Boomin Claims Traffic Up 50% Since Christmas

British challenger portal Boomin has given its first public update on usage metrics. Although no absolute figures were given, the portal claims that its traffic has increased 50% since the launch of its Boxing Day advertising campaign and that time on site is up 45%.

The nascent portal's marketing campaign aired on British TV screens over the holiday period and focussed on its agent-AVM hybrid product, SmartVal. The company claims that the product has generated 20,000 valuation requests for its agent customers since the start of the campaign. Boomin's CEO Michael Bruce claims that his company is bringing agents extra business that they might not get without Boomin's range of tools.

“Everything Boomin does, all of its innovations and unique features, are solely about creating new business opportunities for agents and drawing more customers into the property market. We are not and will never be a classifieds listings portal; that is yesterday’s model."

Boomin was founded by the entrepreneurs behind Purple Bricks in 2020 and launched to the public after a protracted development period in April 2021. The company promises to redress the balance of power in the UK residential real estate market back in favour of agents and has released several innovative tools and products to attract users.

The claim around metrics comes a week on from an open letter penned by Boomin's co-founder Michael Bruce in which the former Purple Bricks man took aim at the likes of Rightmove and Zoopla for making money from mortgage referrals without compensating agents.

Bruce is bullish on the outlook for Boomin and highlighted its achievements since launch while admitting that the portal still has a lot of work ahead.

"There is a huge amount still to do in terms of building out our strategy, optimising features, enhancing experience, growing agent numbers and increasing customer awareness and site usage."

“We are never complacent about keeping ahead of the game and will be doubling our efforts through 2022 but by any standards we have achieved a huge amount in our first nine months. We will continue to invest in genuine innovation that drives profitable business for agents without asking them to pay more for so-called traffic increases that are neither unique nor do anything to help grow transaction volumes,”