GETTING THE MOST OUT OF
CRAIGSLIST
Steve Small, CEO
Yield Technologies, Inc.
April 30, 2009

Steve Small
PRESENTER BACKGROUND
 AMLI Residential (www.amli.com)
CIO from 2000 through 2007

Owns luxury apartment communities throughout the US

Wholly owned by Morgan Stanley Prime Property Fund

 Yield Technologies, Inc. (www.yieldco.com)
Global management consulting and technology services

company.
Focuses on various revenue management and marketing

solutions.
Licenses certain AMLI technology


Craigslist Overview
 Local classifieds and forums for 450 cities worldwide -
community moderated, and largely free.
 Jobs, housing, goods, services, romance, local activities, advice
- just about anything really.
 9 billion page views per month
 #7 in terms of English-language page views.
 More than 30 million people each month use craigslist, including
more than 25 million in the US alone
 eBay acquired 25% of the equity in craigslist from a former
shareholder in August of 2004

Ad Listing Challenges…
 Our teams were spending a considerable amount of
time just loading ads to the site.
 It was a challenge to maintain fresh content and
quality ads.
 Little visibility (quantitative nor qualitative) into the
success of our postings.
 Lack of integration between craigslist and our
enterprise software solutions (Yardi, RealPage, MRI,
etc….).

Global Perspective
KEY ASPECTS
 People and process first; Technology second.
 Install business transparency.
 Feedback business results and metrics in real-time.
 Make it easy to for customers to do business with
you.
 Invest in your Internet presence.
 Take a disciplined statistical approach to how you
allocate effort and cost.

Transforming the Enterprise
YIELD OPTIMIZATION
 Is it Actionable?
 Is it understandable to the organization?
 Can everyone participate?
Yield Optimization is about actionable ways to improve
marketing, product mix, customers, and business
processes.

Craigslist Initiative
GOALS – BUSINESS PROCESS
 Which ads are more effective in a particular market?
Fancy or simple ads

Short or descriptive

More pictures or fewer

Community focus vs. unit focus

 When is the best time to post?
 Which product types is the market most interested in?
 Measure - Deliver an in-depth analysis of ad listing
statistics and metrics to prove the value of this
marketing venue.

WHICH CRAIGSLIST AD WILL SELL THE JEEP?

Craigslist Initiative
GOALS - MECHANICS
 Dramatically reduce staff time required to post.
 Generate consistent and high-quality ads.
 Integrate with the property management applications.
 Provide content management.
 Make it easy – robust help, training, and deployment.
 Comply with the letter and intent of craigslist Terms of
Use.

Craigslist Ad Components
AN AMLI APARTMENT AD
Title Template
Unit Types and Specific Units
Contact Information
Apartment Descriptions
Apartment Features/Amenities
Community Descriptions
Community Features/Amenities
Alternate Contact Method
Community Photos
Unit Photos

Craigslist Ad Components
ANDY’S CONDO
Title Template
Unit Types and Specific Units
Contact Information
Apartment Descriptions
Apartment Features/Amenities
Community Descriptions
Community Features/Amenities
Alternate Contact Method
Community Photos
Unit Photos

RentSentinel
RentSentinel is a content management and analytics
system - the User posts and enters the captcha.
3 WAYS TO POST …
 Post manually using cut and paste – Traditional method
used by Postlets, Vflyer, etc.
 Post using self-publishing email
RentSentinel creates ads and manages the self-publishing

email for the user
 Post using a craigslist account
RentSentinel logs the user into their craigslist account and

creates ads – no confirmation email necessary.

Use the Content We Already Have
SYNCHRONIZATION WITH MAJOR PROPERTY MGMT SYSTEMS

Dashboard for Managing All of Your Ads

Posting using the Ad Wizard

You can Edit Ads before Posting

Content Management System

Make it Simple and Easy

AMLI 535
FIRST MONTH RESULTS…
Percentage of
Month New Prospects Phone Calls Visits Total Visits
January- No
RentSentinel 16 5 14 23.08%
February-With
RentSentinel 39 9 27 47.62%

What Days are Best to Post?
AMLI 535

Look at Views and Leads in Real Time

What Days are Best to Post?
ANDY’S CONDO

When are our Ads being Viewed?
ANDY’S CONDO

When are our Ads being Viewed?
AMLI 535

When should we Post?
AMLI 535

When should we Post?
ANDY’S CONDO

What Products are in Demand?

Where are our Customers coming from?

Distance Band Report

June 01 Release Features
 Craigslist login account becomes primary posting
method.
 Ad timing recomendations.
 Enhance ad content and building capabilities.
 Syndication of additional sites:
FrontDoor

Google Base

HotPads

Oodle

Trulia

Vast


June 01 Release Features
 Amenity builder – ad editor interface to online sources
describing community area amenities.
 Dashboard to rank community’s success relative to
the overall portfolio.
 Indexed ad content – correlate success of posts to
content.
 Which ads are more effective in a particular market?
Fancy or simple ads

Short or descriptive

More pictures or fewer

Community focus vs. unit focus


WHICH CRAIGSLIST AD WILL SELL THE JEEP?

www.RentSentinel.com

Value Proposition
 Save time – create high quality craigslist ads with
minimal effort.
 Simple deployment – just login.
 Immediate payback - De minimis cost per lead.
 Create an adaptive marketing process rather than
settling for a point-in-time goal.
 www.RentSentinel.com

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF
CRAIGSLIST
Steve Small, CEO
Yield Technologies, Inc.
April 30, 2009