So last week I told you a few basics about how to use Craigslist to generate real estate leads. This week I want to show you how to optimize those ads by using Craigslist Ad Tracker.
When it comes to craigslist marketing for real estate, there are 3 key parts of the Ad Tracker that you need to pay attention to:
- How to get people to click on your Craigslist Ad
- How to get people to click through to your page
- How to get people to respond to your call to action
Craigslist Ad Tracker will not do any of these things for you, but rather it will tell you WHERE your problem is so that you can find a solution to it.
A Brief Overview of Craigslist Ad Tracker
Like so many other tools out there, there is a free version and a paid version. I have never paid for the tool and have used it quite effectively. There is a limit on the number of trackers that you can use on the free version, but you can register a couple of accounts with different email addresses. I admit that the paid version might give me a few advantages, but so far I have made do with the free version and I think you can to.
Here is a quick video walk through of Craigslist Ad Tracker to give you an idea of what I’m talking about below.
The information that Craigslist Ad Tracker give you will give you a few key tidbits that will help you to analyze the effectiveness of your real estate ads on craigslist.
Number of Impressions – The number of times that someone has clicked on your ad to see it on Craigslist.
Number of Clicks - The number of times that someone has clicked on the link in your add to get to your website.
Click Through Rate – The percentage of people that clicked on your link after reading your ad.
What Do These Numbers Mean?
Number of Impressions
If the impressions of your craigslist ad are low, there are a couple of potential issues that all need to be addressed:
- Your ad may have been Ghosted. Craigslist occasionally will “ghost” an ad that it thinks may be spam or overpost. The reason that it is called “Ghosting” is because unless you check Craigslist from another browser that is not logged into Craigslist, it will appear to you as if it posted successfully. No one else can see it.
- You posted your craigslist ad at a time when there weren’t many people online to look or too many other posts knocked yours off of the front page. Craigslist only shows 100 posts at a time. Much like Google, few people go past page 1 to look for what they want. Depending on the area you are posting in, there could be hundreds of posts per HOUR.
- Your ad headline or title was totally ineffective at getting attention. Look at the headlines on Craigslist. Which ones would you click on if you were looking to buy or sell a house? Why? Now remember that when you are writing your headlines.
Analyze your data and figure out where your issues are. Compare the data in Ad Tracker to the info in Craigslist to see if you can identify patterns based on time, keywords, and titles. Use that information to improve.
Number of Clicks
There is really only one thing that affects the number of clicks: The ad itself. Are you writing good ads? Are you giving away too much information in the ad so that viewers have no need to click through for more info? Is your call to action compelling enough to get someone to click through?
Click Through Rate
This number compares the ratio between impressions and click throughs. 10-15% is a common click through rate, but well crafted ads can yield much more. If you have an ad with very few impressions but a high click through rate, then you have a very strong ad with a weak title. If you have an ad with a lot of impressions but a low click through rate, then you have a great title with a very poor ad. If you have very few impressions and a very low click through rate, it may be time to delete that ad and go back to the drawing board.
Lots of Clicks But No Leads!
So, you have adjusted your ad titles to get a lot of impressions, and you have adjusted your ad copy to get a lot of clicks to your website, but you still aren’t generating leads with Craigslist? Then the problem, my friend is not with Craigslist or your ads… it is with your website and your lead capture. The best ad can do a great job of driving traffic to a store, but if the product is (or appears to be) crap, then it isn’t going to sell. Know your numbers, know where your problem lies, and make adjustments.
Here are a couple articles that I will be writing in the coming days/weeks. Let me know which ones you want to see first in the comments below:
How To Create Trackers on Craigslist Ad Tracker
How To Create Effective Real Estate Ads On Craigslist
If you want to be notified automatically about new articles, sign up below or over on the right sidebar or follow HiTechAgents on Facebook and Twitter!
