You add a listing and pay for it to be seen. A colleague in the same area pays more to rank higher. You top up to overtake them. A month later, it all starts again.
Paid visibility can make sense. The problem starts when it becomes an automatic expense nobody recalculates. This method helps you work out what every euro spent on visibility actually brings you.
Write down what you really pay for visibility
Take the last three months and list every payment related to making your listings visible:
- portal memberships and packages,
- paid boosts and highlights for individual listings,
- paid positions in search results,
- ads that lead to specific listings.
Count the whole office, not just one agent. Small recurring payments for individual listings are easy to overlook when they add up.
Work out the cost of one enquiry and one viewing
For each channel, write down how many of these it brought:
- enquiries,
- qualified conversations,
- viewings that took place,
- agreements signed with owners or deals closed.
Then divide the costs by the number of results.
Illustrative example (made-up figures, not a market average): an office spends 2,400 euros on paid boosts over three months and receives 60 enquiries. One enquiry costs 40 euros. If those lead to four viewings, one viewing costs 600 euros.
These numbers alone will not tell you whether that is a lot or a little. But they show you what to compare against when you consider the next payment.
Watch out for a race nobody wins
When one agent in an area pays for boosts, they gain an advantage. When everyone does, nobody ranks higher. Everyone just pays more for the same order as before.
If you keep paying more and the results do not change, you are probably in that race. Another boost will not help. Changing the channel, or the way you present the listing, will.
Do not put all your listings in one place
This is our view as a portal operator, so read it with that in mind: when most agents advertise in one place, that place can set the terms. Prices can rise, and offices pay because they have nowhere else to go.
You do not have to leave anywhere. It is enough to publish some of your listings on another portal too, and measure the results the same way as for your main channel. After two or three months, you will have numbers instead of impressions.
The more agents do this, the more real options appear on the market. And when agents have a choice, the terms cannot be changed without regard for them.
What to tell the owner
Owners often ask why you do not "put the listing higher". You can show them the calculation: how much one enquiry costs in each channel and where the listing gets the most interest. Then you decide together based on numbers, not feelings.
On Livappy, publishing listings on the Basic plan is free, and listings appear on the map where you place them. It is one channel you can test without a budget. Plans for agents
Photo: Ibrahim Rifath / Unsplash. Illustrative photo.
