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Trulia Seeks Online Ad Salesman to Sell Fortune 500 Brands

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) December 29th, 2008 in Advertising. Comments

Trulia is looking for a rockstar salesman to get Fortune 500 company advertising, which will compete with individual agent ads and house listings for consumers’ attention.

From Trulia’s ad on Craigslist (12/12/08):

Trulia is currently seeking a rockstar Account Executive to join our New York-based online media sales team. You will be responsible for generating new business, presenting Trulia display advertising opportunities to advertising agencies and Fortune 500 brands, closing new accounts, and working closely with internal management and clients and to ensure an advertiser’s success. (emphasis added)…..Working knowledge of CPC, CPM, CPA pricing models. (link not in original)

Hmm… wonder how real estate agents will feel about big flashy Fortune 500 ads competing with their (shared) Spotlight ads and, more importantly, their house listings*? Why would you want to draw a buyer’s eyes away when they’re looking at an individual listing? An agent wouldn’t …. but a media company would.  Oh well, that’s what a media company like Trulia does– sells ads to pull visitors off the site.

* flash premium ads appear on individual listing pages –  agent spotlight ads (shared with other agents) DO NOT.  That kinda sucks– change that Pete, willya.

Related Post:

Trulia Pro Ads: Pros and Cons

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  • An interesting consideration is that individual Realtor's ® need not to worry about competing with major companies like Trulia because Real Estate will remain a local business where community ties, high-level local marketing, and optimization of your own niche websites will always generate better results. These factors will never be replaced, even when positioned against major companies that have endless budgets.
  • That is true.
  • Joe,
    You know what is even more interesting than all this "little" stuff? When agents/companies realize that we can do the same thing that Trulia does (because we already have access to all the listings.....it's curtains for those type of sites..

    A lot of brokers/agents are "on it" and thinks will be a changin'! Think: If Trulia can do it, I can too!
  • You are undoubtedly right Kevin. And that is the "big" stuff.

    But until the day the curtain falls, I'll bust them to give agents a fair ad shake. Pete and Sami were never real estate agents (as far as I know) but the other folks over there were and they oughta tell those guys that agents come first, not ad agencies and Fortune 500 big shots. Ads on individual listing pages must be AD FREE or allow for agent ads.
  • You got that right Michael-- biz is biz -- and Trulia has to make the big advertisers happy, even if they have to step on agents' ads & listings to do it. That's why they let you post your listings for free-- so you can't complain. Meanwhile, the listings are gold to them. Yep, it's quite a biz.

    But heck, give the agents a fair shake-- let them put their spotlight ads on the individual listing page, where other companies' ads control the space or better yet, make the listing page (the most important for the agent) AD FREE -- after all, without the agents' listings, there is no traffic and no big ad bucks to the T-men. I hope Pete will change this ad policy once (if) he reads this post.
  • Joe, thank you for this post.

    We haven't used Trulia in a while and do just fine... They definetely do not have the agents best interests.

    They are after those big ad bucks... Can't blame them though. Biz is biz.

    Regards,

    Michael from NJ

    http://www.cranburyrealestate.com
  • Right on Lou. Ads just compete with listings and their purpose is to pull the visitor away-- good for the advertiser, good for the media company-- not good for the listing agent, the home for sale or the seller.

    When Rudy and I designed a real estate listing site, we pledged an ad free environment.

    One of my biggest gripes is the way Trulia treats agent ads -- they'll let a Fortune 500 company ad not only trump an agent ad (size, location, flash) but let them put a flash ad on the individual listing page ---but deny an agent the right to have their ad there. Why? That seems quite unfair to agents. Instead, all agents get is a text challenged static ad shared with another pro on a SERP.

    Heck, even the featured listings have competing ads on the page. That's a disgrace. I say if an agent/broker pays extra for a featured listing, let the listing page be AD FREE. C'mon Pete, get on this fix (and leave my consulting fee in a brown paper bag).
  • Joe

    I can say in contrast that on HomeGain with our buyerlink product we send the traffic from our site TO the agents' site where THEY display the listings.

    On our agent view product when agents display listings on HomeGain they are displayed in an AD FREE environment, with a link to THER web site.

    Agent content on HomeGain in the form of listings, or agent blogs or profiles is not used as traffic bait to sell third party advertising. The traffic enures to the benefit of the agent displaying the content.

    We display advertising only where we don't have an agent to feature or to send traffic to.
  • As a Trulia Pro advertiser, I can't say that I have any interest in renewing when my year runs out. Jeez, I should have chosen the monthly option. Wish I had read Trulia Pro Ads: Pros and Cons before I invested.
  • Rock star, huh? I wonder how much that pays and if the agents are advertising are paying for it albeit indirectly.
  • Good question. Anyone out there know the pay?
  • I'm waiting for a listing agent to explain to me how it's helpful to them to have some other company's advertising on their property listing page.
  • Just another reason why real estate agents should not be putting links to Trulia on their websites.
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