Which apartment marketing metrics should you track?

Apartment marketing metrics are important. After all … how else can you monitor performance, identify trends and make informed decisions that benefit your brand?

It’s not always obvious which metrics matter most, though. If you’re not sure what to pay attention to — or you just want some expert insights — this article is for you.

We put together a quick list of apartment marketing metrics to track, broken into two sections: Portfolio-level metrics (which show high-level performance and trends) and property-level metrics (which zoom in on marketing and leasing efficiency).

You’ll walk away knowing which metrics to track and how to interpret them. There’s also a bonus takeaway on evaluating marketing sources.

Let’s get to it!

Quick FAQs

Portfolio-level metrics

If you’re a seasoned marketer, you’ve likely come across portfolio-level key performance indicators (KPIs). These are high-level metrics that make it easy to evaluate performance across your entire portfolio.

In other words: These KPIs help you see what’s working from a big-picture perspective. The important metrics shed light on renter demand, marketing trends and what’s best for your budget.  

Look at availability & leasing health

To start, you’ll want to monitor availability and leasing health across your portfolio. This is a smart way to catch shifts in renter demand (and flag early warning signs).

For example: Rising availability paired with low lead volume may call for increased marketing support. Or strong lead volume that results in low conversions could point to needing better follow-up messaging.

Low conversions can also be linked to low lead quality, which can result from poor ad targeting or marketing sources focused on volume instead of quality.

Here’s what we recommend tracking:

• Availability: The number of vacant or soon-to-be vacant apartments, divided by the total number of units
• Lead volume: The total number of prospective renter inquiries received from each marketing source
• Prospect conversion rate: The percentage of leads that convert into an engaged prospect, such as by booking a tour
• Application conversion rate: The percentage of prospects who submit a rental application
• Lease conversion rate: The percentage of prospects that result in a signed lease
• Move-in conversion rate: The percentage of prospects that result in a completed move-in

Assess marketing & advertising spend

You’ve got a pulse on leasing health, now what? It’s time to turn to marketing and advertising spend. These metrics highlight which marketing tactics are worth the investment — based on demand and competition — for your entire portfolio.

In other words, these metrics help you see:

1. Which markets require more marketing investment
2. Which markets need less marketing investment
3. How to shift your budget to maximize ROI

And here’s the list of what to track:

• Return on ad spend (ROAS): The amount of revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising
• Cross-source performance: The comparison of how different marketing channels perform across key metrics
• Regional or asset-class performance: The analysis of marketing and leasing results by region or property type

Property-level metrics

We’ve explained which portfolio-level metrics you should be monitoring. What about property-level KPIs?

These metrics are just as valuable. Tracking property-level metrics is the most holistic way to evaluate marketing and leasing efficiency. You can see what’s working from every angle, for every property. 

Monitor funnel performance

First things first, look at funnel performance. If you’re unfamiliar, funnel performance refers to how renters move through each stage of the marketing funnel (i.e., whether or not they’re progressing and converting).

It’s important at the property level, since your properties all have unique friction points. And each friction point — what we call “bottlenecks” — requires different fixes. For instance, some properties might need more leads, while others need operational fixes like improving tour quality.   

Also: If you don’t track performance at each stage of the funnel, you risk misdiagnosing issues. You need the full picture in order to make informed decisions.  

Here are the conversion metrics you should be looking at, which are defined in the leasing health section above:

• Lead to prospect
• Prospect to application
• Application to lease
• Lease to move-in

Pay attention to cost efficiency

Now that you’re monitoring funnel performance at each property, focus on cost efficiency. Your goal is to figure out which sources generate profitable outcomes … and which do not.

Remember: There’s a big difference between generating traffic and generating revenue.

By identifying best and worst performing sources, you can adjust and optimize your budget for each property. Identifying long-term source trends is important too (but more on that in the next section).

Here’s what you should be tracking for each source:

• Cost per lead: The average advertising cost to generate one new lead
• Cost per lease: The average advertising cost to secure one signed lease
• Cost per move-in: The average advertising cost to generate one move-in

Don’t forget about source trends & channel performance

Remember that bonus takeaway we mentioned? You should be looking at source trends and marketing-channel performance.

Here’s why: You can’t optimize your marketing without knowing which channels are driving revenue. To get the best insights, be sure to evaluate source trends over time, rather than reacting to short-term fluctuations.

These can help you establish long-term trends:

• Lead volume by source: The total number of leads generated from each marketing channel
• Cost per lead by source: The average advertising cost to generate one new lead from each marketing channel
• Lease conversion by source: The percentage of leads from each marketing channel that result in a signed lease
• Move-in conversion by source: The percentage of leads from each marketing channel that result in a move-in
• Return on ad spend by source: The revenue generated for every dollar spent within each marketing channel
• Performance dips or surges vs. averages: The shifts in performance metrics compared to historical averages

More on Marketing IQ

What if you could easily track your apartment marketing metrics, all in one place?

That’s the inspiration behind Marketing IQ, our marketing analytics platform. It’s designed for measuring and viewing website performance, spend, leases and more at a glance. All the marketing and advertising spend metrics covered above, for instance, are available in the Marketing IQ dashboard.

We’ve also built an additional layer called Marketing IQ Genius. This includes next-level features like AI content generation, PPC budget recommendations and customizable KPI alerts. For example: The availability and leasing health metrics we covered automatically show up as alerts in Marketing IQ Genius.

Reach out with questions

There you have it, marketers. Now you know which apartment marketing metrics to track, plus you’ve seen how an analytics platform can do the hard work for you. 

If you have questions about the metrics we shared, or you’d like a demo of Marketing IQ (including the Genius layer), reach out! We’re here to help however we can.