Most operators have a hunch that marketing spend drives move-ins. But hunches aren't a strategy. We ran a controlled experiment across a random subset of mature Cubby facilities to find out exactly how much marketing spend matters — and the results were clear.

The short answer: marketing spend works. And it works better than most operators expect.

The Experiment

We launched marketing spend at a random selection of our mature facilities. After a three-month ramp-up period, we ran the experiment for another three months and compared results to a control group of facilities that received no marketing spend.

The comparison window was clean: move-ins three months before the ramp-up vs. three months after, facilities with spend vs. those without.

Here's what we found.

Move-Ins Jumped 46% — Vs. 11% for the Control Group

Facilities that received marketing spend saw move-ins per facility rise from 8 to 11 — a 40% increase. Facilities without spend grew by just 10% over the same period.

That gap didn't happen by accident. With our sample size, we can say with confidence that this is a real, measurable impact. Not noise in the data.

The story gets more compelling when you look at rental velocity per vacant unit. Facilities with marketing spend saw that figure climb from 10% to 16% — a 64% jump. Facilities without spend? They actually fell by 10%.

In other words: marketing spend didn't just increase move-ins in absolute terms. It drove better conversion of available inventory — while facilities without spend were losing ground.

$124 to Acquire a Customer Who's Worth $1000+

To pressure-test these results, we ran a deeper analysis controlling for pricing, occupancy, vacancy, and seasonality — making sure the marketing effect wasn't being driven by something else.

It held up. Marketing spend was the strongest driver of move-ins in the model, and the economics are straightforward:

At average spend levels, every $124 in marketing spend generated one additional move-in.

Compare that to a tenant lifetime value of $1000+. You're spending $124 to acquire a customer worth nearly 10 times that. The ROI math isn't close.

One Catch: Marketing Is Often Used Reactively

There's a wrinkle worth addressing. When we correlate marketing spend to move-ins based on unrandomized history, we find that lower-demand facilities were more likely to turn it on. Operators reach for marketing after demand softens, not before.

That's understandable, but it creates a problem: you're measuring marketing's impact on struggling facilities, which actually understates how well it works and can lead to false, uncorrelated results.

The takeaway is that marketing deployed proactively at healthy facilities would likely produce even stronger results. Results that can only be uncovered by conducting random sampling.

What About Pricing?

Since we were already looking at what drives move-ins, we examined pricing sensitivity too — and the contrast with marketing is stark.

Pricing is not your only lever. Impact of price adjustments can vary dramatically based on market conditions. In the experiment, we found that you can charge higher prices and still get the same move-ins with extra marketing spend. The higher prices would more than offset the dollars spent.

Where you rank against competitors matters more than your absolute price. Moving up or down a quartile in competitive price rank leads to about a 9% change in move-ins. So if you're priced in the middle of your market, small tweaks to your rate won't move the needle but small tweaks that impact competitive positioning will.

The bottom line on pricing: it's not the lever most operators think it is. Marketing has a far stronger pull on move-ins than pricing adjustments at the margin.

What Operators Should Do With This

The evidence points in one direction: marketing spend is underutilized. Here's the framework for thinking about it:

Expand spend at facilities. The marketing experiment ran at mature locations produced strong results. If you've been holding back spend while waiting for occupancy to dip, you're leaving move-ins on the table.

Treat marketing as proactive, not reactive. Facilities that activate spend only when demand falls are playing catch-up. Proactive investment at steady-state facilities captures demand before it softens.

Monitor for diminishing returns. The $124-per-move-in figure applies at average spend levels. Track performance as spend scales — and adjust accordingly.

Don't try to price your way to occupancy. If you're thinking about a 5–10% rate cut to drive move-ins, the data suggests you'd be better served investing those dollars in marketing instead.

The Bottom Line

At $124 per incremental move-in against $1000+ lifetime value, the ROI case for marketing spend is clear. The bigger question for most operators isn't whether to spend — it's how much and when.

The answer the data suggests: more than you're spending now, and earlier than you think you need to.