Craigslist is a necessary part of your rental marketing strategy, even though the posting efficiency is sub par. Craigslist offers individuals and companies to posted in their many classified categories for free. In some cases, within jobs and real estate, there is a nominal posting fee.
The major challenges of Craigslist from a marketing perspective is that once you post, usually within a day or even hours your listing drops in ranking as other postings are added on top or yours. You can’t keep posting every hour since this is against Craigslist’s terms of service and they will block you from posting in the future. According to Craigslist, you can post one ad per geographic area every 48 hours.
So, what is the most efficient way to post your rental property to Craigslist? What are the best day and times to post to Craigslist? Below are some studies that analyzed millions of listings to determine when the best days and times are to post to Craigslist.
One study looked at over 100,000 Craigslist rental posts and found that the best time to get views on your ad was in the morning, specifically at around 5 or 6am PST.
Another study, specific to real estate postings found that the best times to post were times during the week that are break times for workers, 10:00am – Noon – and after 5:00pm. They are found that:
Sunday and Monday were the best times to post.
And another study found that the best time to receive calls from postings on Craigslist was between:
9am to 8pm being the timeframe you receive the most calls and then it drops off after that.
At the end of the day, you may have to post and test your own listings to see what is best. However, a good takeaway from these studies is to post your rental ad in the morning and on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. If you do that, you will increase your chances of receiving more views and rental leads from your Craigslist rental ads.
