First off, if you don’t use RentSentinel for their Craigslist posting tool then you are really missing out.  Also, just because you have a tool like RentSentinel, it doesn’t mean that it’s being used consistently.  It needs to be monitored and measured for success.  I had one of my late night work sessions last night and started digging into the analytics that RentSentinel offers.  All I can say is, WOW!

Here are a few of my discoveries:

– It’s no surprise that posting more often can drive more traffic.  We have one property that has posted nearly 2000 ads on Craigslist in the past year.  No wonder they haven’t dipped below 94% occupied all year long and are currently trending to 99% occupied.  All while pushing rents 5-6%.

– Including links to our property websites is key.  Craigslist drives more traffic to each individual property site than Bing or Yahoo.  In many cases, it drives more traffic than Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and Ask.com combined.

– Posting in the late afternoon between 3-6 p.m. gets the most views and clicks vs. posting in the morning.  Mondays also seem to be the best day to post.  If you’re going to post at all, the data shows that 5-6 o’clock on a Monday is killer!

– Post titles that refer to the size of an apartment or space features like walk-in closets or split bedroom plan get the most clicks for us.  People want to have room for their stuff.  That is obviously important.  The next most popular post titles include information about the location of the community, suburb, nearby shopping, etc.

I could drill down more, but these are key take-aways for me.   Post often, measure the crap out of it, and you can be successful.