Marketing Attribution: What It Is and How It Can Improve Your Online Self-Storage AdvertisingMarketing Attribution: What It Is and How It Can Improve Your Online Self-Storage Advertising

There’s a famous quote by early marketing pioneer John Wanamaker: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” He may have felt that way in the early 19th century, but there’s no reason you should feel that way today.

I talk to many self-storage operators who still struggle to understand and justify their marketing spend. With so many online ad platforms available—Google, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, X, YouTube—they have no idea which channel is driving the most rentals. Is it their Google pay-per-click (PPC) ads? Could it be their social media video ads? Are they spending too much on search? Should they shift those budgets to TikTok?

The answer is typically a mixed bag. However, the only way to know for sure is to capture and track all self-storage customer interactions. Without this data, we’re left feeling just like Wanamaker. What you need is something called “marketing attribution.” Let’s explore what it is and how you can leverage it to improve your online efforts.

What Is Marketing Attribution?

At its core, marketing attribution is the process of identifying and tracking which efforts—paid ads, organic search or social media—led a potential customer to take a desired action, such as making a reservation or renting a self-storage unit. This means understanding which ads or channels first caught their attention, drove them to your website and led them to spend their money with you.

Related:Watch for These Self-Storage Marketing Trends in 2025

Attribution allows you to trace the customer journey from the very first click all the way to the self-storage rental. This is the beauty of digital marketing vs. traditional forms like billboards and fliers. Every click, impression and visit can be tracked. This means you can start attributing revenue to specific marketing efforts to determine which campaigns are working and which need improvement.

The most effective marketing-attribution model for self-storage is called “first-click,” in which success is credited to the first ad or piece of content with which a user interacts. Basically, it’s a fancy way of saying “how the customer first finds out about you.”

This makes sense for our industry, as self-storage is often demand-driven—when people need it, they typically start by searching online. First-click attribution captures that initial moment of interest and helps you analyze the effectiveness of your ads. Other attribution models, such as last-click, linear or time decay can be useful in different contexts. However, first-click tends to be the most actionable for operators looking to understand how their ads influence the customer from the very beginning.

Related:5 Steps to Driving More Local Traffic to Your Self-Storage Website

However, the benefits go beyond simply tracking the source of your self-storage customers come. Marketing attribution allows you to:

Justify ad spend. By showing exactly which ads are driving rentals, you can confidently invest in the channels that are delivering results. It helps you avoid wasting money on ineffective campaigns.

Improve marketing efficiency. With clear insight to what’s working, you can fine-tune your strategy, allocate your budget more effectively and ultimately drive more revenue.

Optimize across multiple locations. The data you gather allows you to continuously refine your ad campaigns, targeting the right customers at the right time with the right message. Know what works for urban areas vs. more rural locations.

Increase occupancy. With attribution, you can identify the most successful strategies for driving occupancy and replicate them across your portfolio, helping to keep your facilities full and your business thriving.

To be accurate, marketing attribution requires alignment across three essential components: ad platforms, your self-storage website and your facility-management software. Let’s look at how they work together to form a complete picture of the customer journey.

Related:Gain an Edge in Your Self-Storage Market by Conducting This 5-Step Competitor Analysis

Ad Platforms: The Starting Point

Ad platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram are where most potential customers first encounter your self-storage facility. Whether through search, display or social media ads, these sites play a pivotal role in generating interest.

To gauge the marketing performance of a platform accurately, each ad you place there needs proper tracking information, which is collected using something called “UTM parameters.” These are tags added to the end of an ad’s URL that identify the source of traffic and help track what happens once the user clicks. They can be applied across multiple channels and customized for each. For example, let’s say you’re advertising through Google PPC, Facebook and Instagram. Your UTM parameters might look like this (everything after the question mark is the code):

These count as three different URLs, so you’ll know where each set of visitors came from.

Your Self-Storage Website: Where the Magic Happens

Once a user clicks on one of your ads, they’re directed to your self-storage website. Typically, it’s a page where they can begin the rental process. To capture meaningful data, your site must be equipped with tracking tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Meta Pixel.

GA4 provides detailed insight to user behavior, allowing you to see how customers interact with your web pages. Meta Pixel, on the other hand, is useful for retargeting. It tracks visitors who left your site without completing the rental process and allows you to show them ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

If your website isn’t set up to “receive” the information being sent, then all the ad-tracking setup is worthless. The magic moment comes when a person fills out your website form. It might be used to contact your office, make a reservation or complete a rental. When the user hits “submit,” that’s when all of the previously stored tracking information and history gets “joined” to the customer information provided, and the previously anonymous user becomes a known customer/prospect in your self-storage management software.

Facility-Management Software: The Source of Truth

And that’s the final component of marketing attribution: your facility-management software. This is the system that manages your self-storage tenant records, unit availability and overall performance. It can serve as the ultimate source of truth for all customer interactions, including which ads drove them to your business.

By integrating your software with your website and ad platforms, you can append marketing-attribution data to each tenant record. All that information you captured in the online form needs to be mapped into fields within the software. The tenant’s information is linked with the ad or channel that first engaged them. This creates a complete picture of the customer journey, from initial ad click to signed lease, all stored in the software for reporting.

Getting Started With Marketing Attribution

Again, implementing a marketing-attribution system requires coordination across you’re ad platforms, website and management software. While it may seem complex, the value it brings is undeniable. Whether you choose to hire a professional or set it up yourself, investing in attribution will enable you to understand the full impact of your marketing efforts and make more informed decisions for your business.

The first step is to talk with your management-software provider to ensure things like “ad source” or equivalent fields exist for your contact records in the system. Then, work backward to figure out how your website can send that information when people complete your online forms.

It’s important to understand that this type of tracking has its limitations. It isn’t capable of 100% accuracy since it’s based on user behavior, and each person's journey can be different. If someone sees your ad and doesn’t click, you won't know if that was the reason why they ended up visiting in person to sign a lease. But don’t let perfection get in the way of progress! You’ll be surprised how helpful this type of information becomes when it's time to make decisions about your markets, customers and budgets.

As the self-storage industry grows and evolves, so must its approach to digital marketing. Attribution isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s an essential tool for any operator looking to stay competitive in a crowded marketplace. It’s a powerful strategy that provides invaluable insights to how potential tenants find your facility, which ads are driving rentals and where to invest your advertising dollars. By leveraging the right tools and integrating your ad platforms, website and management software, you can create a complete picture of the customer journey, optimize your marketing campaigns, and ultimately drive more revenue for your business.

Mitch Briggs is the chief marketing officer at Adverank, whose software offers real-time integration with property-management systems and websites through its browser- and mobile-based platform. Mitch leads the company’s marketing strategy to better serve the self-storage industry. Prior to joining the company, he spent 15 years helping multiple tech startups and large brands develop their digital-marketing plans. To reach him, email [email protected].