Boston, MA – March 3, 2015 – Placester, a real estate marketing platform that connects Realtors with customers through agent websites and an expansive publisher network, today announced a nationwide partnership with Cox Media Group (CMG) to power digital real estate sections for eight CMG properties, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC.com) and Austin American-Statesman (Statesman.com). Through this partnership, Placester will replace legacy real estate sections on these CMG sites to enhance search, improve discover,y and distribute real-time listings.
Placester’s publisher platform has transformed CMG’s digital real estate sections with new features, while increasing local advertising revenue opportunities via a single solution to manage consumer search, real estate listing inventory, and associated ad products. As a result, CMG can now provide a superior user experience, heighten engagement and retention, and unlock new advertising inventory.
“Helping Cox Media Group and its regional properties rekindle relationships with local realtors leads to revenue growth,” said Matthew Barba, CEO and Co-founder of Placester. “Digital advertising is expected to account for nearly a quarter of the $140B spent on local media in 2015 and real estate advertising is a big piece of that pie. With Placester, Cox Media Group now has the tools to provide real estate professionals what they’re looking for when they go to spend their $12B annually on online marketing.”
“Finally, for the first time since the late 90’s — when Craigslist killed off print classifieds and, with it, many print newspapers — local real estate advertising is radically changing again,” added Jim Gregoire, VP of Product & Publisher Performance at Placester. “Using our platform and a network of more than 100,000 real estate agents, Placester is taking a local-first approach to reconnecting agents and publishers, while returning power to both parties.”
“Our partnership with Placester is a great fit for us,” said Eric Myers, VP of Advertising at Cox Media Group. “Placester provides the perfect platform for connecting our community and rich content to our audience with their smart digital solutions, data management expertise, and scalable technology.”
In addition to powering AJC Home Finder (homes.ajchomefinder.com) for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Homes (http://homes.statesman.com/) for the Austin American-Statesman, Placester is powering real estate sections for other CMG digital properties, including: The Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Daily News, Dayton Daily News, Springfield News Sun, Hamilton Journal-News, and Today’s Pulse (Butler County).
About Placester
Placester is a marketing platform that helps real estate professionals grow their businesses online. Through data partnerships with MLSs representing 95% of agents in the United States, Placester provides cost-effective real estate websites with IDX search, modern design, and advanced lead capture.
In addition to offering websites for agents and brokers, Placester also provides websites, search technology and real-time, real estate listing distribution for local media companies through the Placester Publisher Network. Publisher partners include daily and weekly newspapers nationwide from both Cox Media Group and Hearst Corporation.
Finally, Placester connects real estate professionals and media outlets to create an advertising marketplace for real estate, allowing agents and brokers to easily purchase and place digital ads with a variety of local and national publishers.
Placester was founded in 2010 by Matt Barba and Frederick Townes. The company has raised nearly $10 million in funding to date, and is backed by leading investors, including Romulus Capital and Techstars.
For more information, please visit: https://www.placester.com
About Cox Media Group
Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of CoxReps. Additionally, CMG owns Cox Target Media, which operates Valpak, one of North America’s leading direct marketing companies, and Savings.com, a leading online source for savings. The company’s operations currently include 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 57 radio stations, eight daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. CMG currently operates in more than 20 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including more than 30 million TV viewers, more than 3.5 million print and online newspaper readers, and more than 14 million radio listeners. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com.
