Zoopla has issued a short statement in response to an Advertising Standard Authority (ASA) investigation into OnTheMarket’s (OTM) claims regarding its market position.
The advertising regulator has informally resolved a complaint against OTM around its claim to have overtaken Zoopla’s website traffic.
ASA received a complaint about a controversial paid for online advert but has now closed the case after OTM withdrew the ads, pledging in future to “prominently state the specific period for which the claim applies”.
ASA explained: “We received a complaint about a paid for online display ad and an ad, featured in an email for a property news website, for OnTheMarket. The complainant challenged whether the claim “we’ve overtaken Zoopla’s website traffic” in the ad was misleading because this referred to a single month.
“Upon contacting the advertiser, they confirmed that the ads were no longer running and they assured us that future ads with similar claims will prominently state the specific period for which the claim applies to. On that basis, we closed the case informally, without the need for a formal investigation.”
The complaint to ASA followed a public row between OTM and Zoopla, with the latter issuing a public statement slamming their rival’s claim to have become the second highest ranked most trafficked portal in the UK, after Rightmove.
Zoopla in November last year shared with the trade press an email it sent to its client database, including agents, to highlight what it believes are ‘the facts’ and rubbished OTM’s latest marketing push, which includes literature that states it has ‘overtaken Zoopla’s website traffic’.
Since OTM was acquired by CoStar Group in December 2023, the portal, supported by a multi-million pound marketing media campaign, has repeatedly claimed to be on course to replace Zoopla as the number two property portal in the UK on its way to achieving its longer-term objective of challenging the market leader, Rightmove.
To-date a lack of consumer traffic has held OTM back in its quest to gain power over the homebuyer audience, but the company claims that is changing.
Citing data from Google Analytics, OTM claims to have attracted 56 million website visitors in September 2024, compared with what it says is Zoopla’s 47 million. But Zoopla has long rejected what it refers to as ‘misleading headlines’.
OTM has been approached for comment.
