How To Answer Multifamily Property Owners When They Ask Why Your Google Ads Don't Show

We've all been there. Owners want more leases, so they start taking things into their own hands. This typically leads to them searching online for "luxury apartments in x-city" and them asking why your ads don't show every time on Google's Search Engine Results Page. If they don't ask that, then they're likely to ask why one of your main competitor's ads appeared and yours did not. They want a simple answer, but sadly it's not that simple. Their location, previous online search and click behavior, campaign optimization strategy, and prior engagement with your Google Ads all play a part. Clients don't enjoy being told "it depends" in response to their question, but it does. Nevertheless, there is a great way to answer this question with analytic information.

Within Google Ads, marketers have insight into not only how many times your ads showed or how many clicks and calls were generated, but also how often your ads and your competition's showed for specific searches. Think of the screenshot shown above as a "digital market survey"- it provides detailed performance metrics about where your property stands in the online Google market based on your keyword strategy. Within this report, we display how often your ads show as a percentage of possible impressions as noted in the first column. The report also shows how often your ads were seen at the same time as your comps, how often your ads showed above your comps, and how often your ads outranked your competition on the Google Search Engine Results Page. These KPIs not only allow marketers to make adjustments to outperform your competition, but they can also inform clients about your campaign's presence in the market. This data helps answer the industry famous question- "Why aren't our ads showing when I Google us?" In the example above, this campaign's ad is showing for 85.99% of all searches it is eligible for. This is an incredibly strong Impression Share and is clearly dominating the market based on the competition shown, but it also shows clients that we are not showing for 14.01% of impressions.

By combining this type of information seen in our "digital market survey" with your weekly market survey, you can better inform ownership of where you stand in terms of the immediate market as well as the online market. Not only will this help answer the age old question of why your ads don't show every time (or maybe they do based on strategy, budget, and competition), but it will help multifamily marketers make more analytic adjustments to their digital marketing strategy to beat the competition.

Instagram Adds Keyword Search

The competition for online search is heating up. Just the other week, it was released that Apple was working on launching their own search engine to compete with Google's dominant search feature. Based on a recent article from The Verge, it appears that Facebook/Instagram are taking steps to do the same by adding keyword search to Instagram.

Prior to this new release, searches within the Facebook-owned Instagram were limited to serving up account names or hashtags that included the keywords you were looking for. A search for "luxury apartment miami" would lead to results that included accounts or hashtags that included these keywords or potentially nothing at all if there was no match. With this new feature, Instagram will now serve up luxury apartment in Miami posts that don't necessarily include those keywords in the account name or hashtag.

How Instagram determines what is shown to keyword searchers is somewhat of a mystery. As reported by the Verge, an Instagram spokesperson said the results one sees during their keyword search depends on a number of factors including "type of content, captions, when it was posted." The spokesperson also notes that machine learning is used to "find the highest quality content that's relevant to you."

The change brings up three interesting thoughts in regards to multifamily digital marketing:

1. The Future of Online Keyword Search: Multifamily has long relied on Google Ads and the ILSs to drive prospects to their property websites. Like most advertising channels, as the saying goes, marketers ruin everything. Competition continues to increase within Google Ads making proactive SEM campaign management more important now than ever. If Apple and Instagram can create a keyword search experience that can compete with Google, the online digital ad environment will change significantly and likely for the better.

2. The Future of Facebook & Instagram Ads: Current social media strategies are limited to the Facebook and Instagram feeds and Facebook's Network of Partner Sites. The potential introduction of keyword auction bidding within Facebook Ads Manager could create an even stronger push for paid social media ads to be a key component of multifamily marketing strategies. Assuming Facebook can push the keyword feature to be commonly used in the weeks, months, and years to come, social could evolve to be a necessity for multifamily digital marketing strategies.

3. The Future of E-Commerce: You have probably seen the adjustments to the Instagram user interface over the past few weeks firsthand. The social media platform repositioned the main buttons on the app, which made the shopping icon more prominent. The push is to make Instagram a key player in e-commerce, so it can compete with the likes of Amazon, Google, and Pinterest as a digital storefront. By making the shopping icon more prominent, having an idealistic lifestyle brand, and introducing keyword search, Instagram has the opportunity to position itself as key player in e-commerce. Imagine wanting a brand new apartment and going to Google to conduct your search. Your results on Google and the ILSs would show you a variety of communities, locations, floor plans, and prices in front of a plain white background for you to choose from. Now think about doing that same keyword search within Instagram. Your results could come to display local, national, and global influencers living in your desired area's apartment buildings, further influencing your buying behavior to live at that apartment community vs another....

The future of social media content and strategy could be even more impactful in the near future if Instagram evolves this feature further. You will likely see the keyword search feature live within your app today.

Street Digital Media Helps Increase Leads 2.5x For Portland Lease Up

The Rise Central serves home to brand new studio, one, and two bedroom apartments and townhomes in downtown Beaverton, Oregon- just outside of downtown Portland. In September, Street Digital Media took over the digital marketing strategy from the property's prior agency as the lease up was struggling to attract traffic and achieve its absorption goals. SDM revamped the lease up's search engine marketing strategy to help turn the struggling development around.

After it's first full calendar month of operation, Street Digital's SEM campaign contributed to a 2.5x increase in leads, which helped the property secure 22 leases in the month of October. In comparison to The Rise's prior agency, Street Digital Media has already increased SEM website traffic by 54.8%, new website users by 51.8%, and average session duration on the property website by 19.4% all with the same marketing budget. The Google Ads account is operating at a highly successful rate- achieving an 11.11% click through rate and 82.27% Top Impression Share- giving it top presence in the Portland market. With the SEM campaign contributing to 47% of all website leads in October while still optimizing, The Rise Central is looking to continue its leasing success as 2020 begins to come to a close.