How Multifamily Marketers Can Solve the Attribution Puzzle

Which advertising sources are actually driving traffic, leads, and leases? A recent panel at this year’s Apartment Innovation and Marketing (AIM) conference explored this perennial problem.

The discussion, “The Attribution Revolution: Turning Data into Winning Decisions,” featured representatives from Apartments.com, Bozzuto, Cushman & Wakefield, and Hyly.AI.

“Here we are with the best marketers in our industry, with the best CRMs, with the best website analytics, with ultra-cool AI tools, and we’re still here today figuring out which half of our advertising is working well,” said Stuart Richens of Apartments.com, summarizing the dilemma that continues to face multifamily marketers.

The conversation highlighted the key obstacles to accurate attribution and laid out a path forward based on recent research by Hyly.AI in partnership with Apartments.com and Bozzuto.

The challenges of attribution

What makes accurate attribution so difficult? The major obstacle is that most prospective residents engage with more than one source during their rental search.

“It’s like a soup,” said Kelley Shannon from Bozzuto. “It takes a lot of different sources to convert someone to their final destination.”

Incorrect, inconsistent, and duplicate data can compound issues with multi-source attribution. About 23 percent of applicants create duplicate records, said Robert Lee from Hyly.AI.

A joint study between Hyly.AI and Apartments.com examined nearly 580,000 contacts at nearly 4,000 properties. The research found that the same prospect is often attributed to one source as a lead and a different source as a lease.

For example, a common issue is the misattribution of leases to a property’s website. The property website will be identified as a leading source for leases, even though other sources originally drove prospective residents to the website.

“A user can come to an ILS, whether it’s Apartments.com or one of our competitors, and then continue on a journey to the property website,” Richens said. “How do you trace that?”

Which sources matter most? 6 models of attribution

When dealing with multiple sources, marketers must decide how much credit to assign each source. Cushman & Wakefield’s Justin Godwin outlined six different approaches.

In the first-touch model, attribution is given to the first source a prospect interacts with.

In the last-touch model, on the other hand, only the last source is given credit. This is the approach the multifamily industry typically relies on, Godwin said.

Like the last-touch model, the time-decay model also favors sources at the end of the customer journey. The most credit is attributed to the last source, with decreasing levels of attribution to previous sources.

Godwin’s favorite approach is the linear model, in which all touchpoints are given equal weight.

“If I can’t get accurate information, I really want to give some kind of value to all of the contributors,” he said.

Other models include the U-shape (most credit to the first and last sources) and W-shape (first, middle, and last sources get the most credit, with remaining attribution assigned to the sources in between these three points).

The future of multi-source attribution

How can multifamily marketers get a more accurate picture of where their leads and leases are coming from?

Recently, Bozzuto partnered with Hyly.AI to track a single prospect’s journey. The study revealed a total of 186 events, including touchpoints and conversations. The prospect engaged with six different sources: Apartments.com, paid search, organic search, a broker, property websites, and email.

In all, the prospect considered four different Bozzuto properties and ultimately signed a lease at one of them.

The study offers a glimpse into what the future of attribution could look like: accurate data, multi-touch attribution, and a blending of internal and external third-party data.

“The first step is collecting and stitching so you can tell the story,” said Hyly.AI’s Robert Lee.