Generating More Leads For Less With Lead Source Attribution

As the multifamily market evolves and becomes more competitive, PMCs are putting pressure on the business expenses that roll up to NOI, and this affects marketers directly. Whether occupancy is high or not for a particular community, marketers are being pressured to reduce marketing costs because it helps the profitability of the business and gives the property manager room to be competitive on rental rates if and when they need to be. But knowing what to cut and why is a challenge multifamily marketers often face — unless equipped with the proper tools.

Nearly a century ago, famed magnate John Wanamaker is quoted as saying, “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Nearly 100 years later, those words are still true for many marketers.

What if you could pinpoint, with certainty, which of your marketing efforts and dollars are going to waste? Or where opportunity lies to meet your revenue goals, cheaper and faster?

It turns out you can. It’s why many of your peers have embraced lead source attribution, a practice that’s vital for multifamily marketers looking to outperform competitors and meet revenue goals in 2022 and beyond.

How conventional methods cost you more and deliver less

Traditionally, marketers seeking evidence for how their marketing channels, campaigns and lead sources were performing had to spend hours corralling incomplete data, with little payoff for their effort.

A young woman sitting at a desk with a serious expression surrounded by data reports struggling to determine lead source attribution without AI technology

For starters, you had to chase source data on separate platforms: Google Analytics, social networks, ILS, email, and other traffic sources. You’d try to compile all this disconnected data, then stitch it together in a way that could be recorded in your Multifamily CRM and accessed easily by your team. During that process, catch-all attributions like labeling everything “website” or relying on fellow agents to fill in referral sources failed to capture specific touchpoints (like a Google ad or Facebook campaign) that moved the prospect to make contact.

With so many manual steps and low visibility into true lead sources, the process was a tremendous resource suck, prone to error and rife with blind spots. And yet, it’s still how many multifamily marketers operate today.

Such methods also failed to measure traffic quality, notes Curt. Platforms like Google Analytics might tell you how much traffic they brought you, but not what happened to those visitors after they landed on your website. Did they become a viable lead? Book a tour? Sign a lease? “You might be able to tell the quantity of traffic but not the quality of it,” he explains.

Thankfully, there’s a better way. It’s why forward-looking marketers have sought to integrate and automate attribution insights with PERQ.

AI-powered, integrated lead source attribution

You’re a marketer, not a data scientist. We’re guessing you have no desire to spend hours poring over data instead of building relationships, fine-tuning your strategy, or driving conversions. By pairing your team’s skills with AI-driven insights, you enable your team to perform at a higher level while countering burnout, wasted effort or spending.

Attribution insights can help your team answer questions like these:

  • What customer segment gives us the greatest chance to meet revenue goals?
  • What’s our cost-per-lead, cost-per-lease, conversion-to-tour, and conversion-to-lease by each lead source?
  • What’s the best combination of digital touchpoints to attract renters to our doorsteps?
  • Which tactics/campaigns/channels deliver best-fit, high-intent leads?
  • Where are we wasting dollars reaching the wrong audiences?
  • How can we cut costs without compromising results?
  • What evidence can I use to defend my proposed strategies/investments to our senior leaders?

It’s important to note lead source attributions shouldn’t be limited to website traffic. “We’re able to track attributions cross-channel; not just the first touchpoint,” says Kara: “When we reply to a prospect, or if a prospect engages with one of our SMS nurture messages, we carry their attribution source between channels. The same goes for emails: When the AI replies or sends a nurture email, we dynamically build links and signatures to ensure attribution is passed through if the prospect switches to another communication (e.g., clicking an email link to visit the website, calling or texting the phone number in the signature field).”

Altogether, it takes website attribution, ILS leads, marketing numbers, and lead nurture working together to ensure the attribution sticks with the individual consumer, regardless of what channel they start engaging with versus what channel they ultimately become a lead on, Kara explains.

How it works

In a nutshell, multifamily marketers install PERQ on their websites and integrate PERQ with their lead sources. From there, PERQ can see the origin of every conversion, regardless of its source. It maintains this data while the prospective renter goes along their journey.

But it doesn’t stop there. PERQ also engages prospects through interactive website experiences, AI chatbots, SMS, email and more, “warming up” those leads and maintaining attribution insights for every prospect.

Once a lead is agent-ready, it passes the prospective renter card to your CRM along with the clean lead source information it maintains.

In addition to helping you identify what’s working (or isn’t) to attract leads, this level of visibility also makes your lead sources perform better because we’ve used personalized intel to nurture each lead.

Improving your marketing performance, visibility and ROI

When you’ve been operating in the dark, it can be tough to discern the next steps. At the same time, you shouldn’t have to become a data expert to benefit from it. We’ll help you clarify your next best move.

Drop us a note for a complimentary consulting session and we’ll be happy to share how your peers are solving challenges similar to yours.

PERQ integrates with your existing website and lead sources to engage, nurture and convert every lead, improving the multifamily leasing journey for everyone. Learn how it works or request a demo.