WASHINGTON, April 21, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CoStar Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSGP) today announced that Apartments.com is now the most trafficked apartment rentals site among consumers searching online for a new place to live. All four of the leading independent authorities on internet traffic measurements reported that Apartments.com had more visitors in March 2015 than any other apartment rentals site.
Apartments.com had over 15 million total visits in March 2015, an increase of 73% over March 2014, according to comScore. Unique visitors totaled nearly 7 million in March 2015, an increase of 116% over March 2014. The average stay on the site was up 60% in March 2015 vs. March 2014, comScore reported. Overall, the CoStar Group network of sites had over 37.1 million total visits and over 22.4 million monthly unique visitors in March 2015, which represents increases of 63% and 35%, respectively, over March 2014, based on data from Google Analytics and other sources.
"The investments we are making in Apartments.com are having an almost immediate payoff in increased brand awareness, traffic and user engagement with the site," stated CoStar Group founder & CEO Andrew C. Florance. "This, in turn, is generating significantly more leads for our advertisers. Leads generated on the site increased 67% in March 2015 compared to March 2014."
CoStar Group acquired Apartments.com in April 2014 and completely rebuilt the Apartments.com website to better serve the needs of 100 million Americans who rent their homes. CoStar Group conducted extensive consumer research and released an entirely new Apartments.com website in mid-February 2015 designed around the needs of renters. The new Apartments.com features more properties than other apartment listings websites by many multiples. Apartments.com also provides renters with innovative features to help them refine their search, including map searches, a PolygonTM tool to draw their own search area on a map, and a "Plan Commute" feature that lets them search for rentals in proximity to a specific address.
The Company hired acclaimed actor Jeff Goldblum to help present the new Apartments.com to renters, and ran over 1,600 spots in March on national broadcast and cable TV networks, and thousands of spots on local TV and radio. In April, the campaign expanded to include over 750 high-profile billboards, wallscapes and transit ads. The campaign, which features Goldblum as Brad Bellflower, Silicon Valley Maverick and visionary behind the new Apartments.com, is believed to be the largest ever targeting apartment renters.
Apartments.com is now the clear winner in attracting renters searching online for apartments. Prior to CoStar Group acquiring and investing in Apartments.com, ApartmentGuide.com and ForRent.com were among the most heavily trafficked apartment listing websites. However, according to Compete.com, Apartments.com's unique visitor traffic increased 63% year over year through March 2015, while unique visitor traffic to ApartmentGuide.com was down almost a full percentage point. Unique visitor traffic declined more than 33% year over year through March 2015 on ForRent.com.
The new Apartments.com also employs state of the art search engine optimization features and is performing at the top of its class in SEO, Florance added. In addition, Apartments.com is supporting its advertisers with the largest Search Engine Marketing program in the industry. "Whether they come to Apartments.com directly or begin their search on a search engine, we are working hard to capture a dominant share of the renters searching online for apartments," stated Florance.
Apartments.com's number-one ranking is based on traffic counts provided by comScore, Compete.com, Experian Hitwise and Alexa, the industry's leading authoritative sources of internet traffic counts. comScore measures what people do as they navigate the digital world and captures data on over 1.5 trillion web transactions each month. It is audited and accredited by the world's leading rating agencies, and is considered the definitive source for measuring activity on the internet. Compete.com collects consumer behavior data from multiple sources and uses algorithms and advanced analytics techniques to normalize the data to the population as a whole. The Compete.com panel is the largest of its kind in the industry, combining the online behaviors of millions of consumers across the U.S. Experian Hitwise measures website traffic by collecting data directly from Internet Service Provider networks. The service provides data on trends in visitor behavior and measures website market share. Alexa, a division of Amazon.com, estimates traffic rankings based on data from a global traffic panel comprised of millions of Internet users using one of over 25,000 different browser extensions.
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSGP) is the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces. Founded in 1987, CoStar conducts expansive, ongoing research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive database of commercial real estate information. Our suite of online services enables clients to analyze, interpret and gain unmatched insight on commercial property values, market conditions and current availabilities. Through LoopNet, the Company operates the most heavily trafficked commercial real estate marketplace online with more than 9 million registered members. Apartments.com is a premier online apartment resource for renters that matches apartment seekers with great apartment homes and provides property managers and owners a proven platform for marketing their properties. CoStar operates websites that have over 22.4 million unique monthly visitors in aggregate during March 2015. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar maintains offices throughout the U.S., in Europe and in Toronto, Canada, with a staff of over 2,400 worldwide, including the industry's largest professional research organization. For more information, visit www.costargroup.com.
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements about CoStar's financial expectations, the Company's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and other statements including words such as "hope," "anticipate," "may," "believe," "expect," "intend," "will," "should," "plan," "estimate," "predict," "continue" and "potential" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of management of CoStar and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in the forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause or contribute to such differences: the risk that the number of renters who ultimately use the new site to find their new apartment differs from what is expected; the risk that investments in Apartments.com, including investments in marketing, research, sales, and product development, do not produce the expected results when expected and as stated in this release; the risk that traffic does not continue to grow as the marketing campaign ramps up during the start of the spring rental season; and the risk that the impact of the new site on the rental marketplace is not as expected. More information about potential factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in CoStar's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014, which is filed with the SEC, including in the "Risk Factors" section of the filing, as well as the Company's other filings with the SEC available at the SEC's website (www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements are based on information available to CoStar on the date hereof, and CoStar assumes no obligation to update such statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.