Effect Digital – Best Lead Generation
for Way of Life · Performance Marketing Awards 2026
Visit effectdigital.com
Effect Digital turned lead generation for luxury build-to-rent brand Way of Life into a measurable growth engine built on owned first-party data, delivering 225% more leads than forecast, a 33% year-on-year fall in cost per reservation and 69% year-on-year pipeline growth.
About Effect Digital
Effect Digital is an independent digital performance marketing and web development agency with offices in Leicester and Leeds, working for brands shaping how we live, travel and experience culture. We specialise in luxury and premium property, hospitality and travel, with clients including The Savoy, London City Airport, Serpentine Galleries and Way of Life. We combine ethically collected first-party data, channel orchestration and compounding long-term impact to turn fragmented digital activity into connected systems that deliver measurable commercial growth.
The challenge
Most property operators do not own their prospect data. Leasing demand flows through third-party aggregators such as Rightmove and through estate agents, so the operator pays for every enquiry, sees little of the journey and cannot learn which enquiries become residents.
It is harder than it looks. Platforms optimise for form fills, not signed tenancies, while the evidence of what works sits in the CRM, disconnected from the channels. For a luxury brand, it also hands the first impression of the brand to someone else.
The same pattern affects any brand that rents its audience rather than owning it, as the learning compounds for the platform, not the business. Effect Digital designed a proactive lead generation system, built on the client’s own first-party data, to scale across multiple property assets at once.
The solution
The strategic approach
Our starting point was ownership. Rather than creating demand in aggregators, Effect Digital built a full-funnel system on Way of Life’s first-party data, structured around three lifecycle phases: pre-practical-completion teaser, leasing, and churn-replacing to maintain stabilisation and reduce voids. Quality compounds because every new tenancy feeds the model, so each new development starts smarter than the last. We treated the CRM, not the ad platform, as the source of truth, optimised for booked viewings, tracked the full journey through to reservation, and fed those learnings back into the top of the funnel.
The technology deployed
Effect Digital runs performance marketing across the whole funnel, from awareness to conversion, and managed the website development so friction could be removed from the journey. Advanced offline conversion tracking sits at the centre. HubSpot CRM outcomes, such as attending a viewing and reserving an apartment, feed back into Meta, so platform learning is based on completed leasing outcomes rather than enquiries. Data is collected with consent and stays under Way of Life’s control, and the same set-up runs across multiple developments at once so each launch inherits what the last one learned.
The boldest decision
A no-tolerance attitude to poor-performing leads. We aim for quality over quantity, and we are not chasing a lead number, we deliver outcomes.
Our boldest decision was to stop treating the enquiry as the endpoint. We optimised towards a reserved apartment, a far rarer event than a form fill, shifting lead generation from who converts to who converts and completes the leasing journey. Most agencies protect lead volume. We chose signal quality, and the platforms now prioritise the people most likely to reserve from the outset.
The results
Effect Digital’s first-party lead generation system for Way of Life exceeded every target set, in a market that fell by 10%. Every campaign was optimised for high-quality leads, so quality compounded with each new tenancy.
- 225% more leads than forecast
- 33% cheaper cost per reservation, year on year
- Estimated 41:1 return on ad spend
- 69% year-on-year growth in enquiry pipeline
- 70% of 2025 sales conversions contributed to by Effect Digital’s activity
When a luxury brand owns its first-party data and feeds real leasing outcomes back into the platforms, digital stops being a cost per enquiry and becomes the engine of occupancy.
This entry is a brilliant example of quality over quantity, even though they delivered both. Delivering 225% more leads than forecast while simultaneously cutting the cost per reservation by 33% is a success in lead quality.
- Ambitious objectives and agility
- Incredibly clear, business-aligned objectives anchored to occupancy and final reservations rather than vanity metrics, navigating a 10% drop in market demand by building their own data reserves within restrictive housing advertising rules.
- Top-tier execution
- A highly effective full-funnel model used Meta forms to capture high-intent users, with a rigorous feedback loop feeding offline reservation data back into digital channels to refine targeting on real business outcomes.
- Standout innovation
- In an industry reliant on property portals, the team built a scalable first-party database rather than relying on third parties, and coupled it with closed-loop offline conversion tracking to optimise for true commercial value.
- Outstanding results
- Huge lead growth, but the real win is the share of apartment reservations driven by digital, achieved while navigating a 10% drop in market demand. Great to see the focus on reservations and occupancy, not just leads.
The team at Effect have transformed our digital marketing activity. We’ve achieved 69% year-on-year growth in enquiry pipeline, and their efforts have contributed to 70% of our sales conversions in the last quarter. Beyond that, they’re great to work with, they know what channels work and have their finger on the pulse of what new channels will provide growth.
Rohan AmesHead of Marketing, Way of Life
Own your demand
Aggregators, booking platforms and agents will always be part of the mix. But if they are your only source of demand, you pay for every lead and start again with each new launch.
Owning your first-party data adds a channel that compounds alongside them. When offline outcomes such as viewings, reservations and stays feed your campaigns, every conversion sharpens the next and control sits with you. Effect Digital builds these systems for luxury property, hospitality and travel brands.
