Understanding Craigslist Results- Who Uses Them

Article from: http://www.stlagent.com

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By: Darin "Sid" Cameron, CRS
Mon, Aug 27th, 2007 3:29 pm

A lot of people have asked what we're doing with Craigslist. From evaluating a year's worth of IVR calls, monitoring what listings get viewings and what the demo is of the prospects we're getting, here's what I can tell you about their users and what to expect from advertising there.

The prospects on Craigslist (and Backpage) tend to be younger (very heavily 35 and below) and tend to be looking in the more "hip" areas. City listings, lofts, condos, etc get lots of hits and IVR calls but my large suburban family homes just sit quietly ignored.

And here's what's interesting: the call and viewing patterns are the exact opposite from Realtor.com website stats so from a marketing standpoint they complement each other well. It also tends to be the search choice for younger relo prospects because it's national.

Another interesting thing to note is that I received "free" Sunday newspaper advertising at my Prudential franchise. In the last six months we were there, those ads didn't generate a single 1-800 number IVR call. NOT ONE CALL! (and it's $125 per day/per house to advertise with them now that I'm at RE/MAX).

Meanwhile I can get 40 calls a week from Craigslist.

I've also seen my ads in the free grocery store magazines drop off drastically over the past year (like by 70%). If you read the newspaper trades, classified advertising is decreasing by 15% a year nationally and they are blaming Craigslist. The more people go there to advertise their garage sale, the more they will go back to search for other stuff.