This quarter, Essex will be transferring its main ILS (Internet Listing Service) presence from Zillow to Apartments.com. As of February 1, most communities will be up on Apartments.com. By March 1, most communities will no longer be advertised through Zillow.

Why are we making this move?
Apartments.com offers us significant advantages over Zillow, namely:

• Apartments.com conversion rates are higher than Zillow for both ILS traffic to shows, and shows to net applications, across the Essex portfolio.
• Apartments.com can display our specials and virtual tours. Zillow cannot.
• Apartments.com offers us the flexibility of moving communities in and out of the network with short notice. This allows us to optimize our return on ILS investment as communities at their occupancy targets can be moved off the network at any time. This also means traffic will not be sent to your leasing offices when you do not need it, allowing you to focus on business priorities.
• Apartments.com and Zillow appeal to similar demographics and reach. However, Apartments.com has a stronger brand name, and has invested heavily in advertising, organic and paid search results. According to a 2017 Leasehawk report, Apartments.com delivered 5 times more leases than Zillow.
• More than a quarter of all renters who state they do not plan to renew their lease, are not renewing due to home purchase (2017 Kingsley/NMHC Renters Survey). Zillow is primarily a search site for home buying. On Zillow, Essex is competing not only against our peers in the multifamily apartment business, but also against single family rentals and home sales.
• Apartments.com is offering us pricing at significantly better rates than Zillow.

Our ILS Plans for 2018

• In 2018, we will be assessing community occupancy metrics and the need for advertising on ILS at any given point in time. This will avoid unnecessary traffic to fully leased communities, lower our ILS cost, free funds to focus on the greatest areas of need and increase our return on investment in ILS advertising.
• Our portfolio will be focused on Apartments.com, moving away from Zillow, as outlined above.
• The Rent.com network has been shown over time to drive less traffic and convert worse than both Zillow and Apartments.com for Essex. Consequently, we do not have plans to work with RentPath (Rent.com) on a portfolio basis in 2018.
• We consider Apartment List and Zumper niche players. In 2018 we will be testing and measuring the performance of these smaller ILS’ to determine the best fit for Essex communities.

2018 ILS Budgeting Under Marketing

• In 2018, the ILS budget has been centralized under marketing. This eliminates the need for individual community budgeting and accounting. A portfolio-wide (centralized) budgeting approach allows a more strategic view of ILS spend, while still assessing individual community needs. As always, decisions will be made in collaboration with Operations.
• Initiatives where the budget is separate from the regular ILS spend, such as new developments/lease ups, will continue the same process as in 2017. ILS costs will fall within these separate budgets.

​Questions?
Please contact marketing@essex.com.