…
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Features
Online and on the ball
Christopher Walkey, CEO of Marketme, looks at some of the trendsetters in social media.
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Latest property news
OTM growth ‘concerns’ Zoopla, says Ian Springett
OnTheMarket (OTM) Chief Executive Ian Springett (left) insists that web traffic to the OTM website has proved “buoyant” in March, despite accusations to the contrary, thanks largely to a multi-million pound advertising campaign that has provided “outstanding results.” Responding to claims by competitor portal Zoopla that web traffic to OTM last week, based on Hitwise data, fell by 25 per cent compared to the previous week, Springett insisted that the data is “inaccurate” and that OTM “stand by every figure we have previously quoted.” “Zoopla’s concerns about the growth of OTM at their expense are apparently increasing,” he said. “On March 6th and 7th, we passed the two million mark of unique users. Contrary to Zoopla’s claims, the traffic levels have remained buoyant throughout March. The results of our multi-million pound marketing campaign are continuing to emerge and the property-seeking public are appreciating the faster, cleaner, fresher search experience which OTM offers.” Lawrence Hall of Zoopla (right) insists that over the past couple of weeks “things have gone from bad to worse for OTM” with traffic falling “notably from an already low base and very low engagement levels per visit”, but Springett remains confident OTM will become the UK’s number…
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Latest property news
OnTheMarket traffic dispute goes on
The Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) has issued yet another press release questioning the number of people who are actually visiting the recently launched OnTheMarket (OTM) property portal. OTM report that it has now attracted more than two million unique users to its website since it was launched in late January 2015, but figures from independent web audience monitoring firm comScore, as quoted by Zoopla, claims that total ‘unique visitors’ to OTM during February were 439,000, suggesting that the level of web traffic to the OTM was actually less than two million. Hitwise also claim that OTM has got off to a slower start than is claimed, with its data revealing that the recently launched portal attracted less than 38,000 daily visits in February. Lawrence Hall (left) of ZPG said, “OTM continues to make unsubstantiated and misleading claims about its traffic but its members are easily able to track their enquiries and performance and we urge them to do so. Despite recent attempts to rubbish independent data sources like Hitwise and comScore, these are widely recognised by advertisers worldwide as the most reliable indicators of audience. We believe that OTM will need to come clean to its members about its ability…
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Latest property news
OTM attracts more members but traffic dispute continues
OnTheMarket.com (OTM) announces that it has now attracted more than two million unique users to its website since launched in late January 2015, but data from Hitwise claims that OTM has got off to a much slower start, while research by Home.co.uk suggests that it still ‘has a mountain to climb’ to overtake Zoopla as the second largest website in the property portal market. Ian Springett (left), Chief Executive of OTM, insists that it “can no longer be questioned” that OTM is now a major property portal as traffic levels to the website continue to grow. He also pointed out that the portal is providing “high quality leads” for its member agents “day in, day out”, which partly explains why it now has close to 5,000 contracted offices – 90 per cent of which have chosen to leave Zoopla, according to Springett. “We are confident in becoming the number two portal within a year to replace Zoopla/PrimeLocation,” said Springett. “We have more than 4,800 contracted offices – 90 per cent of which have chosen to leave Zoopla – and are growing in size as the impact of our multi-million pound advertising campaign hits home and our reputation as a cleaner,…
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