Testing Edmonton Rental Websites

Brent Davies — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:24:33 +0000

As a Landlord in Edmonton, finding the great tenants during the busy summer rental season is a must. With the economic slowdown and the increased vacancy in Edmonton, it time to check our rental tools.

The Edmonton Journal Classified section, the traditional place to advertise the rentals, has shrunk from 2 full pages a few years ago to less than 1\2 page today. So where and why have the advertisers moved to?

Our rental market in Edmonton is from May to September 10. The phone stops ringing in the fall after the 10th of September. June and July are hot rental months. August is desperation time for students, as they struggle to find a place for the school year. New families moving to town want the kid’s school settled before start of school in September.

Advertising for tenants on the internet has become a big business over the past five years. What worked yesterday is not working today.

This is the 2nd year of our testing of websites. Last year was only 4 sites. This year was 9 sites in the first trial.

The primary purpose of the test is find out what sites tenants are responding to. Internet ads are a great way to measure your results and if done correctly, test different ads and methods.

The first test used the same townhouse in northeast Edmonton. 3 bedrooms. Small pet allowed and above market rent listed and a suggestion of a rental incentive was in the ad.

9 ads, all the same, with 9 different email address to reply to.

The address was in the ads, but no signs were on site, as the property was under renovations at the time.

Email responses gave us a method of measuring the number of results from each rental website. We also obtained the time, day and date of response. Geographic location of the email sender was possible in this test, but not recorded. A gmail account can be from anywhere. Shaw.ca is usually Alberta.

The first two weeks worth of results from the test:

It is very disappointing the lack of responses, and the test data is from a small sampling of potential rentals. This leads to an important question.

How do you stand out in the sea of ads?

After reviewing the data received, a number of questions were raised, and more research is needed for the next series. One very interesting point was the lack of weekend calls. Do many prospective tenants search for rentals at work? As an employer, do my employees search for things on the internet on company time? Do tenants phone first or email on a good property? How many clicks or views before a response to ad? Cost of website vs responses? What headline works best?

The responses are all during business days, and during working hours. Traditional calls were after 4 pm and the weekend. Is this a new shift or bad data?

Several years ago, I observed a shift when advertising in the Edmonton Sun, a tabloid newspaper in Edmonton that caters to the “younger crowd” I was advertising lower end apartments in the paper, and was receiving calls the morning. I was theorized that guys at the shop coffee room were reading the paper and calling the ads. Same at lunch time. Whenever I have visited a industrial plant, and look in the lunch room, there are several copies of the Edmonton sun, but no Journals. It could be the sunshine girl, and the guys just read the articles. More marketing questions.

Not enough data to make a statement, but enough to ask some very interesting questions.

Brent Davies » Finding Renters

Testing Edmonton Rental Websites