Domain and JustListed get into bed
by Peter Ricci, on 1st August, 2007 • 12 Comments
Well here is one from left field, Domain and Justlisted are now in bed together. JustListed will carry all of Domain.com.au’s listings. The great thing is that if you advertise on Domain.com.au your listings automatically appear on JustListed.
Now why? Well because Justlisted started out as a pretty cool little site, then it simply did nothing and sat back and watched everyone just basically laughed at them. Earlier this year the site was down for a couple of weeks for maintenance, almost never heard of in today’s online world!
I have never got the principal of this site. It basically carries hardly any property information, a few pictures resized, a description, some pricing and that’s about it. Hardly a site that has visitor loyalty stamped across it.
So who benefits from this deal? Well the Sensis owned JustListed gets a national website without having to pay sales people. Domain get another reason for agents to join them. Bit of a win win for both parties.
Sensis probably figure they can make money alongside the advertising, but to me it just says ‘we give up’. Maybe Sensis are becoming more accountable instead of continually blowing 10’s of millions on ordinary products (read Sensis search)
Here is the press release:
Domain.com.au and Just Listed are pleased to announce an exciting new partnership.
Effective August 1 2007, real estate agents who advertise on Domain.com.au will automatically have their listings displayed on Just Listed at no additional cost.
We also look forward to extending the reach of JustListed clients, by bringing together two of the longest established and most successful real estate sites in Australia.
How do I take advantage of this partnership?
If you currently advertise on Domain.com.au, please upload your listings as normal.If you do not advertise on Domain.com.au, our Customer Care Team will help you through the process - allowing you to advertise across both sites for the one price.
Please contact Amanda Evans, on 02 8596 4881 or sales at domain.com.au.
This agreement replaces all previous listing methods for Just Listed clients.
About Domain.com.au
Domain.com.au is the easiest way to reach your property audience. Leveraging the strength and credibility of the Fairfax Media network – reaching out to 1,958,642* unique browsers.Domain.com.au is Australia’s Best Classifieds website – as voted by Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), 2007.
Links:
www.domain.com.au
www.justlisted.com.au
www.sensis.com.au
Editor Note: I grant Domain.com.au as being a ‘long established and successful site’ but NOT JustListed. As for Australia’s Best Classifieds Website, well the other big players (REA) did not enter that competition, but still it was a victory Domain have hardly been shy about in press releases.
Comments
Peter, I thought your readers might like to know more of the back story.
JustListed came to us about doing a transaction along these lines, but we knocked it back.
Here’s the proposed deal as it was outlined to us:
1..JustListed takes all of our properties and presents them as their own.
2..Click-throughs from search results pages navigate through to the details page on Realestate.com.au in a new browser window.
3..We pay JustListed for those click throughs.
4..JustListed also keeps its earnings from display advertising that it sells on its home and search results pages.
To us it just didn’t make sense to let JustListed generate consumer traffic on the strength of our listings database. We work very hard to provide good value to agents, and having nearly the entire property market in one database is the reward for that effort.
More reasons we turned the deal down:
1..We could buy the same amount of traffic from other sources for less than JustListed wanted us to pay.
2..Because JustListed would send users through only to property detail pages, those users were less likely to be sticky and were thus less valuable than traffic from other sources.
3..Just listed only offered us about 50,000 unique UBS, because most of their users also visit us. (More than half also already visit domain.)
As far as we were concerned the deal only made sense for JustListed. They can sit back and collect royalty checks from their portal partner without lifting a finger.
That doesn’t mean that domain and Just Listed weren’t able to find some mutual value proposition. It’s just that for us, it wasn’t there.
Thanks for keeping us all up-to-date, Peter.
Dave Platter
1st Aug, 2007
Hi Dave. Well looking at that deal there was not allot in it for you guys. In fact I would have thought the only reason you could possibly take on that kind of deal would be to prevent anybody else from doing it.
I would like to see Domain keep the work they have been doing up. I would also like to see them go aggressively with rural press integrations, I do hope this will not slow the process down.
Peter
1st Aug, 2007
“In fact I would have thought the only reason you could possibly take on that kind of deal would be to prevent anybody else from doing it.”
Well said Peter, I guess no one at REA thought of that, until now ….DOH !
Geoff
1st Aug, 2007
Hi Geoff, not sure if you are having a go at me or not there Geoff?
Peter Ricci
2nd Aug, 2007
It seems maybe Domain and Fairfax jumped the gun a little on the Just Listed partnership. I did notice that in their Press Release Domain had a new Just Listed Logo and this is not on Just Listed’s website. Also another glaringly obvious thing is that Just Listed’s website still only caters for Sydney and Domain’s press release did not mention that this was just for the Sydney area.
Ooops!
Peter
2nd Aug, 2007
I meant you are right, REA should have done a deal of sorts to lock out Fairfax but they didn’t think of it. I think Fairfax have the view of spreading their listings over a wide range of distribution points not just one web site.
Geoff
2nd Aug, 2007
Good Afternoon,
This is a very interesting development.
As a former user of Justlisted I am intrigued to find out what happens to all the current Justlisted customers. Do they now have to start paying domain for the service which Justlisted provided them?
If so, how is this a win for the Justlisted loyal customers?
Also, does this mean that all the data we all put into the Justlisted system, now goes straight to APM?
No wonder fairfax jumped at this deal, it is a good one for them. More paying customers and more data for APM.
Just wondering what is in it for us?
E
Elizabeth
2nd Aug, 2007
“If so, how is this a win for the Justlisted loyal customers?”
It’s easy to be loyal when you don’t pay anything.
Geoff
2nd Aug, 2007
Insightful Geoff. However your approach obviously does not apply to my particular relationship / ‘loyalty’ to Justlisted, as I left it some time ago.
What I am wondering though is, for those who are used to the service and have not paid in the past, where does this leave them?
It all comes down to how domain treats the existing customer base and how they manage the changeover.
E
Elizabeth
2nd Aug, 2007
Most of them would already be paying one of the portals and ,if not, it’s about time they did. This gives them the chance to stay on JL and get Domain as well.
Some will drop off but you cant really run a business giving your services away forever and if an agent doesn’t want to pay then who needs them ?
Geoff
2nd Aug, 2007
Smart move for both.
I call it co-opetition.
Just listed can potentialy add some distribution horsepower for agents in the future if Telstra/SensIS ever work out how to market on the internet.
And that is the big question here.
snoop
2nd Aug, 2007
Sounds like a deal that two companies who can’t catch a market leader would normally do in most industries…get together and try to catch a market leader.
Justlisted must be one the most embarrassing failures of all time for guess who? …Sensis! Those guys seem to have a happy knack of stuffing things up.
As for domain, well they have to try something, anything to bridge the gap between them and REA.
Chris
4th Aug, 2007