How agents are using big data to find clients

Brokers partner with consulting companies to directly target potential clients

From left: Wealth-X's Mykolas Rambus and a Jeff Koons topiary
From left: Wealth-X's Mykolas Rambus and a Jeff Koons topiary

Agents are not leaving anything to chance these days.

Brokers with a knack for tech are using data subscriptions and forming partnerships with other firms to identify potential buyers.

Sotheby’s International Realty is partnering with consulting group Wealth-X, according to the Wall Street Journal. The consulting firm uses public records and research to find out more about the interests and habits of “ultrahigh-net-worth individuals,” according to the newspaper. The files on these individuals include everything from salary to personal interests.

Brokers are also using online ads that can target their potential clients. GeoCommerce, a California-based company, targets online ads to specific IP addresses. Information in the files can be personal. In one instance, the report on an Australian millionaire included that he had proposed to his wife in front of a Jeff Koons topiary, the newspaper reported.

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Devin Doherty, a broker with Keller Williams in California, told the newspaper that he uses GeoCommerce to send out ads to his potential clients.  “They don’t know what they want until they have it in front of them,” he told the Journal. [WSJ] — Claire Moses