Many brokers are able to track basic metrics like page views and unique visitors, helping them to get a bead on the level of interest that their websites kindle.
But such data only sketches a rough picture of a website’s effectiveness and fails to capture its true return on investment, according to Aaron Sperling, CEO and president at vFlyer, a marketing services provider for brokers.
An analytics tool that vFlyer launched today solves that problem, Sperling said.
According to vFlyer, the 360 Degree Visibility tool tracks hyperdetailed metrics that reflect visitor engagement and stitches them together with Google Analytics data to offer a broker a crystal-clear picture of a website’s ability to generate leads.
Brokers may examine the data to see how often certain site features are converting visitors into leads by tracking actions like contact-info submissions, newsletter subscribes and video plays.
By reviewing the data, a broker can identify site weaknesses and make tweaks to improve performance, Sperling said.
For example, let’s say a broker is spending $4 a click on paid search traffic, and the broker uses 360 Degree Visibility to learn that its site has a 4 percent conversion rate, meaning that it takes 25 visitors to generate one lead.
Then the broker knows it is paying an average of $100 ($4 times 25) for every lead.
“If a lead is worth more than that, then a real estate professional is empowered to spend more on advertising such as Google,” Sperling said. “If it isn’t, then they can get to work on improving the conversion.”
An optional add-on to the analytics tool also offers call-tracking. The feature determines the site’s phone-call conversion rate. Serving out different numbers to site visitors, it also links every call that the site sparks to a particular visitor and the site actions that that visitor performs.
It even enables a broker using the tool to speak to consumers who have called while simultaneously observing what they are doing on the broker’s site. The call-tracking feature is available for WordPress sites ($34.95 a month) and vFlyer sites ($29.95 a month), and requires a setup fee of $99.
Screen shot of 360 Degree Visibility dashboard.
A recent relaunch of vFlyer’s broker website platform, vFlyer Sites 2.0, also offers improvements that include templates for content like articles and team lists, features that enable brokers to more closely control the process of integrating listings, and the ability to recycle modules rather than having to recreate them.
For now, 360 Degree Visibility works only with vFlyer’s website platform, but Sperling said the company intends to make the analytics tool available to third-party sites within the next few months.
