Strategic marketing can free agents from portal dependency, claims brokerage boss
Agents must develop their own creative marketing campaigns if they are to break free from ‘portal dependency,’ according to Ian Macbeth, managing partner at leading brokerage, Avocado Property.
And he warned that while many estate agents have complained about the high fees charged by the likes of Rightmove and Zoopla, they have become over-reliant on them for sales leads for far too long.
He said: “The harsh truth is that most agents wouldn’t survive a single week if Rightmove suddenly pulled the plug.
“The average agent relies almost exclusively on the portals for enquiries. They don’t run tailored campaigns. They don’t create dynamic social content. They don’t nurture their own CRM. They don’t even drive traffic to their own website.
Undermines long-term growth
“If Rightmove disappeared tomorrow, many agents would be left with nothing – no leads, no pipeline, no resilience.
“Even worse, many don’t value the customers they do reach. Buyer enquiries are treated as single-transaction events. If the property’s sold, those buyers are archived – discarded, not developed. It’s a transactional mindset that undermines long-term growth.
Macbeth believes that agents must develop their own marketing strategy independent of portal leads.
“We’re not anti-portals – we still use Rightmove as a baseline tool – but we’ve made it our mission to protect our business and clients by building a robust, self-sufficient marketing ecosystem. And the numbers prove it’s working,” he said.
Avocado Partners have been using their #Beaththeportals marketing campaign for five years now and claim to be seeing some really positive results:
- Every new property listing is given four days marketing time before it is launched on the portals.
- Average marketing time before portal launch: 4 days
- Percentage of sales agreed pre-portal: 19%
- CRM direct viewings in the last 3 months: 29% – up from 23% in 2024
- Website traffic growth: 226% year-on-year
The campaign includes a live launch where the marketing kicks in minutes after listing, carefully timed social media teasers and a pre-portal CRM drop which allows access to the Avocado buyer database before going public.
Macbeth explained: “This strategy doesn’t just build excitement – it returns control to the agent.
“It gives us leverage, not just listings. And most importantly, it puts serious buyers in front of sellers before their home joins the clutter of the portals.
Building resilience
“Instead of treating our business like a shopfront with one door, like Rightmove, we’ve created a multi-channel funnel using cornerstone SEO website content, a strong paid campaign using creative video and CRM nurturing.
“And we’re not just building traffic. We’re building relationships. When someone lands on our site, we tag them for retargeting. From there, they’re in our ecosystem. When they’re ready, they already trust us and reach out.
“A 10-branch agency might spend £240,000 a year on portal fees. But if they redirected even half of that into strategic content, CRM infrastructure, and omni-channel campaigns, they’d be building resilience into their brand as well as boosting business.
“It’s a startling fact, but we get zero valuations from Rightmove. All our valuation leads come from our own campaigns. On average, we’re generating around 150 valuation leads from our headquarters campaigns every month – from our own central marketing strategy, not outsourced platforms.
“The Avocado Partners generate their own business valuations on top of that through localised, similar marketing campaigns, too.
