Which would you prefer: a lead or a client? Many real estate tech companies will generate leads. Zurple is moving beyond simple lead generation, positioning itself as the industry’s first client generation company.
In this Zurple review, I’ll provide an unbiased look at how it works, examine how much the platform costs, share an exclusive video walk-through, and tell you whether I think Zurple is worth the price tag.
Unlike other Zurple reviews, to determine if the company lives up to the hype, I did a deep dive into Zurple to better understand what it does differently than all the other players in the crowded real estate lead generation space.
The Close Scorecard
Check out The Close scorecard, where I lay out the software’s pros, like lead exclusivity, analytics, and the powerhouse nurturing system, alongside some of the cons, like the limited integrations. Think of the scorecard as a bird’s eye view of Zurple, complete with my overall score based on the criteria I evaluated.
I will say that Zurple offers a powerful lead generation option with exceptional nurturing tools for agents who can spend a little more. It may be a difficult platform for a solo agent, especially newer agents, to jump into software this complex. Not because it’s challenging to learn but because it may be a lot to invest right out of the gate. But, for established agents, Zurple provides a steady source of exclusive leads that can continue to build your business on autopilot.
What Is Zurple?
Zurple is a lead generation software that specializes in lead capture and nurturing. The company uses online lead generation strategies to capture leads and employs intelligent lead nurturing on autopilot to increase lead conversion rates. Agents then spend their time making meaningful connections once the lead becomes active.
Once a lead is captured, their information is fed directly to the Zurple customer relationship manager (CRM), where “Zurple Auto Conversations” take over. This complex set of reactive nurturing campaigns does the bulk of the lead nurturing for you, including email, SMS texting, MLS property alerts, and more.
These Auto Conversations adjust their flow automatically depending on your lead’s response and website behavior, making their conversion rates and effectiveness very high. When a prospect’s Lead Intelligence Score rises to a certain level, Zurple notifies you to jump in, and you can continue the conversation with a now-active buyer or seller.
One of the best features of Zurple’s lead generation system is the leads are exclusive to the agent. So, no need to worry about competing with other agents for the same lead as you might with a Zillow or realtor.com lead.
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Zurple Pricing 3.3 out of 5
Zurple offers a base price with add-ons to give you more flexibility regardless of team size. You start with the basic package, then add additional lead streams as your ability to handle them grows.
Initially, I got a bit of shell shock from the sticker price for this CRM. $149 per month just for the CRM itself seemed like a pretty steep amount to pay for software that doesn’t really integrate with other platforms. But, seeing the power of lead nurturing and the resulting conversion capabilities, the software justifies the heavy price tag.
Here’s the breakdown of Zurple’s pricing:
- Zurple system: $149 (includes $10 data services fee)
- Add-ons:
- Additional website: $100 per month
- Lead products
- Pipeline Boost (social media leads): $10 per lead
- Search engine lead products (auto leads and auto listings): Depends on city, but generally $35 to $40 per lead
Zurple has invested a lot into its lead nurturing system to maximize leads. Because of that, Zurple doesn’t let agents purchase the lead generation system without investing in the Zurple CRM. It wants to ensure any generated leads have the greatest potential to convert.
I get that. Many companies are moving to walled gardens where they keep everything within their ecosystem. But it’s limiting for agents if they want to use software they already know how to use and love. It requires learning a whole new platform that may be missing some features.
Based on my experience with ad spending, the pricing for Zurple’s lead generation system is expensive. But it is in line with other platforms that provide exclusive leads, especially considering Zurple’s team of advertising pros is doing the work for you. They create the ads and then place them in the optimal times and locations to get the highest rate of return.
I love how much effort Zurple puts into assisting agents to generate leads, but the nurturing system is where the real value is. Zurple’s system runs more like a sales assistant than a CRM.
Zurple Review Video Walk-through
Are you curious about what life is like as a Zurple agent? Check out Chris’s video walk-through, where he gets full, unfettered access to the entire Zurple platform and shows you precisely what you’ll see when you become a Zurple user.
Zurple Key Features 4.25 out of 5
Zurple is a complex platform. In this section, I’ll detail how Zurple works, what I like about it, and where I think it could improve.
Automated Lead Nurturing + Auto Conversations
This feature is probably the most important differentiator. When leads come in, they’re fed directly into the Zurple CRM, which immediately delivers highly engaging interactions to nurture them.
I’m not talking about a basic welcome email drip sequence. These are complex automated outreach campaigns using email, text messages, MLS market updates, new listings, and more.
The game-changer here is that Zurple’s nurture campaigns automatically adjust as the behavior of your leads changes. So, for example, if you send your lead a property alert and they wind up opening that alert and visiting it 10 times a day, the next step in the campaign progress will be different than if they only opened it once.
Zurple calls these nurturing sequences “Zurple Auto Conversations,” and they’re pretty impressive. I love that this technology also works based on your lead’s SMS text response behavior.
This technology is becoming more essential to running your business, especially if you’re a solo agent. It acts almost like a sales assistant, keeping up with your fresh leads, qualifying them, answering questions, and keeping them engaged, all on autopilot. That frees you from spending time trying to keep up with your marketing efforts while still trying to show homes, go on listing appointments, and all the other fun aspects of being a real estate agent.
Lead-capturing Websites
Zurple agents start by setting up a market-specific landing page for the areas they’re interested in targeting. This site isn’t designed to replace your primary website—it merely provides specific buyer and seller value to capture contact information.
While the Basic plan only comes with one landing page, many Zurple agents run multiple pages, targeting different market segments and communities in their region. This makes sense, as the more focused your real estate marketing approach is, the more effective it will be.
Many real estate lead generation companies try to get agents to use their landing pages as company websites because it makes capturing and transferring leads easier. But, these same companies rarely offer the branding, content marketing options, and overall connectivity your real estate website needs to be effective.
Zurple’s agent websites are intended to be used simply as a lead capture device. I love the simplicity and functionality of Zurple’s landing pages, but I wouldn’t advise an agent to use it as their business website.
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Lead Intelligence Scoring
Once your lead has demonstrated certain behaviors, Zurple reviews signs of their readiness to activate as a client. The company will notify you that it’s prepared for you to take over communication.
You then remove the lead from the automated communication flow in the CRM, meaning the lead will no longer receive nurturing messages based on their website behavior.
Zurple’s Lead Intelligence scoring is thoughtful and based on the lead’s behaviors. I love how the system prompts you when it’s time to take over the lead communication. There’s no question about when you should jump in because the system, based on the direct lead collection data, tells you. It’s clever how the system prioritizes the leads based on thousands of data points. That way, you can spend more time specifically on those leads who are ready to activate.
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Social Media Marketing Tools
Once you set up your market-specific landing page, you must drive traffic to that page. You can do this through social media tools inside the Zurple CRM. One of my favorite parts is the timeline view, which shows your post history for anything you post from inside the platform.
You can also drive traffic with your marketing, independent website, or paid ads, including those you run on Zillow, realtor.com, and any other Zapier-connected platform. Zurple also offers the option to contract with them to run Google, Bing, and Yahoo ads to drive traffic through search engine results, a logical strategy since their websites are so market-specific.
The social media ad templates are sharp and reduce your time, especially if you are new to ads. However, the functionality is limited. This is not the place to do all of your social posts. It’s just a place to promote your listings and Zurple websites.
Analytics
Zurple does an outstanding job giving you tons of feedback on your progress. You can track everything from how many leads have converted and how many leads have come from each source. You can also tell how well individual agents on your team convert their assigned leads. I love how much information it provides to help you improve your conversion rate after Zurple reviews your data.
Integrations 3.75 out of 5
One thing about Zurple that I’m not as crazy about is that you can’t integrate with outside platforms. The company prides itself on capturing leads for you and putting them through the lead-nurturing process. Doing that with any external tools you may be using is challenging. It’s basically a walled garden that you can’t use with any other platform. So, if you want to use this platform, it’s an all-or-nothing solution.
However, the platform allows outside lead sources to be fed into the system. You can add your Zillow, realtor.com, and Market Leader leads directly into the software so it can get the same lead nurturing treatment as the leads generated from the Zurple landing pages. That ability can help you develop a higher return on investment (ROI) on the money you spend generating leads from those platforms, which adds significant value to the Zurple system.
Lead Quality 4.3 out of 5
Zurple’s automated lead-scoring system is one of my favorite features. When a new lead comes in through any source, it’s fed directly into the CRM. The automation starts, and that’s where the magic begins. Based on the lead’s response to the lead nurturing efforts, the lead’s score will change. In other words, if a lead opens an email vs one that doesn’t, that lead’s campaign will change. You’ll be alerted to those who have shown behaviors that turn it from a cold to an active lead so you can take over the communication efforts when the lead is ready.
I love this feature! The automated artificial intelligence (AI)-driven nurturing campaigns keep your leads engaged, monitoring their behaviors so you lose fewer of them along the long way. I don’t know about you, but I always found playing the long game in lead nurturing hard. I lost so many leads I generated because they were a year away from making a home purchase. This system prevents that lead loss and helps you convert more leads into sales.
Zurple also helps keep your pipeline filled with leads in different parts of the sales funnel. And you don’t have to become some kind of marketing expert—Zurple has created a system to do it all for you with their Auto Conversations.
Zurple Alternatives
As awesome as Zurple is, there may be better choices for you and your business. Let’s take a look at some alternatives worth considering.
| Prospecting Tool | Best For | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| REDX | Budget lead gen + auto-dialer | A la carte pricing starting at $50 per month |
| Market Leader | Volume exclusive leads + social media leads | $189 for the basic platform + $7 to $30 per lead |
| SmartZip | Seller leads + geographic targeting | $299, increasing to $999 depending on market value |
| Sierra Interactive | Enterprise-level brokerage services, including website, lead gen, lead nurturing, and ad management | $500 per month |
| Real Geeks | All-in-one platform for solo agents | $299 per month for up to 2 users |
Hey, there’s more than one way to generate leads. If you’re looking for more options to make your lead generation plan fit how you work, check out some of our buyer’s guides below.
Bottom Line: Is Zurple Worth It?
For many agents, the answer is yes. The platform isn’t perfect—Zurple requires a substantial commitment of time and money to maintain the various landing pages and the statuses of the leads that Zurple is nurturing on your behalf.
But these drawbacks are well worth the benefit in potential commission income for experienced agents, large teams, or brokerages. For newer solo agents, this may be more than necessary. There are plenty of more affordable options that might be a better fit.
Many companies are moving to walled gardens like Zurple where they keep everything within their ecosystem. But it’s limiting for agents if they want software they already know how to use and love or opt for something more affordable. It requires learning a whole new platform that may be missing some features.
I do recommend Zurple as a real estate lead generation and nurturing platform for those ready for it. Zurple’s features are well worth the price, the CRM and lead system are intuitive and easy to navigate, and the integrations with other lead sources like Market Leader, Zillow Premier Agent, and others are seamless.
Methodology: Why You Can Trust This Review
Not all reviews of real estate tech products are created equal. I typically approach any reviews from the perspective of a practicing real estate agent who might use the platform. As a licensed real estate agent, I have direct experience using software to run my business. I have personally closed several real estate transactions, generated leads, and developed and deployed a digital strategy in my business. I have firsthand knowledge of what it takes to be successful in this industry.
Leaning on that experience, I evaluated this lead generation software based on the following criteria:
- Price vs value provided
- Lead quality and exclusivity
- User interface and learning curve
- Analytics
- Lead nurturing and automation
For this Zurple review, I also used a rubric to weigh the software against its competitors to balance my professional opinion with objective assertions. You can trust that the observations, analyses, and conclusions are mine and represent the position of the editorial team here at The Close.
Bottom Line
After an intensive look at Zurple and the benefits it offers real estate professionals, The Close is happy to offer this product our endorsement and recommend it to our readers.
The platform isn’t perfect—it is certainly a financial commitment as well as a time commitment to maintain the different moving parts of the various websites and monitor the status of the leads that Zurple is nurturing on your behalf. But, these drawbacks are well worth the benefit in potential commission income.
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