When following up or nurturing existing leads, you might often be in the dark since you don’t always know whether a particular lead should have a higher or lower priority.
Zurple can help you with that because of its automatic lead nurturing system based on user behavior on your individual Zurple agent website.
That’s only one of the platform’s core features, and another one is the seller and buyer lead generation.
Today’s article has a closer look at this real estate marketing suite, and you will get a Zurple review from a marketing performance perspective.
You will learn what it is, who owns it, all its features, the pricing, what you can expect regarding marketing performance and a pros and cons overview.
Sound interesting? Then please keep reading.
What is Zurple, and Who Owns it?
Like the lead generation marketing suite “Offrs” (you will find my review about them here), the Constellation Real Estate Group also owns Zurple.
It is a publicly traded real estate technology company that owns real estate tech companies like SmartZip, Diverse Solutions, and Market Leader.
In general, Zurple combines a CRM and a real estate lead generation platform that generates buyer and seller leads for you using mainly digital marketing channels such as Google and Facebook Ads.
Their automated, behavioral-based, and highly individualized lead nurturing system is the key feature that differentiates them from many competitors.
Zurple Features
Zurple offers two main core features. One is buyer and seller lead generation, and the other is lead follow-up or nurturing.
1) Seller and Buyer Lead Generation (Marketing)
The strategies for their different marketing methods to generate buyer and seller leads make sense.
For example, they run Google search ads to generate buyer leads with a strong focus on the right search intent.
It makes sense since one of the first things a buyer does when looking for properties is start with a Google search for a specific geographic region.
That’s why realtors get a locally specific domain name where the buyer lead capturing will occur.
Then, after a buyer clicks on a search ad, they come to a specific landing page where they can do a home search.
During the search, a popup opt-in will appear, offering the potential buyer to stay updated on the property market, getting unique content, giant photos, and listing alerts in exchange for their contact information.
I was glad to see that this is not a forced opt-in to be able to continue the property search, which would be counter-productive in terms of user-friendliness and website bounce rates.
Besides the standard search via the search on Zurple realtor websites, potential buyers can also search by marking a specific area on a map.
After having marked or circled a particular area, the different available properties are displayed.
What I really liked is that in terms of lead capturing and making the most out of your advertising dollars, they also consider that potential buyers can also be potential sellers and vice versa.
This means that a buyer browsing through the properties can also find a menu item on the top of the website to see which homes were sold.
Once they arrive at this page, they will find another option, which is directed at potential sellers. Here, they can inquire about a home valuation via another opt-in.
This will generate seller leads.
So the paid traffic of potential buyers from Google also gets channeled to convert as seller leads.
Potential buyers and sellers will also see community reports on a Zurple realtor website with all the relevant data about the demographics, population numbers, and more.
You can also let the website compare different community data side by side.
Related to the community reports are also school reports a potential buyer can access.
If you work with a partnering lender as a realtor and split marketing costs, you can have your Zurple website link to the lending company you are working with.
To generate seller leads specifically, Zurple mainly uses seller behavior, specifically FB ads in particular zip codes you want to target.
As I’ve mentioned in my article about Facebook ads for real estate, these ads are ideal for generating seller leads.
Why?
Because even if you are logged out of Facebook, they still track you around the web in a limited fashion (kind of controversial, I know).
So, by collecting a lot of behavioral data as a marketer on Facebook, you can use this data and better target potential real estate sellers.
Zurple uses Facebook ads to promote a home valuation report, such as “Find out what your home is worth…” and then captures these leads directly on Facebook or on the landing page they create for this.
After capturing seller leads, they receive an automated but individualized follow-up message proposing a property walk-through.
Zurple claims to get 40% and 60% email open rates from these messages.
As additional information, the company just recently offered an exclusive seller lead generation program.
So it doesn’t share generated leads with any other agent in your area.
You will need to pay an extra monthly amount to get these exclusive leads, as you will see soon below in the pricing overview table.
2) Lead Follow Up
Zurple’s lead follow-up system seems quite convincing because engaging and re-engaging with existing leads is based on behavioral data.
What is this behavioral data?
They use internal data analysis in the background to follow existing leads when they are on your Zurple realtor website.
Based on this tracked behavior, they categorize the leads into “Preferred,” “Browsing,” Expensive,” “Favorites,” and “Return.”
In other words, this algorithm determines how cold or hot a particular lead is.
Based on this information, you can prioritize which leads to communicate with next.
A lead labeled “Preferred” has looked at a property four or more times in a single search.
If a lead is labeled as “Browsing,” it means that she or he has viewed at least 25 homes in a single day.
If leads look at homes with a higher than average listing value according to MLS data, they are labeled with the “Expensive” label.
Leads get a “Favorites” label when they save properties as favorites on your website.
And finally, they get the “Return” label when leads return to your website (a more obvious label).
The more different lead labels accumulate on one lead, the higher your priority should be to engage with them.
Since Zurple also has the functionality of a CRM, you can filter leads by the different labels they got and take a closer look at their behavior data, contact information, and communication history.
With Zurple, you don’t need to do the engagement mentioned above with leads in a manual manner.
One of the unique features is that the platform sends individualized emails and text messages to leads that are one hundred percent based on their user and search behavior.
So it’s not a generic drip campaign that other providers may use.
This higher level of individualization understandably leads to a higher response rate.
When you look at the messages sent out (watch the second half of the video linked at the end of this section), you can see that the messages really have a personal feel and give the impression that they come directly from the respective realtor.
If a lead responds, a virtual assistant carries out the continued conversation.
But you can take over manually if you need to.
Zurple doesn’t offer complete workflow management for agent teams, but nevertheless, there is a limited teamwork capacity integrated where you can manage the leads for your team.
You can configure the CRM so that you distribute the incoming leads in the following ways:
- Equally to all agents
- By percentages
- By search location
- By agent
- By website (different agents can have different Zurple websites)
- By lead source (e.g., Zillow leads go to one specific agent, etc.)
If you want to dive deeper into the features, you might also find this video from Zurple quite helpful.
How Much Does Zurple Cost? – Pricing
Pricing information, unfortunately, isn’t disclosed on Zurple’s website.
You must register with your contact information for a demo to get pricing information.
You must also be registered with a particular MLS and indicate your primary target city.
I contacted Zurple to provide a pricing overview and haven’t received a reply to this date.
Should I receive a reply, the up-to-date pricing information will be included in this section, and the calculated marketing performance data below will be updated.
So because of that, I did some further research and found this review video from 2017 revealing some pricing information.
Since the information is already outdated, you may want to take it with a grain of salt, and it might be slightly higher or lower by now.
You will find the pricing overview table below.
| Plan 1 | Plan 2 | Plan 3 | Plan 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Websites | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Agents | 2 | 5 | 10 | 20 |
| Payers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Buyer Leads | $250 | $500 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| Seller Leads | $250 | $500 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| Exclusivity Fee | $200 | $200 | $200 | $200 |
| System Fixed Rate | $349 |
A Second Look at Zurple from a Marketing Performance Perspective
Let’s assume you decide to use the cheapest plan, and you can’t select only seller lead generation without buyer lead generation and need to go with both.
It would mean a total monthly cost of $1,049 if you are one agent. Since, in this plan, you could also use it for two agents, the cost could be $524.50 per agent.
Since for these types of estimated calculations, I prefer to stay on the conservative or pessimistic side of things, let’s use the $1,049 as monthly costs.
According to this independent reviewer, they received between 30 to 35 monthly leads. Let’s make it an average of 32.5.
Since we don’t know which kind of leads (buyers or sellers), we need to stay generic for this calculation.
It means a cost per lead (seller and/or buyer lead) of $32.27.
Since we also don’t have experiential data from a user about how many leads could be closed or have resulted in a transaction, we need to resort to generic real estate marketing data.
In my other review article of mine about Ylopo, this kind of data could have been gathered more successfully.
This website shows the typical lead-to-transaction conversion rate is 1-3% (source).
According to the same source, from a certain amount of leads generated per month, 1-3% of them will likely do some transaction within 120 days.
A statistic also leads back to the National Association of Realtors that the typical lead-to-transaction conversion rate is between 0.4 and 1.2% (source).
Unfortunately, the original content of this statistic can’t be located anymore via the above link on the National Association of Realtors’ website.
To approach an exact data point, let’s make an average of the two sources, which would be a 1.4% lead to transaction conversion rate.
So, to make one transaction, you would need 71.4 leads.
Since the cost per lead is $32.27, you have costs per transaction or closing of $2,305 (71.4 leads x $32.27).
This means you should not try to sell properties that earn you a commission of less than $2,305. If you do, you likely won’t break even.
To have at least a significant positive return on investment, you might rather aim for properties where you can earn a commission of more than $7,000 to make a decent profit.
Let’s compare this estimated marketing performance data to similar platforms I reviewed in the past, where I did similar calculated “guesstimates.”
So, below, you will find a comparison table of Zurple’s marketing performance data and the other providers I’ve already reviewed in this and this article.
| Zurple | Offrs | Ylopo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of leads per month | 30-35 | 1,500 | 50-60 |
| Monthly costs | $1,049 | $706.60 | $700 |
| Cost per lead/ cost per acquisition | $32.27 | $117.76 | $11.60-$14 |
| Lead to closing conversion rate | 1.4% | 2% | 1.6%-2% |
| Closed leads | n.a. | n.a. | 1 |
| Cost per transaction/ per closing | $2,305 | $588.83 | $700 |
The Pros and Cons of Zurple
Giving you a balanced view of Zurple, I will end this article with the platform’s pro and con table.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Great website visitor analytics | Not the best response rate in terms of customer support (I am still waiting for a pricing overview) |
| Channeling of buyer lead traffic to convert into seller leads | Limited customizability |
| Sold homes import to Zurple agent website | Pricing plans are undisclosed on Zurple’s website |
| Automatic lead nurturing based on lead behavior on Zurple website |
Zurple User Reviews Analyzed
I analyzed the general sentiment regarding Zurple from three major user-generated review websites: Sitejabber, Capterra, and G2.
This is what I found…
While on G2, users gave the company 3.8 out of five stars on average, the best rating, followed by Capterra with an average of 3.6 stars.
It fared worse on Sitejabber, receiving only 2 out of five stars.
Now let’s look into the overall positive and negative points users commented on.
I went through each and dissected them in a summarized form.
On G2, users have mentioned difficulties in accessing and reviewing lead responses within the Zurple account, suggesting the need for improved notification options.
The company has received favorable ratings for its dashboards, opportunity and pipeline management, and lead management features.
However, the lower ratings concern contact and account management, CMA management, and listing management.
What About Capterra Zurple User Reviews?
Users find the reminder feature beneficial in managing their busy schedules.
However, several shortcomings were identified: the educational content is seen as outdated or weak, the software fails to capture phone numbers effectively, and concerns about the accuracy of the Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) feature.
Opinions about customer service are mixed.
Furthermore, users have criticized Zurple’s cancellation policy, specifically the required 30-day notice period, and they have also voiced dissatisfaction with the quality of leads generated.
Finally, a sense of being misled during the sales process has been expressed by some users.
What About Sitejabber User Reviews?
As was expected by the low average rating on this user-generated review site, customer satisfaction with Zurple seems generally low.
Primary grievances center around poor customer service and ongoing issues.
Critical points raised by users include low-quality leads, disappointing customer service, and deceptive sales tactics.
Customers are frustrated by not receiving the promised number of leads, an absence of lead screening, the inability to provide live transfers and challenges in contract cancellation.
Criticism also extends to the quality of leads, with concerns about inappropriate or non-serious email addresses and unjustified charges that the company refuses to retract.
Customers have also highlighted issues with misleading promises, an outdated and clumsy website, and difficulties canceling the service.
Due to these problems, multiple reviewers advise against using Zurple, dubbing it a waste of money and potentially a scam.
Common Denominators Regarding Zurple User Reviews
If we analyze a bit deeper and try to summarize all three user review websites from above, we can find a common pattern in user feedback across all three.
For the negative reviews, the common denominator revolves around issues related to lead quality, customer service, the software’s features, and company policies:
Lead Quality:
Users across the board express dissatisfaction with the quality of leads generated, with some also complaining about not receiving the guaranteed number of leads, lack of lead screening, and problems with email addresses, indicating either a failure in capturing the information correctly or attracting non-serious leads.
Customer Service:
Users across all platforms express concerns about the level of customer service, with some describing it as poor or disappointing.
Some users also express frustrations around the company’s refusal to rectify what they see as unfair charges.
Software’s Features and Functionality:
Users point out concerns about specific features such as contact and account management, CMA management, and listing management. The educational content of the software is also seen as outdated or weak, and the interface is clunky.
Company Policies:
There are frequent complaints about difficulties canceling the service and issues with the cancellation policy, particularly the required 30-day notice period.
Some users also mention feeling misled during the sales process.
On the positive side, the common factors center around some of the software’s functionalities and features:
Users find the reminder feature beneficial, and the company has received favorable ratings for its dashboards, opportunity, pipeline management, and lead management features.
This indicates that, despite the negatives, the software has some functionality that is viewed favorably by users.
However, unfortunately, negative user feedback is more plentiful and detailed than positive feedback.
The emphasis on the positive aspects is less significant, implying a larger number of dissatisfied users than satisfied ones.
Conclusion
If you need a lead generation and lead nurturing one-stop shop, then Zurple might be worth a try, provided you can live with lower lead quality, as reported by many users.
Additionally, suppose you are selling properties in lower price ranges.
In that case, you might need to take a different look at your break-even since, according to my calculated guesstimate of marketing performance data, your cost per transaction or closing is likely to be in the ballpark of $2,305.
It may even be higher if there is truth to the lead quality.
On a positive note, what particularly impressed me was the automatic and behavior-based lead nurturing system based on different priority labels.
It makes it easier to decide which lead to engage with next in line.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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