Trulia unveiled a new advertising platform this week.
The real estate website now allows advertisers to publish mobile ads to site visitors.
The new features allow local real estate agents to push advertisements to users on Trulia's smartphone app and mobile website who are in the market for purchasing a home.
Agents can target the ads based on zip code so that they can reach people who are browsing in certain neighborhoods.
The move is sure to spark more conversations between agents and potential buyers since the ads are pushed out to people at a different phase of the buying cycle.
Stephen Rossi, Trulia's Director of Marketing, feels that the ads will reach people who are more likely to contact an agent.
This combined with the above average click through rates that mobile advertisements normally have will make the product useful to real estate agents who want to reach Trulia's audience.
The ads are priced based on the popularity of specific regions and will have different levels of interactivity.
Users can call, email, or view more information about real estate agents and the properties they list.
Some of Trulia's testing has shown that people want a variety of options when choosing to interact with a real estate agent.
Rossi says that Trulia hoped to capitalize on the surge of mobile traffic the site usually experiences on weekends.
Trulia's data suggests that users are in a browsing mood on weekends and many use their mobile devices to compare different properties.
The mobile properties that Trulia operates are thus prime spots for advertising.
Rossi says that up to 35% of the site's search traffic comes from mobile devices used to access Trulia on the weekends and that sometimes mobile traffic numbers exceed the amount of users accessing the service from laptops or desktop computers.
The innovative ads incorporate some traditional elements.
It's common in residential real estate for agents to include a photo of themselves in brochures and signage in order to build familiarity and trust with potential customers.
The mobile ads are no exception; Trulia includes the phone number and picture of the agents who publish the ads.
Currently Trulia is monetizing five different spots for their mobile users and real estate agents have the ability to buy chunks of those impressions in hopes of reaching new customers.
Rossi explained that the ads are priced based on the popularity of that particular region - different factors such as how fast the inventory of homes is moving, how many competing agents there are, and the overall property values influence what Trulia decides to charge for the advertisements.
What will be interesting to see is if real estate agents begin combining these efforts with the growing trend in using QR codes on signs and brochures, and if they implement metering numbers on their mobile ads in order to better gauge performance.
The level of traceability that is possible with this form of advertising combined with the general above-average performance that many kinds of mobile advertising has will likely turn the new formats into a huge growth opportunity for Trulia.
What do you think about the new advertisements? Do you think real estate agents can effectively market themselves on mobile devices and, more specifically, on Trulia's platform or should they be focusing their efforts elsewhere? Let me know what you think in the comments!