This is part two of our experiment testing several Edmonton apartment rental sites.
(If you haven’t already seen them, you might want to check the week one results and our ongoing list of some other popular sites where you can list your Edmonton, Calgary and Kelowna properties for rent.)
This is actually almost three weeks worth of data. After this we put the calls all back into our normal system and put the four cell phones to other uses. A big thanks to Keely and Brent for taking the time and initiative to make this experiment work. Really, really big thanks to Keely, who is an organizational miracle.
As you’ll remember from Week 1, we were advertising a nice 2 bedroom apartment in March 2008. We ran identical ads with only the email and cell phone number offered as a contact. We used unique contacts for each site. One of the reasons I reported four rental sites with the first week’s data was that we only recieved hits from four sources.
Here’s the final results, in no particular order:
(Click on the picture to see it full size)
| Site | Emails | Calls |
| Alberta Rent | 2 | 0 |
| 3 | 40 | |
| 2 | 33 | |
| Rent Faster | 1 | 20 |
| Home Rent | 1 | 2 |
What sites work for you folks? Where do you look for price comparison? Where do you advertise?
Hi Chris,
I am having an ongoing discussion with our property manager about advertising in the Edmonton Journal – he still really supports it. Can you tell me where you think the EJ fits in with your results above?
thanks,
Camille
Hi Camille,
It can work quite well, for local visitors and the lower and lower-middle socio-economic class targeted people. For example, we had a building on 82nd Street with 22 suites and only only 3 have computers. The Sun can be a better choice when targeting those demographic groups. Once we started logging the calls, we noticed the ads in the Sun would get calls during coffee break and lunch times.
It depends on the property, so if you’re renting the house, maybe not. If it’s a basement suite, then go for the papers, particularly the Sun.