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...