Street Digital Media PPC Creates 98% of Website Leads in July for New Lease Ups

Today's multifamily CRM and lead tracking platforms credit advertising sources via first contact attribution. Prospects can view a single property's ILS listings, social media pages, click your Google Ad, and the come back to the property website at which point they finally call the property. Despite this prospect's multiple interactions with a property online via numerous channels, first contact attribution unintentionally misleads multifamily marketers into thinking the property website is the sole reason for that lead. This why multichannel attribution is so important in evaluating your multifamily digital marketing strategies.

In reviewing the performance for the lease up communities Street Digital Media advertised for in the month of July, our PPC strategy was responsible for 98.25% of property website leads. Of those leads, 60.7% were directly attributed to our Google Ads strategy- prospects clicked on our ads, were directed to the property website, and immediately contacted the property. What multifamily marketers don't see in their lead tracking software, but do see in our reporting, is the other 39.3% of the leads that our SEM strategy played a part in through assisted conversions. Assisted conversions are the leads in which a channel appeared on the prospect's path leading up to them contacting the community, but that channel was not the final source used to contact. In some situations, we saw prospects' paths go from our Paid Search > Organic Search > Direct > Paid Search > Organic before finally contacting the property for leasing information. Without multichannel attribution, marketers would never know the value of their PPC strategy.

The importance of evaluating your marketing channels and having full insight into your prospects' conversion path cannot be underestimated in today's digital landscape. Multifamily marketing strategies are all-encompassing and require a strong online presence to inform prospects of what your communities offer and what it's like to live there- a strong SEM strategy, organic presence, verified local listings, good reputation management, social media, and more. All of these channels are seen as touch points leading up to the property website conversions we tracked last month. Not only is it important to have a presence on these channels, but it's crucial when evaluating your digital marketing strategy to consider the direct and assisted impact they have in leading to prospect inquiries.

Google Testing Larger Ad Headline Text for PPC Ads

Multifamily Google Ads continue to be the highest driver of prospect traffic to apartment community websites. Perhaps more importantly, this channel proves to be the most nimble and strategic digital marketing avenue in the industry. Marketers have the ability to actively adjust their strategy based on the changes and needs of their multifamily properties vs. more "static" ILS ads. Headline and extension ad copy, keyword strategy, and price extensions are just a few ways to update your Google Ads accounts to drive the traffic you need based on changes to floor plan pricing, concessions, and vacancy. In a new test that will make the proactive management of your PPC headline copy even more important, Google is testing increased font size for the first headlines of Google Ads. Examples of the increased font size have been captured by PPCHub and Search Engine Land (example shown below courtesy of Search Engine Land).

The significance of the test is twofold. First, the increased font size will likely lead to increased click through rates for ads that show in the top placement on the search engine results page (SERP). If the top placement and increased font size proves to be extremely significant in increasing lead volume and traffic to multifamily community websites, the highly sought after top placement may become even more important to achieve. This will require more hands on management of PPC campaigns and match types and could lead to increased competition/higher costs for the top spot. Second, this change puts a larger focus on the headline ad copy of your Google Ads. We make sure to update the headline copy each week at a minimum for our multifamily clients to ensure we are actively promoting the latest pricing and upfront concessions. In doing so, we can guarantee that we are informing prospects of the latest starting pricing by floor plan and updated leasing specials. This allows us to drive more informed prospects to the property websites and making their click more valuable and knowledgeable than if we had a generic headline.

The change will be interesting to monitor. Google is constantly testing new ideas in the world of search advertising- some pan out and some do not. Nevertheless, the increased font size could highlight a significant need for more proactive management of your Google Ads headlines and keyword strategy based on pricing, concessions, and occupancy needs at your communities.

Google Adds Guarantee Badge To Google My Business Listing for $50/Month

Google has announced its roll out of an upgrade to local Google business listings called Google Guarantee. For $50/month, businesses can get the highly sought after check mark verification (also used by Twitter and Instagram for famous people's- whoops, I mean verified accounts). The badge of honor aims to show customers that your business has been vetted by Google to instill greater confidence for the end user during their shopping experience. In addition to paying the monthly fee, businesses will be required to provide licensing, insurance, and background checks to be "Guaranteed." The change brings up three interesting ideas as it relates to digital marketing and multifamily ads:

1. Revenue- For all of the local businesses out there, an additional $50/month from each local listing would lead to some serious revenue for Google. Search Engine Land claims that if only 2 million companies paid for this service it would equate to over $1.2 billion in revenue.

2. Voice Search- For Voice Search, Guaranteed Badges and Local Ads have led to

increased performance for voice searches on Google devices. Properties who pay the

$50/month fee and achieve Guaranteed status will be more likely suggested as options

in voice search results. Google will have vetted Guaranteed businesses as legitimate

and, therefore, will be more confident to serve these communities up in the search

results to create a better user experience. As voice search is predicted to become a

more central point of our lives in the years to come, Guaranteed listings could evolve

into a necessity for multifamily properties in the near future.

3. Online Reputation- The significance of online reviews has skyrocketed in recent years

as part of the consumer buying process. What's a bit odd, is shoppers have come to

trust complete strangers when they consider whether or not to make a purchase.

Google's vetting process throughout the Guaranteed certification will add another layer

to small business and property reputations- perhaps even diminishing the importance of

strangers' reviews. With a trusted source like Google conducting in depth background

checks, consumers will likely be more trusting of those who have the highly sought after

check mark next to their name as "Guaranteed" vendors. Although previous beta tests

have not led to significant increases in click through rate for those are who Guaranteed,

it certainly could be the case if the paid verification catches on.

All in all, it will be interesting to see how quickly the Guaranteed listing gets adopted. This will be heavily dependent on how easy or difficult it is to go through the verification process. Google will have to provide incentive for small businesses and multifamily communities to pay the monthly fee in order for Guaranteed to take flight, which is why it is likely that increase CTR and/or increased voice search performance is likely to come for those who have the badge. While voice search hasn't taken off quite as quickly in the highly visual multifamily industry, Google Guarantee may have its most immediate impact on multifamily in the way of online reputation. By being Guaranteed, apartment communities will instill greater confidence in prospects during their apartment search and, thus, make prospects more likely to consider moving to those with the badge. Even with that in mind, Google will have to prove its value far greater for this to catch on. In the end, Guaranteed will likely evolve into an extension in Google Ads, so a check mark appears next to or below your PPC ad, making it more visual and more likely to be clicked on- aka increase click through rate. It's in Google's best interest to have this paid verification increase your digital ad performance.