The goal of any apartment community is to get as many leases as are needed to keep the property as close to full occupancy as possible. In order to do that, most property management companies use many different sources: SEO, paid search, email marketing, internet listing service (ILS) companies, etc. Then there’s the ubiquitous walk-in viewing. So how do you determine which method actually drove the qualified lead that turned into a lease?
One of the most basic answers is to ensure that you track and tag all of your campaigns across all of the different channels you’re using, where you can. Whatever analytics package you’re using can then tell you where you’re getting your traffic and online conversions from. Any ILS or other partnerships should be doing the same for you. Any clicks on conversion events (guest cards, phone numbers, emails sent, etc.) should be trackable, and the source determined.
Now that you have things tracked, is that the end of it? No. You need to ensure that you’re actually attributing those leads correctly, and that will be based on the attribution model you choose.
One-Touch Memory Attribution
If you're relying on renters to fill out a form that asks "Where did you hear about us?" the chances of them accurately remembering and reporting the lead source is low, so this is the least reliable model. Anything that actually relies on automatically collected data will inherently be more reliable.
Last-Touch Attribution
This model states that the last thing the prospective tenant did that caused them to actually visit the property is the one that should get all of the credit. So, when they fill out the “How did you hear about us?” portion of the application process, that’s the one that gets a big check mark next to it. This is regardless of how many touch points they had over the course of their rental investigation process, which may have encompassed several ILS sites, paid search clicks, display ad clicks, organic clicks and visits to the property website. Their mind may have been made up on one site, or it may have taken comparisons across various sources before they made the decision to actually come visit the property and decide on their next home.
First-Touch Attribution
This model states that the first site visited should be the one that gets the credit. The reason being that this is where the idea of renting an apartment at this property was first implanted. But if there were later visits that stemmed from other sources, this model completely discounts them, assuming they had no influence on the decision.
Multi-Touch Attribution: Equal Distribution
This model looks at every source the potential renter visited prior to actually becoming a genuine lead, and gives each the same share of credit for the lead. So, if the user visited site A, then your site through paid search, then site B, then your site directly before coming in to view the apartment, then each would get one-quarter of the credit for that lead. While this does share the credit, it’s a more simplistic view, in that it assumes that each site is equally responsible for the lead, when that may not be the case.
Multi-Touch Attribution: Time Decay Distribution
This model looks at every source the potential renter visited prior to becoming a genuine lead and gives each a share of the credit based on the recency of the visit. So, if a renter had visited site A, your site, through paid search and then your site through organic search, then the latter would get perhaps 50% of the credit, the paid search would get maybe 30% and site A would get 20%. This lends credit to the earlier visits for putting your property in front of the potential renter and gives the lion’s share to the last visit as that’s the one that actually triggered the lead. Avinash Kaushik, a Google evangelist, states that of all of the models, this is his preference.
Multi-Touch Attribution: Start And End Distribution
This model looks at every source the potential renter visited prior to becoming a genuine lead and gives the first and last clicks the main portion of the credit, as the first was the introduction to your property, and the last was where they made the decision to contact you. Everything else in the middle is considered to be part of the decision making process, but not vitally important. Therefore, they share a smaller amount of the credit but do at least get some.
Which Model Is Right For You?
While the first- and last-touch attribution models are the simplest, they ignore the entire journey of the renter during the discovery, investigation and conversion parts of the process, so you don't get the complete picture of the journey they've taken. Therefore, it stands to reason that a multi-touch model is one that you should be looking at if you’ve not already implemented it.
Of the multi-touch models, the time decay model is the one that makes the most sense in my view and is the one that I recommend, because each step of the journey has had some form of influence over the renter. The ones toward the end of the journey are likely to have had the most influence in the potential renter actually taking an action, simply because that's when they did take an action. With this model, you can see more of the picture -- not just a snapshot of one portion of it -- and from there you can build up a much stronger vision of the value every stage in the renter life cycle prior to viewing an apartment.
