Zillow’s going coast-to-coast shining the spotlight on some of the best multifamily marketers in cities across the country. These rental industry pros have used the Zillow Rental Network to help grow their business.

As a college student, Steve Gilbert aspired to be the next Jerry Maguire; those aspirations naturally led him toward property management. Steve began his multifamily career with Avalon Bay, sponsors of the Washington Wizards, where he was an intern. He became passionate about the industry and believed in the value of building homes and helping people find them. From Avalon Bay, he went on to join Mission Residential, Greystar, and most recently, Gates Hudson, where he is the Vice President of Marketing. We spoke with Steve to see what metrics his team prioritizes to reach leasing success.

Zillow: In your opinion, what metrics lend themselves to a 'best in class' marketing department? 
Steve: At the end of the day, a good marketing department is a resource to our partners in Operations to ensure that we are delivering the highest quality prospective resident at the lowest possible price, all while ensuring they have the highest quality leasing experience. It’s important to be proactive about ensuring our properties are hitting their occupancy and revenue goals. There are four staple metrics that we constantly measure ourselves against:

1. The quantity of leads per property and understanding how that changes depending on seasonality and submarkets
2. How good we are at converting a lead into a tour (lead-to-tour ratio)
3. The closing ratio (tour-to-lease ratio) from those visits
4. How cost effective we can be at doing all of the above

Zillow: Why is being metrics-driven important to your team?
Steve: There is a perception that marketing is mostly qualitative – design, creative development, communication. Those are definitely important components, but when you look at what constitutes a truly great marketing plan or strategy, it is the metric-driven projections that show the value of what we do on a daily basis. There’s a misconception that marketing is an expense, but really it is an investment strategy that drives higher occupancy at the highest rents possible. Metrics tell the whole story of what the return is on investment and why marketing is a critical component to an organization’s success.

Zillow: What factors do you consider when deciding where to allocate your online marketing budget?
Steve: We basically look at reach versus cost: how effective is this tool at driving monthly visitors to their website, and how many active customers click through to contact us and then ultimately sign a lease? The bottom line we look at is always cost per lease – there are a million different ILSs, so at the end of the day we want to know the actual return we get from spending our budgets on them. The successful ILSs are those that make our leasing teams more effective at leasing rather than just sending us junk leads that fill our inbox.

Zillow: What advice would you give to a company trying to revamp its tracking efforts?
Steve: Well if they have already decided to do it then the hardest part of the battle – justifying the reason – is over. Next you want to establish realistic benchmarks of what you’re trying to accomplish. Just because you’re tracking it doesn’t make you better. Understand the goals of what you want to do with the data – what you hope to improve on and prioritize. If you’re great at getting people to visit but you’re not closing, you need to prioritize sales training and recruitment sourcing structure. It’s all about what you do with that information. Have honest conversations with partners and make sure your goals are aligned. Get creative with how you pay for performance – incentivize them to share and be transparent. The number one mistake we make is that we collect all this data but don’t share it.

Zillow: Can you shed some light on why you chose Zillow to be in your budget, and what aspect makes Zillow an appealing marketing partner?
Steve: It’s a no brainer. It’s one of our most cost-effective sources of validated leases. Zillow has done a great job aligning the interests of their users and clients. From a media purchasing decision standpoint, the more leases you give me the less I depend on others. We’ve been using Zillow at Gates Hudson for a little over three months now, and usually you need three to five months to see full attribution. But we already see Zillow leads converting into leases at roughly the same rate as other established ILSs at a no-nonsense cost per lease, which is what it comes down to.