“Marketing is one of only a few fields where you need to be both creative and analytic,” Lauren says. “I like coming up with creative campaigns, and I also love dissecting them and looking at the data and doing the math. It makes both sides of my brain happy.”

We talked with Lauren about how she incorporated Lease Connect | Tech — Zillow’s pay-per-lease advertising model — into her marketing strategy to help more renters find homes.

How do you work with your on-site teams to track your marketing performance?

A challenge for any property management marketer is aligning leadership and on-site teams on how to convert more prospects into signed leases. Our data about online advertising helps our stakeholders understand the strategy to achieve their occupancy goals.

Being in leasing and property management, one of my biggest initiatives is bridging the gap between the on-site team and corporate marketing. You’re all speaking different languages, so it’s important to be able to educate everyone on the numbers I look at while keeping in mind the numbers they’re looking at to make sure we’re all on the same page.

How did you first hear about Lease Connect | Tech?

I discussed my options with my Zillow business partner who told me about Lease Connect | Tech, Zillow’s pay-per-lease advertising model. For us, it was definitely a no-brainer. We love pay-per-lease models because you know you’re getting the most bang for your buck and not just the opportunity for results.

Did you have to convince your leadership to try a pay-per-lease advertising model?

Our leadership was already on board with pay-per-lease, but they wanted to be sure it would be as effective as other online advertising models — particularly when it came down to reach versus engagement. 

How would you compare different advertising models?

For me, the difference between a pay-per-lease campaign and other advertising options is just that assurance of engagement. I’d rather touch fewer potential leads — who are going to follow through on our calls to action — than blast something out to the masses and not really have a handle on who’s seeing it and if it’s working.

How does an integrated solution like Lease Connect | Tech help you track performance?

I get my data from multiple marketing-based resources, but I appreciate how Lease Connect | Tech integrates with my Yardi system, which lets me spend more time analyzing my reports rather than hunting down and collating data. 

I’m getting more streamlined info from one source and it absolutely saves me time. You can clearly see how many leads and tours it delivers — and know that’s accurate data. Lease Connect | Tech opens the door for more analytical data that piques our leadership’s curiosity about where I find the numbers, how I interpret them and what those numbers mean for the future success of each property.

How does Lease Connect | Tech help you align with the way prospective renters find and eventually lease their homes?

Measuring impressions and clicks was once the way to identify a campaign’s success, but the actual renter process doesn’t stop when they click on something; it stops when they move in.

My job might be to get prospects just to the point of clicking, and then I’m going to pass them on to the next person who’s going to get them just to the point of scheduling a tour, but I really like to look at things more holistically. A pay-per-lease advertising model helps me do that because I can see where a renter started, where they ended up and how they got there. That’s crucial for marketers.

Why did you decide to partner with Zillow Group and use Lease Connect | Tech?

The accuracy and availability of the data in this pay-per-lease model informs my marketing plans, giving me precise information on what works and where I should allocate my budget.

My marketing mantra is “Gather, analyze, predict, strategize.” I’m in a constant cycle of looking at data, analyzing it, predicting what it’s going to do next and then building a strategy off that. We’re getting the best of everything: exposure, our name on Zillow, association with a trusted brand and the assurance that we’re only paying for what we’re getting. That’s huge for us.

How’s it going?

It’s going great. The onboarding process was super easy, our property management teams are excited about it, and I’ve heard nothing but good feedback so far. Lease Connect | Tech continues to deliver signed leases. Receiving a populated guest card in the on-site team’s inbox with all the information ready to go makes it easier for them to help the prospect find a home.