Technology is destined to change the way the commercial real estate market operates, but a debate is raging as to how and how much. Will it create a sea change in the industry, or will the impact be less than transformational? Certainly, technology has revolutionized the daily lives of most people—including the way they communicate, work, shop, eat and entertain. Yet some industry analysts contend that technological change has been slow to take root, and commercial real estate generally oper­ates as it always has. In some sense, this is true. Commercial landlords lease the same basic property types, buy and sell based on cash flow projections, and take out mortgages. Ownership is concentrated in the hands of private companies, which tend to be zealous in guarding proprietary information. Also relatively un­disturbed are the metrics by which real estate is measured: occupancy and demand levels, price per square foot and so on. Yet in other senses, there has been a transformation in an industry in which analysis was once performed on napkins and deals completed at country clubs. While the sector may still only be scratching the surface of its potential use of technology, there have been massive improvements in the availability of data used for underwriting. In software, that helps property owners manage assets more efficiently. In technology, that enhances access to investors. Using Real Estate Underlying the story of technology in real estate is the evolution in the way it impacts demand. For example, the amount of office space used per employee has continually shrunk over the past couple of decades, due to factors such as more efficient floor plans and technology that enables more people to work from home. The growth of WeWork space meets the needs of the current generation of work­ers, who are looking for flexible lease arrangements and a relaxed environment. The story of how Internet shopping has changed retail is well known. The U.S. has more retail space per person than any other country, and shopping center owners have had to revamp their focus from shopping to creating an experi­ence and complementing online brands. Changes in retail are providing a boost to industrial real estate. Amazon and the largest brick-and-mortar retailers (such as Walmart and Target) that have large Internet presences are occupying and building tens of millions of square feet of warehouse space from which they can deliver quickly to highly popu­lated areas. Airbnb is slowly becoming a strong competitor for the hotel industry just as hotel construction is recovering from the dip caused by the last recession. In multifamily, rather than building cookie-cutter units, apartment owners are being forced to consider amenities like co-working space, common areas for social activities and high-speed Internet access. Even Uber, which isn’t in a business related to real estate, will eventually have an impact on demand for commercial space. As fewer people drive, office buildings will need less parking, and companies will continue to retrench in urban areas close to public transportation and mass housing. Drilling down further, there are several broad areas in which technology is developing in commercial real estate: transac­tional underwriting, property management and broadening the investor base. Let’s look at these issues. Improved Transactional Underwriting The most obvious way technology has advanced in com­mercial real estate is in the collection and dissemination of information. Both at the property and market level, in­formation was hard to come by years ago, but it is increas­ingly more available from both mainstream providers and new technology. Services that provide data have been around for decades, but in recent years companies (such as Yardi Matrix) have made huge strides in both the amount of information they gather and the way it is disseminated. More sophisti­cated software enables subscribers to customize and map information in ways that go well beyond what was avail­able in the past, allowing them to delineate submarkets and correlate real estate performance with...

Whether you’ve tapped into your inner Marketing Genius with RentCafe or you’re piecing together a plan on your own, your site analytics can help you capitalize on your areas of opportunity. Understanding how to interpret the metrics on your analytics reports can influence changes in your marketing techniques that increase leads and conversions. At first, simply pulling up reports may seem intimidating. Familiarizing yourself with common concepts will take the guess work and the trepidation out of analytics. Use these ground rules as a foundation before wading through the key metrics: You’re in sales and marketing, not IT, but when you’re dealing with data you’ve got to learn to speak data lingo. Understanding these terms will make interpreting and communicating about your reports easier. You’ll also know which data sets will help you answer questions that arise while you’re planning your strategy. It’s also important to remember that trends take time to emerge. Mark your calendar and give yourself several weeks before making changes, and at least three months before a major overhaul. When it is time to try something new, make small, incremental alterations rather than several changes at once. Otherwise, you won’t know which changes made the impact that you see on future reports. Lastly, you may want to define your desired end result and then work backwards. This may mean that not all features on a report are important to you. Adjust your filters for what you need and put other features on the back burner (for now). If you aren’t sure what you need, our recommendations are below. Key Metrics Traffic source There are three traffic source types: direct, referral, and search engine. Direct traffic means that renters typed your site address into the address bar. Referral traffic means that renters found you through a link on another site. When Google, Bing, and similar search engines send renters your way, that’s grouped under search engine traffic. Concentrate your resources on the top two traffic sources, especially if they bear a high click-through rate. Click-through rate When a renter sees your ad, clicks it, and lands on your site, that is a click-through. The click-through rate is often measured as a percentage. Click-throughs are just one way of measuring the success of an ad. Conversion rate is another, more popular measurement for success. Conversions This is where many people find it easiest to see the benefits of their time, efforts and creativity. Conversions, or Goals, mark when a renter sees your ad and follows through with the call to action. (The call to action could be filling out an application, making a call, subscribing to a mailing list, etc.) High conversion rates mean that you’re catching the attention of the right people using the right tactics. Low conversion rates may mean that you should re-evaluate your approach. Maybe your keywords aren’t specific enough. Maybe you’re focusing on a social media platform that doesn’t appeal to your demographic. There are plenty of variables. Pick one or two, run A/B tests, and check out the analytics again in a few weeks. Bounce rate In addition to conversion rates, high bounce rates could mean that you’re fishing in the wrong pond. The bounce rate measures the percentage of renters that make it to one page on your site and then leave. They don’t visit other pages and they certainly don’t follow through with the call to action while they’re on the site. Your property (or the way that the property has been presented) did not meet their needs. When your bounce rates are high, it’s a good indicator that you may want to trace back to the beginning of your marketing strategy to make sure that your site presentation, property presentation, and keywords are working together to fulfill your desired goals. Of course, RentCafe clients can always contact their Yardi representatives for more tips and...