Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 29th May 2008
Loophole allows £17-a-month advertising on UK’s biggest newspaper site
According to the latest ABCe figures, Telegraph.co.uk has overtaken the Guardian.co.uk as the most popular UK based newspaper site on the internet. It boasts 18.6 million monthly unique visitors, ahead of the Guardian.co.uk (18.5 million), Mail Online (18 million), Times Online (15.4 million) and The Sun (14 million).
Amazingly, overseas estate agents and developers can list property on Telegraph.co.uk for under £17 a month by signing up with the newspaper’s overseas property portal partner,
EuropeanProperty.com. You can list unlimited properties for £199 a year, which works out at £16.58 per month. This compares to £100 per property per month when buying online-only property listings directly through the Telegraph classified team.
Since the deal with their previous partner,
Propertyfinder.com, expired (they were bought by a competitor), the Telegraph has been looking for ways to boost online property content across the site. The deal with European Property improves the user experience but potentially compromises their commercial efforts. Given the potential loss of sales revenue, it’s surprising that the Telegraph choose to partner with one of the least expensive overseas portals on the internet and then brand every property with the European Property logo to publicise it. Nobody at the Telegraph was available for comment.
A good opportunity
According to
ABCe figures, their property channel had 337,000 unique visitors in April. Not massive numbers, and overseas is not split out, but their demographics are likely to have good synergy with potential second home buyers as their readers tend to be older and wealthier than readers of other UK broadsheets. It may not be worth £100 a month per property, but it’s certainly worth a go for £16.58 a month for an unlimited selection.
Competing with its clients?
Another quirk to the Telegraph's business model is its “Telegraph Homes Abroad” service, in partnership with estate agency group Approved Properties Abroad. According to their Marketing Director, Gary Dalton, they “undertake strict due diligence…and split commissions [with the Telegraph Group]”. It’s similar to the Carol Voderman business model which was heavily criticised on
blogs, ironically after an article broke on Telegraph.co.uk asking
“Would you buy a property from Carol Voderman?”.
It’s not uncommon for smaller property portals to have estate agency businesses but to our knowledge this is the first big national newspaper brand to dip its toe in the water of overseas estate agency. Is this a wise strategy? Are you are any less inclined to advertise in the newspaper knowing they are “in bed” with a competitor, or doesn’t it matter? Please let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below.
Property developers interested in working with Telegraph Homes Abroad should contact Gary Dalton on +44 (0) 870 211 3040.
User Comments
I saw this post and thought FANTASTIC. Then read more about it? Costa Blanca Live have been advertising all of our properties on www.europeanproperty.com since the beginning of January 2008 and have not had one enquiry! So it cant be that good an offer? Regards John
John Treagust,
www.CostaBlanaLive.co.uk