Consumer Geo-Tracking a Boon to Apartment Marketers

Geographically tracked consumer data has advanced so much lately that it has become a treasure chest for apartment marketers looking to find the right area and right message to use when advertising their vacant homes.

By revealing migration trends and planned construction, it also gives strong clues as to where apartment developers should build.

Placer.ai data studies and summarizes foot traffic, migration patterns, and consumer demographic information such as work locations, commuting paths, and where people like to eat and shop. This therefore can help determine personal income, age, and, other behaviors, leading to more precise decision-making for businesses.

Matthew Kilmurry, Founder & CEO, ApartmentGeofencing.com, and Ben Witten, Head of Real Estate, Placer.ai discussed strategies and specifics during the Apartment Innovation and Marketing Conference on May 7 in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The data can be used to create demographic profiles. It can go as deep as knowing what podcasts consumers listen to, which helps to gauge their interests. Marketers, in turn, are better able to craft the right marketing pitch.

“You can learn so much about the market,” Kilmurry said. “You can do a comp report of another apartment property nearby to see what type of people live there. Then you can match that information with locations to decide where you want to build and what would work best in a marketing plan.”

Kilmurry said being able to study specific neighborhoods is more valuable than doing so based on ZIP codes or entire markets.

“This makes it easier for apartment marketers to see where they should be advertising for the next three months, for example, and what should be highlighted in their campaigns based on what activity is going on,” he said.

Witten said one consumer category Placer.ai has defined is Jet-Set Urbanites –people who love the arts, are well-educated, care about the environment, and tend to be liberal in their political beliefs.

Those kinds of details are invaluable to marketers.

Witten said that knowing why people are moving and what factors drew them to those areas is key.

For developers, Placer.ai’s information gets as granular as what was discussed and decided at local zoning meetings, indicating what might be built and where.

“It’s usually based on workability scores or job markets,” he said. “This helps developers to better understand what type of product build – whether it’s market-rate, or seniors, or student.”