Lead Lift Management System.
Helping property managers see which advertising investments were working.
Apartment Finder's multifamily advertisers needed to understand which listings were generating leads, which leads were converting to leases, and what each lease cost to acquire. As UX designer, I designed the Lead Lift Management System — a B2B analytics tool that gave property managers a structured, searchable view of the lead-to-lease funnel, making advertising ROI clearer and easier to act on.
The user wasn't a renter browsing listings. It was a property manager trying to justify a six-figure advertising budget to their regional director.
An internal analytics platform that gave B2B advertisers clear visibility into lead performance and ROI.
Translated raw lead data into structured, searchable, filterable reporting — enabling property managers to evaluate advertising effectiveness, compare lead sources, and make data-informed budget decisions.
Built for property managers and multifamily advertisers evaluating ROI on listing investments.
Apartment Finder's monthly traffic volume meant substantial lead data flowing through the system continuously.
Property management companies and landlords paying listing fees and referral commissions — the platform's revenue engine.
Lead volume, prospect and lease conversion rate, cost per lease (CPL), and source attribution.
Creating a clearer path from lead data to advertising ROI.
Property managers could see their occupancy rates. They could see their monthly advertising budgets. What they couldn't see — with any precision — was the connection between specific lead sources and specific lease outcomes.
Without that visibility, budget decisions were based on intuition or aggregate volume. A lead source generating 50 inquiries with 2 leases looked identical to one generating 20 inquiries with 12 — unless you could see the full funnel.
Without visibility into lead-to-lease performance, property managers had to justify advertising spend using activity metrics instead of outcomes. The platform needed to help advertisers connect spend to measurable leasing value — not just lead volume.
Lead volume showed activity. Cost per lease showed whether the investment was working. The system was built to make that second number visible — and to surface it fast enough to be actionable.
Opportunities we addressed
- Source attribution — connect leads to specific platforms, campaigns, or touchpoints
- Conversion tracking — bring inquiry-to-lease progress into one connected view
- Portfolio visibility — give regional directors a consolidated view across properties
- Cost per lease — surface CPL as a usable decision input, not a manual spreadsheet calculation
What the system needed to do
- Surface lead volume, conversion quality, and cost efficiency in decision order
- Make search the primary interaction — not browsing through raw data
- Enable meaningful filtering by source, date, conversion status, and performance
- Provide a manager view across multiple properties simultaneously
- Require no training — immediately understandable to any property manager
Designed for a business user who measures everything but has time for nothing.
Property managers and regional directors have deep domain expertise and limited time. They don't need to be educated about their metrics — they need to access them quickly, filter meaningfully, and act without leaving the tool.
The information architecture followed the decision sequence, not the database structure: lead volume first (how many?) → conversion quality second (how many converted?) → cost efficiency third (what did each lease cost?). This mirrors how a property manager actually evaluates performance.
Interaction model
- Search as the primary entry point — users always knew what they were looking for; browsing raw data was not a supported workflow
- Progressive filtering — each filter narrowed the dataset before applying the next, reducing cognitive load on complex data
- Results grid as workhorse — sortable, comparable view of lead performance across sources and conversion stages
- Manager view for portfolio decisions — aggregated performance across properties without property-by-property review
Plain-language design
- Labels used property manager vocabulary, not database field names
- Metrics pre-calculated — CPL surfaced directly, not derived by the user
- Columns organized in decision order: source, leads, prospects, tours, leases, CPL
- No training required — immediately usable by any property manager, any technical level
Five screens. One decision flow.
Each screen was designed around a specific decision moment — reducing the steps between landing on the tool and finding an actionable answer.
Home Dashboard
The home dashboard answered "how am I doing?" immediately — lead volume, conversion rate, and cost-per-lease surfaced without any navigation required.
Supporting workflow screens
Results Grid
Results grid — sortable, scannable lead performance organized in decision order: source, leads generated, prospects, tours, signed leases, and cost per lease.
What This Shaped
The tool shifted lead reporting from raw activity tracking to advertising ROI analysis — giving property managers and regional leaders a shared way to compare performance across lead sources and properties.
For Apartment Finder, advertiser value depended on showing that listing spend could produce measurable results. Lead Lift gave property managers a clearer way to evaluate that value and make more confident budget decisions.