I did hear more conversations and questions on this topic this year.
I definitely think that lead tracking tools (especially the ones specific to multifamily) are having a tough time keeping up with current buying behaviors, particularly when you factor in the same shopper using multiple devices across their search.
Most companies I've worked with and interviewed typically subscribe to a First Contact (Last Touch) method of attribution. Very few are using First Touch or any kind of weighted attribution model.
We tend to attribute the lead to the place where the prospect filled out the contact form ... which means we overweight the sources further down the funnel, when prospects are warmed up and ready to contact us. If you've heard "our website is our top online lead source", then you've witnessed this in action. The website might be the most common point where the lead is captured, but it's *not* the lead source.
In our lead tracking services, this typically gets tracked as a website lead, and all the data before it gets lost. So we don't have visibility into whether that person saw us on an ILS, on social media, on a ratings site, etc. To your question about ROI, it gives us a false perception that our websites are outperforming, and it limits our ability to truly understand which sources are driving the best traffic.
In almost every case, I have more data through the website, analytics and lead nurturing data than I'm able to push into the lead management system. This is especially the case for prospects that might be looking at several different local properties in the same portfolio. That particular prospect is treated as two or three separate leads, rather than one prospect looking in a specific neighborhood.
I think we need to take a look at what is available outside the industry, both in terms of lead tracking tools and in advertising data analysis. The way Facebook handles view-through attribution is a model that I'd love to see adopted by the ILSs.
There's no perfect solution out there, for sure. But I do think we need to be asking better questions of our data to get a more complete picture of how our marketing is reaching and influencing our prospects.