Two new real estate reports were released Wednesday by Classified Intelligence and Borrell Associates. Word is that Google is trying to lure real estate ad money to Adwords, and away from classifieds.
Apparently Google has three separate sales divisions going after this money, and they seem to be doing a pretty good job at getting it.
Google is not the only search engine seeking revenue from real estate firms, but are probably having the most success with it. Steve Outing of Poynter writes:
From both reports, a key point is how dominant the search engines (especially Google) are becoming in attracting local real estate advertising money. Borrell notes how Google has begun pursuing the real estate category directly, now employing three regional sales teams in the U.S. that are focused on the real estate and other classifieds categories. The search giant has been making presentations to major brokerage firms such as Century 21, RE/MAX, and Coldwell Banker, Borrell reports.
Those real estate companies are buying advertising as part of Google’s AdWords and AdSense programs, where they pay per click, and they’re bidding up keywords to $1 per click, and $2 in some cities. A growing segment of these bidders are local advertisers, says Borrell — individual agents and brokerage firms.
Newspapers can’t be happy about the results of this research. It makes you wonder just how long the newspaper industry will actually last. I’m sure it has a while to go before its extinction, but who could say just how long?
Chris is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
