Reading your numbers

Six figures, and they are more useful once you know exactly what each is counting. Most of the mistakes people make with them come from assuming two numbers are comparable when they are not.

What each one counts

Listings is how many properties your members have published. Withdrawn ones are still counted: they were work, and removing them from the total would make a good month look like a bad one the moment something sold.

Listings this month counts from the first of the month, not the last thirty days. On the second of the month it will look alarming. It is not.

Views is page views of your listings, from the counts we roll up on a schedule. That means the total is minutes behind rather than live. It counts views, not people: one buyer returning four times is four.

Views this month is counted from the events directly, so it and the total are measured slightly differently. Do not subtract one from the other and expect last month's figure.

Saves is how many times somebody put one of your properties on their shortlist. This is the most under-read number on the page, and the one that predicts an enquiry best. A save is a stranger telling you they are still thinking about it.

Enquiries is every enquiry against the organisation, from both the marketplace and your own site. Enquiries covers splitting them by channel, which is the version worth acting on.

The ratios worth watching

An absolute number tells you about the market. A ratio tells you about you.

Saves per view says whether the listing is attracting the right people. Low means the photographs or the price are pulling in traffic that leaves. Compare a property against your own others rather than against a benchmark.

Enquiries per save says whether the listing answers the questions a seriously interested person has. Low usually means something obvious is missing: no floor plan, no living area, a description that repeats the specification instead of describing the place.

Views per listing is mostly about the market. A property in a busy district gets more views than a better one in a quiet street, and no amount of work changes that.

Where a number will mislead you

A new listing has a spike. Everything is briefly interesting. Judge after a fortnight.

Views are lumpy. A property shared once somewhere busy can take a month's views in a day, and it means nothing about the property.

Zero across the board usually means a field is blank rather than a market is dead. A property with no living area is excluded from every search that filters on it. Check the record before concluding anything about demand.

Withdrawn properties keep their history. A month where you sold three things looks like a month with three fewer listings if you only read the current count.

What to do with them

Weekly, look at saves and enquiries. Those are people.

Monthly, look at the ratios, and only at properties with enough views for a ratio to mean anything. Under a hundred views, a ratio is noise.

Do not optimise views. Views are the number easiest to move and the one least connected to a sale.