It's Monday morning, 9:15am. You get a phone call from a landlord. They sound concerned.
"I was just looking at our property on Rightmove and the headline says 'TEST - DO NOT PUBLISH'. What's going on?"
Your stomach drops. Someone on the team was preparing the listing Friday afternoon, added placeholder text to test the system, and accidentally published it live to Rightmove.
Over the weekend, 250 people viewed that draft listing. The photos weren't optimized. The description said "Add details here." The postcode was wrong. And now those 250 potential tenants think your agency doesn't know what it's doing.
Rightmove charges you £50+ per property per month. You just wasted a weekend of exposure on a broken listing that damaged your professional reputation.
This happens more often than agencies admit. Draft listings getting published. Properties with missing photos going live. Accidentally leaving properties advertised after they've been let. It's not that your team is careless—it's that most property management systems don't have proper safeguards.
This week, we fixed this in LetAdmin with a two-layer advertising control system that prevents incomplete listings from reaching portals while maintaining flexibility for your workflow. This article explains how it works and why it matters.
The Problem: Portal Publishing Without Guardrails
Traditional property management systems make portal advertising too easy—or too complicated.
Problem 1: No Pre-Flight Checks
Most systems publish properties to portals immediately when you mark them "Available to Let":
- No check if photos are uploaded
- No validation of required fields
- No confirmation that listing is portal-ready
- One click → live on Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket
Result: Draft listings reaching thousands of potential tenants before they're ready.
Problem 2: All-or-Nothing Control
Some systems try to solve this with rigid approval workflows:
- Negotiator creates listing
- Manager must approve before publishing
- Bottleneck: manager reviewing 20 listings per week
- Slows down simple updates
Result: Agents bypass the system (spreadsheets, manual portal logins) to move faster, defeating the purpose of the workflow.
Problem 3: Unclear Advertising State
"Is this property currently advertising?" becomes hard to answer:
- Marketing status says "Live"
- But is it actually syndicated to portals right now?
- Was it paused for updates?
- Did it fail portal validation?
Result: Properties missing from portals for days without anyone noticing.
How LetAdmin's Two-Layer Advertising Control Works
We separated advertising control into two layers:
Layer 1: Marketing Status (Business Process)
Tracks the internal workflow state:
- Draft: Listing being prepared, content incomplete
- Ready: Content complete, awaiting publication
- Live: Published and actively marketing
- Paused: Temporarily stopped (e.g., for updates)
- Archived: No longer marketing (property let or withdrawn)
This status is visible to your team but doesn't directly control portal syndication.
Layer 2: Advertising Toggle (Portal Syndication)
Controls actual portal publishing:
- Toggle ON (green): Property syndicates to all configured portals (Rightmove, Zoopla, etc.)
- Toggle OFF (grey): Portal syndication disabled, regardless of marketing status
This toggle has built-in safety checks (explained below).
Why Two Layers Instead of One?
Flexibility + Safety.
Example 1: Preparing a listing in advance
- Marketing Status: "Ready" (content complete)
- Advertising Toggle: OFF (not publishing yet)
- Result: Team knows listing is ready, but it won't accidentally go live until manager approves
Example 2: Temporarily pausing for photo updates
- Marketing Status: "Paused"
- Advertising Toggle: OFF
- Result: Clear signal the property was advertising but is temporarily stopped for updates
Example 3: System failure recovery
- Marketing Status: "Live"
- Advertising Toggle: ON
- Portal feed fails to upload
- Result: You can see the discrepancy (status says Live, toggle says ON, but portal sync failed)
The two layers provide visibility into what should be happening (Marketing Status) vs what is actually happening (Advertising Toggle).
Pre-Flight Checks: What Happens When You Try to Advertise
When you toggle advertising ON, LetAdmin checks if the listing is portal-ready:
Required Fields Check
✅ Headline (not empty, not "TEST", not placeholder text) ✅ Description (minimum 100 characters, actual content) ✅ Photos (at least 1 photo uploaded) ✅ Postcode (valid UK postcode format) ✅ Price (set, greater than £0) ✅ Bedrooms (specified)
If any check fails:
- Toggle stays OFF
- Warning displayed: "This property cannot be advertised:"
- Missing headline
- No photos uploaded
- Invalid postcode
You must fix the issues before advertising is enabled.
Portal-Specific Validation
Different portals have different requirements:
Rightmove:
- Maximum 50 photos
- Headline max 200 characters
- Description formatting rules
Zoopla:
- Recommends 6+ photos for best performance
- Different description length limits
OnTheMarket:
- Floor plan recommended
- EPC required for best visibility
LetAdmin validates against each portal's requirements and warns you of potential issues before the feed is sent.
Real-World Example: Preventing a Draft Listing Disaster
Scenario: New negotiator preparing a listing Friday afternoon.
Before pre-flight checks (typical system):
- Negotiator creates property, adds headline "TEST PROPERTY"
- Uploads 1 photo as placeholder
- Marks property "Available to Let" to see how it looks
- Goes home for the weekend
- Property automatically syncs to Rightmove Friday evening
- Landlord sees draft listing Saturday morning
- Monday morning: angry phone call
Result: Embarrassment, lost weekend of proper marketing
With LetAdmin pre-flight checks:
- Negotiator creates property, adds headline "TEST PROPERTY"
- Uploads 1 photo as placeholder
- Tries to toggle advertising ON
- System blocks toggle: "Cannot advertise: Headline contains placeholder text, Only 1 photo (recommend 4+), Description too short"
- Negotiator realizes listing isn't ready
- Completes listing properly Monday morning
- Toggle ON → passes checks → publishes correctly
Result: Draft never reaches portals, no embarrassment
How Agents See This in LetAdmin
On the property detail page, the Marketing Status card shows:
Top section:
- Badge showing current status (Draft/Ready/Live/Paused/Archived)
- Color-coded for quick recognition
- Success animation when actively advertising
Toggle switch:
- Large, obvious ON/OFF toggle
- Green when ON (advertising)
- Grey when OFF (not advertising)
- Disabled if listing fails pre-flight checks
Pre-flight warnings (if applicable):
- Amber warning box listing specific issues
- "Cannot advertise:" followed by bullet points
- Actionable guidance ("Upload at least 3 more photos")
Quick actions menu:
- Edit Advert
- View on Portals (see how listing appears live)
- Pause Advertising (temporarily stop syndication)
Everything in one glance: Status + advertising state + issues + actions.
What Happens Behind the Scenes
When advertising toggle is ON:
- Property included in portal feed generation (runs every 15 minutes)
- XML feed sent to Rightmove via their API
- JSON feed sent to Zoopla
- OnTheMarket feed updated
When advertising toggle is OFF:
- Property excluded from all portal feeds
- Existing portal listings removed within 15 minutes
- Enquiry capture disabled for that property
Toggle changes create audit log entries:
- "Advertising enabled by Sarah on 3 Sep at 10:23"
- "Advertising disabled by Tom on 5 Sep at 14:50"
This provides accountability for who published/unpublished properties and when.
Advanced Workflows This Enables
Workflow 1: Quality Assurance Before Publishing
Regional offices:
- Negotiators create listings (Marketing Status: "Draft")
- Upload photos, write descriptions
- Change status to "Ready" when complete
- Manager reviews all "Ready" listings
- Manager toggles advertising ON for approved listings
Result: Central quality control without slowing down listing preparation.
Workflow 2: Seasonal Pausing for Student Properties
Student lettings cycle:
- Advertise property Jan-Apr (peak student season)
- Pause advertising May-Aug (low demand)
- Resume advertising Sep-Dec (second wave)
How:
- Toggle OFF May 1st → portal syndication stops
- Marketing Status: "Paused" (team knows why it's off)
- Toggle ON Sep 1st → advertising resumes automatically
Result: No manual portal logins, automated seasonal marketing.
Workflow 3: A/B Testing Different Portals
Testing portal effectiveness:
- Week 1: Advertise on Rightmove only
- Week 2: Add Zoopla
- Week 3: Add OnTheMarket
- Track enquiry sources to determine ROI per portal
How:
- Configure which portals property advertises to
- Toggle controls all portals (or individual portal toggles for advanced use)
Result: Data-driven decisions about portal spend.
We'd Love to Hear from You
Have you ever accidentally published a draft listing to Rightmove or Zoopla? How did you discover the mistake? What was the landlord's reaction?
How do you currently prevent incomplete listings from reaching portals? Manual checks? Manager approval? Just hoping for the best?
What portal-related errors frustrate your team most? Properties not syncing? Incorrect data appearing? Feed failures?
Get in touch: paul@letadmin.com
LetAdmin is in active development, built by letting agents for letting agents. The two-layer advertising control system is being used at Phillip James (370+ properties) to prevent portal publishing errors and maintain professional listings. If you're tired of draft listings escaping to Rightmove and want proper safeguards, we'd love to hear from you.