Above, REW CEO Morgan Carey
Imagine if your CRM could tell you exactly which sources are providing the best return on investment, and which ones aren’t. Imagine a true measurement of each of your marketing channels that calculates the return on your marketing spend all the way through from the first dollar spent to how much revenue went to the brokerage and how much went to the agent.
That’s the vision that Real Estate Webmasters (REW) CEO Morgan Carey challenged his team with as they embarked on their journey to build the world’s best integrated real estate CRM.
“We’re known for our lead generation capabilities—from both SEO and PPC—and our customers have always told us how amazing the ROI is from our services,” says Carey. “It’s how we became the largest custom marketing company in real estate.
“Intuitively, our customers know they are getting a great ROI…typically by looking at their overall commissions from our leads at the end of the year versus what they spent. However, while consulting, we dig deeper, and it has often been a challenge to measure specifically which portions of their marketing are providing the best ROI. They simply didn’t have a platform or level of data sophistication available to help break it down.”
Conversely, says Carey, an even bigger issue for brokers is identifying the marketing strategies that aren’t yielding the expected ROI. “Is Facebook working? Does YouTube move the needle? How much are they making net from realtor.com® or Zillow leads? Many of our customers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on marketing channels that turn out to not be very effective or profitable at all,” he explains.
Yet, says Carey, these are critical measurements, especially in the 2024 real estate market. “You need to be paying attention to all of your marketing channels and measuring everything,” he explains. “We teach our customers that what gets measured is what can be improved. There is a great opportunity to eliminate the cost of ineffective marketing channels and reallocate that budget to your highest ROI activities so that you can skyrocket profits.”
REW Deals delivers the power of reporting
With the launch of REW Deals, the latest addition to the REW CRM, Carey and his team have set out to provide brokerage leaders with a plethora of life-changing features. Some of the highlights include:
Sources: Through a concept called “budget attribution,” the platform can track all leads by specific referral or source, and combine those sources with their marketing spend to produce measurable KPI reporting such as cost per lead, cost per appointment, cost per offer, cost per acquisition, cost per deal and several other important metrics. The data can then be measured and mapped over time, and reports can be spliced into smart lists based on specific offices, specific agents or teams. Views can be customized and saved allowing for one-click switching between important reports.
REW Deals: According to Carey, the latest feature in the REW CRM provides deal-flow tracking so robust that it can only be compared to Salesforce. Agents can start a potential deal from the very first appointment, track the progress of a deal through all stages of a transaction: appointments, contracts, offers, subjects and closings. At an administrative/reporting level, brokerages can run reports to see exactly how many deals have been closed in a given timeframe, how many offers, how many appointments, the total commission earned and commission paid to the agents; reports that break down all these metrics by source can also be created.
Brokers and team leaders can also quickly see their pipeline and break it down by all the most important segments: by office, by team, by specific agent. The combinations of reports are nearly endless, notes Carey.
Agent Reporting: Since what gets measured gets improved, Carey emphasizes that critical to any CRM is the tracking and feedback necessary to improve the system. In the REW CRM, there is an extremely robust agent reporting system that allows the agents themselves to set their goals for the year and track all activities, such as calls, texts, emails and a huge list of other trackable events.
Managers can measure engagement and adoption via agent reporting and track everything agents can track. They can also track companywide to determine how many logins are happening and pull key metrics like agent response reports, which provide intel on how quickly agents are following up on leads and via which medium, i.e., phone, text or email.
With the critical information made available via agent reporting, individual REALTORS® can improve their performance and measure it against their goals. Brokers and team leaders can hold their agents, ISAs and other team members accountable for the agreed-upon performance that’s incorporated into the system.
A timely alternative in the face of Zillow’s latest acquisition
In 2023, Zillow acquired real estate CRM company Follow-Up Boss (FUB) for a reported $400M. REW believes that, at the time, FUB was the best standalone CRM in real estate.
However, the industry voiced immediate concern. There was a strong reaction from many FUB customers, while social media was flooded with concerns about Zillow owning yet another platform containing REALTORS®’ sensitive data. This marked the continuation of an ongoing narrative. When Zillow acquired Dotloop and ShowingTime, existing customers expressed similar concerns and sought alternative solutions.
“We’ve been building out the REW CRM for many years now, and before the FUB acquisition, we felt we were already at a point where we were among the top three in the real estate CRM space (behind only FUB overall),” says Carey. “When the news broke that Zillow was acquiring Follow-Up Boss, we had a huge influx of inquiries about switching to our platform. If there ever was a perfect time to go all in and accelerate our strategy, this was that moment.”
Zillow and Follow-Up Boss have communicated to their customers that their data is protected and private, and Real Estate Webmasters believes they will make every effort to do so. An example statement published by FUB and attributed to Founder Dan Corkill said: “This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: We wouldn’t have agreed to this acquisition if we weren’t confident we could keep your customer data safe and protected. But just to be absolutely certain, we’re also working with a third-party validator—unaffiliated with Follow-Up Boss or Zillow Group—to make sure of that.”
But for some brokers and team leaders, such assurances don’t mean much. Some simply aren’t comfortable having so many components of their business owned/controlled by Zillow (or any third-party company). And for some brokers and team leaders, it’s a non-starter—Zillow is viewed as a competitor, and they have said they refuse to send revenue to any Zillow-owned company.
Closing the REW vs. FUB and other CRMS gap
When Real Estate Webmasters heard the news of the FUB acquisition, the firm immediately engaged in a full gap analysis based on publicly available information about FUB and all other real estate CRM platforms. The analysis was aimed at answering this question: Do we have a feature that is as good or better in our platform, that addresses the critical needs and functionality requirements of agents and brokerages in our CRM?
REW also engaged its shared customers on the Real Estate Webmasters community to gather feedback.
The analysis ascertained that the REW CRM satisfied 95% of the critical requirements reported by real estate agents as important and available in Follow-Up Boss and all other real estate CRMs. In many cases, users reported preferring a Real Estate Webmasters feature to FUB or other real estate CRMs.
But REW was intent on closing that 5% gap, and it came down to one feature that made all the difference.
Immediately following the gap analysis, Carey met with REW Head of Research & Development Aayaam Kapoor to review customer feedback and make the identified gaps REW’s top priority.
“My thought process is simple,” says Carey. “We already have 95% of what Follow-Up Boss has, in as good or better format. And we have many features and benefits in our platform that Follow-Up Boss and the other CRMs don’t have. Our platform also comes with websites, IDX, agent websites and lead generation—something the other CRMs don’t provide. So if we can match all of these features, be price competitive, and provide consumers with a seamless customer transition, there is no way we won’t win customers.”
Carey emphasizes that his mission to top FUB is nothing personal. “Listen, we have nothing against Follow-Up Boss,” he says. “We think they are wonderful people who have created a best-in-class product. We like those guys. But the fact of the matter is, some agents just don’t want the platforms they use owned by Zillow, or other VCs, for that matter. Real Estate Webmasters is not only best in class, but we’re family-owned with no Wall Street backers pulling our strings. We know that appeals to a lot of independent brokers.”
Going after the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)
In creating this new CRM and transaction management software, Real Estate Webmasters has one goal: to build software that tells brokers where they should invest their marketing dollars.
According to Carey, the thesis is simple: When you’re the partner who can tell a brokerage or team leader where the best ROI is, and help them take action on those marketing sources effectively, they will be customers for life.
“It’s not much more complicated than that,” he says. “Some marketers act like measuring profitability is some black box or impossible task, and it isn’t. They just don’t want to be accountable. Dollars can be—and should be—held accountable.
Real estate marketing goes like this: Pick a marketing channel, spend a dollar, get a lead and close a deal. We can measure the dollars. We can count the leads. We know which ones are closed. And we know how much money our customers made from the deal. You just need a software that tracks it all. That’s what our software does for our customers.”
For a brokerage to be successful, however, there are important components of that equation that marketers and agents need to get right, says Carey:
Picking the right lead source. If your leads aren’t high quality, they will not convert.
Converting the leads into transactions. Even the best lead sources are wasted if agents are not empowered with the tools and education to assist them in the conversion process.
Reporting the outcome. Every deal needs to be tracked. That’s the bottom line. And the more you know about the deal, the better insights you will have into your business.
For 20 years, Real Estate Webmasters has been an industry leader in websites, IDX and lead generation. The company is known for its SEO prowess and high-quality lead generation via pay-per-click channels. With the release of this latest software, Carey describes REW as the industry’s first complete marketing solution. “From consulting and spending your first dollar to closing the loop and tracking commissions from repeat deals, REW customers have all they need to succeed in one place,” he says.
Fierce independence: A classic David vs. Goliath story
Carey points out that most of the large proptech companies are owned by Wall Street or venture capitalists, including large enterprise players like Inside Real Estate and MoxiWorks. Real Estate Webmasters stands out as an exception.
“We are the only technology and marketing platform, at scale, that is still completely independent,” says Carey. “We have no investors, no silent partners. No one is pulling our strings.”
This is something that Carey, understandably, is extremely proud of.
“I love what I do. I love working with team leaders and brokers. But not so much the corporate ones, if I’m honest,” he says. “My favorite clients are the ones who still own their companies. Where I can talk to them owner to owner. They are still connected to their business, and it’s just one person calling the shots.
“It means they can be fearless and take bigger chances. Corporate doesn’t do that. Not in the same way. If you ever have to go through seven lawyers to talk to me, shoot me. I’m done. My customers all have my cellphone number, and they can reach me on social seven days a week.”
According to Carey, the big brand companies “play it safe.”
“They all use the very same tech,” he explains. “It’s ‘good enough’ for the masses, it’s cheap and it’s safe. But how boring is that? More importantly, how can any agent, team leader or brokerage get ahead if they’re using the same tech as the guy down the street and can’t customize it to their needs? We might have fewer customers, but our customers are the ones with the courage and creativity to take risks. They come to play and play to win. That’s who I want to be in business with. When they win, we win.”
Get big and get boring—no category killer on the horizon
When asked if any of the big players might break free and build something bold and perhaps launch their own industry-leading platform, Carey says it’s unlikely.
“Every time they try, they fail,” he explains. “We saw it with RE/MAX and Booj, we saw it with KW Command. Real estate companies are not tech companies. It’s not in their DNA. To build best-in-class technology, you need to hire the best and get out of their way. Whenever big brands try to build tech, they go for what’s cheap and then try to tell the companies they hire what to do. It’s the same recipe over and over. I don’t see it changing. The only exception is Zillow. They are a tech company, and if brokers aren’t careful, there could be a future where Zillow owns all of the tech they use. That’s a scary thought to me. I wouldn’t want Zillow owning all my tech and possibly controlling my destiny.”
Carey believes it’s this lack of boldness and inability to be creative at the franchise level that ensures that smaller, more agile independent companies will continue to win when it comes to hyperlocal marketing and tech. “It takes courage, boldness and creativity, which is exactly what defines the most successful independent brokerages.”
According to Carey, leveraging creative marketing, lead generation and future-focused CRM software like REW Deals is exactly how brokerages will win. RE
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