In 2005, at Google, we acquired an analytics company called Urchin. Urchin, now Google Analytics, was integrated into Google Adwords and was meant to allow advertisers to track conversions across all online sources. There were and are some challenges however with the accuracy of some of the reports. Here are a few examples: 

 

• Javascript Code was added incorrectly on advertiser’s site
• Users clear their cookies and can’t be tracked
• Ad filtering programs can block the script
• Script could slow down site causing a higher user abandonment rate

All of these issues could lead to inaccurate reports where the marketer thinks one source or various keywords are performing poorly. Tracking conversion is an essential part of any marketing program within any industry. However, making marketing decisions based on bad data could hurt marketing performance.

 Specifically in the apartment industry, leases, many times are attributed to the wrong source. At a recent NMHC event, the panel warned: 

that properly sourcing leads is a big problem in the industry. One analysis showed that 70% of leases were attributed to the wrong source.

As the apartment industry becomes more sophisticated on what leads are converting into leases by using third party lead-to-lease services, I am seeing many of the same data tracking errors that I saw at Google. Recently, we compared internal lead data to multiple client lease data and found a 10-12X discrepancy in what leads actually turned into leases and what their third-party data was telling them.

Here are a few apartment marketing tracking challenges I see:

• Dead tracking numbers
  • Surprisingly, sometimes marketers forget to change out tracking numbers and potential residents go to a dead number
• Improper parsing of email data
  • In some cases, parsing of name, email, phone-number may not be parsed accurately from the third-party
• Manual over-ride of source data
  • Psychologically, we tend to favor sources that make us look better. One REIT shared with us that walk-ins and “Internet Other” dropped 50% when they started to track via a call center.
• Revenue Attribution
  • Who should receive the lease attribution? The first source, middle source, last source, or all sources?
• The Network Effect
  • More and more leads are coming from the long-tail of sites. “Internet Other” option is becoming a larger portion of lease sources.
• The Human Element
  • Lack of accurate lead collection data at the community level may lead to larger discrepancies.
• Different phone and or email addresses presented when signing the lease
  • Many potential residents search while at work. Did their work email and phone show in the lead reports but their home information show in the guest card / lease software?

As an industry, we are getting closer to accurately quantifying apartment advertising spend but we are a long way to perfection. Would love feedback, thoughts, suggestions on how we as an industry could improve the accuracy of this data.

 

This is fascinating. My co-worker put me on to this map, visually data-mapping ethnic and racial information by location.

Stop, Question and Frisk in New York Neighborhoods

New York City’s police force, in its fight against crime, has increasingly used a strategy known as “stop, question and frisk,” which allows officers to stop someone based on a reasonable suspicion of crime. One expert has estimated New Yorkers are stopped at twice the national rate. The impact on crime is much debated, and critics contend disproportionate stopping of minorities is a result of racial profiling, which police officials dispute. Related Article »

Good news for any New Yorker who hates interacting with others during their daily commute (read: all New Yorkers): Wi-Fi and mobile service are coming to a subway near you. Yup, now even the Mole People won’t be able to escape the outside world.

According to Bloomberg, after three years of stalled progress, Transit Wireless LLC — a conglomerate of wireless and construction companies that was awarded a contract to undergo this project with New York Transit — has finally found the money to move forward. Broadcast Australia has footed the bill, which will bring NYC up to speed with Singapore, Berlin and Tokyo — all of which currently have Wi-Fi in the tubes.

Back in 2007, Transit Wireless LLC had promised to get the job done in 10 years, now it has two years to outfit six stations near New York’s Union Square, and then four more years for the other 271 platforms. The Wi-Fi comes in the form of smoke detector-size antennas, and will afford passengers access on platforms, mezzanines and in sections of the tunnels (not the whole tunnel). Overall, the whole deal will cost $200 million dollars — which begs the question: If the city’s willing to go to the trouble to go wireless, why do I have to take a shuttle nine weekends out of 10 because they’re “doing repairs on the tracks”? But I digress…

Pretty soon, it seems, a goodly portion of NYC will be Wi-Fi ready; AT&T outfitted Times Square with free wireless two months ago and ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks offers pro bono access as well. Just think, that whole “I was stuck in a tunnel” excuse is never going to be the same…

 

Apparently, email is now ever more passé with usage increasing only in senior citizens according to the metric below.  Facebook's aptly-named Fmail is the newest communication platform trying stick it to Gmail, but also accommodate the desire for instant information gratification, and of course to remain technologically hip, and thus relevant to new consumers.

However, I think this is a misguided attempt to identify a trend.  Yahoo and Hotmail are on the decline becaue they aren't flexible platforms, and because I get he feeling that they are constantly trying to sell me something.  And,  I don't see any single medium supplanting email, as the telephone did the letter.  Instant messaging has existed for decades in a variety of incarnations ranging from AIM to the almighty pager, as has the video-conferencing capabilities of Skype.  I remember seeing a video-phone in elementary school (and if I remember correctly the pricetag at that time was over a thousand dollars).

The greatest recent shift in communication technology has really been bandwith and computing power, so people are able to share and collaborate more, faster.  Photographs, videos, and chat rooms are not new.  Only now, we have all of these things simultaneously whilst  on the train to work.  But, I do not see email being replaced any time soon, only adapted to more seamlessly integrate more robust mixed-media.

 

Have New Yorkers outgrown CraigsList?

by Honeycrisp on April 20, 2010

The 101 on avoiding the traps of using CraigsList in your apartment search

CraigsList used to be the #1 destination for New Yorkers looking for apartment rental deals.  Nowadays, the venue has become a minefield of pitfalls to avoid, sending wannabe tenants to StreetEasy.  Here’s a bit of a breakdown of how this wondrous list of lists works in the world of NYC real estate.

• Traffic galore: So many eyeballs land on CL, that it’s almost impossible to avoid the site from a broker’s standpoint.  The sheer amount of traffic that this community gets from apartment hunters is astonishing, with everyone looking to get a deal and find that hidden gem or diamond in the rough.  It’s no wonder that hundreds of ads are posted on the site daily, with frequent double and triple posts of the very same apartment.
• Ring ring: Brokers clearly try to capitalize on this volume, with their primary goal of making the phone ring. (Note: apartment ads on CL costs the broker $5 – $10, so these are dollars clearly going towards getting business.) Unfortunately, many are trained to do only that: get the phone to ring no matter what.  This means often creating “Frankenstein apartments” for the desperate tenant to drool over: a picture of a bathroom from an UWS 2-bed, the kitchen of a Financial District studio and the roof-deck of a Gramercy condo, slap an attractive price on it and … voila!  The perfect apartment now exists.
• Inflated Expectations: Clearly, brokers know that no one will call on a $5k 1-bed … the lower the price, the more calls they get.  Everyone is incentivized to advertise only their cheapest deals or else make them up. The result is an inflated sense of the number of “bargains” out there, and therefore a very skewed sense of what is realistic to expect.  So what happens when you call? “I’m sorry, this apartment is rented but I have another 1-bed you will just love.”
• For rent by whom?: For those of you looking to go the “for rent by owner” route thinking you can avoid all shadiness, ask the voice on the other end if s/he is a broker.  If the answer is anything but “No”, there’s a significant likelihood that the answer is yes, as 50%+ of owner listings have an agent behind them.

So how do you determine whether an ad is real and an agent worthy?  Here is a question-driven litmus test to guide your way:

Question:  Where is the apartment located?

• Bad Answer: It’s in West Chelsea
• Worse answer: The landlord prohibits me from giving the exact address.
• OK Answer: It’s located at on 5th Avenue, between Y and X.
• Ideal Answer:  It’s at 625 Fifth Ave, Apt. 2C (agents often find it hard to share if it’s not their exclusive listing, though)

Question: Tell me more about the apartment: where is it facing? what is the bathroom like?

• Bad Answer: What are you looking for?
• Good Answer:  It’s facing north; the bathroom was renovated 3 years ago and has a stand-up shower (not tub), etc.

Question: What size bed can I fit in the bedroom?

• Bad Answer: You have to just see the apartment; come to my office to register.
• Good Answer: If you have a queen, that would work well. Frankly, a king just wouldn’t fit unless you eliminated all walking space.

Question: When is it available?

• Bad Answer:  I’m not sure, let me check with the landlord and I’ll get back to you.
• Worse Answer: When are you looking to move?
• Good Answer:  The tenant’s lease expires in the middle of June and the apartment is available for occupancy on July 1.

If you do choose to conduct your own apartment search, do so with your eyes open and your expectations adjusted.  If it sounds too good to be true, chances are that it is.  Otherwise, go the broker route if you want to avoid these hassles altogether.

Have New Yorkers outgrown CraigsList?