by threshold | Aug 10, 2021 | Digital Marketing, General, Marketing, Tech/Web
If you read our Quick and Dirty SEO Tips for Apartment Marketing, then you know that 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search results. That means it’s incredibly important to rank on the first page of Google results if you want to earn any organic website traffic. But in our increasingly digital world, that fact probably doesn’t surprise you. These days, apartment marketers, owners, and managers all know that SEO is important, but not everyone knows where to start.
We’ve discussed SEO Tips before, but today we want to zero in on Keyword Research—how to do it and why it matters. Not only is Keyword Research an essential step when creating a real estate website, but keyword research can also help you create more effective search ads and understand your target audience better.
So if you’re not sure how to conduct keyword research (or whether you really need to), this is the post for you! Let’s start by exploring some of the reasons why keyword research is absolutely essential to your digital apartment marketing strategy (and how it can help other areas of your real estate marketing plan too).
Why Keyword Research is a Must
Most of the time, keyword research is discussed as the first step of your SEO strategy. After all, optimizing your rank in Google search results requires knowing the keywords your audience searches for so that you can use those keywords in on-page SEO efforts (such as incorporating those keywords into your website headers, meta descriptions, and page titles). Trying to improve your SEO without first performing keyword research could result in a lot of wasted time and effort without much payoff in the form of website traffic or conversions. That’s because you’re just guessing at what keywords people actually use when searching for housing like yours, and your best guess only goes so far. It’s much more effective to take a data-based approach.
But keyword research doesn’t just help SEO efforts. It also leads to more effective messaging, ad targeting, UX design, and so much more. That’s because it helps you understand your audience more effectively. Seeing what search terms are most popular when searching for apartments like yours can reveal what’s most important to your audience. It can show you what floor plans they prefer, which local hotspots they care about being close to, or how important it is to be pet-friendly. Knowing about your audience’s priorities helps you bridge the gap between your prospects and your property by enabling you to emphasize the features they are looking for.
One of the specific and direct ways in which this improved audience understanding can help you is when it comes to paid search ad strategy. Knowing how your audience searches empowers you to build more effective search ads that are relevant to your audience’s priorities and are a genuinely strong match based on their search query. That way your search ad headlines, descriptions, and snippets present a user with information that doesn’t appear out-of-place for their search query.
How To Identify The Best Keywords To Target
To identify the best keywords to target in your digital apartment marketing strategies like on-page SEO and paid search ads, you first need to access a keyword research tool. This is a tool that will help you see the search volume and competitiveness of different keyword variations, helping you find the most relevant and most advantageous keywords being used.
There are many keyword research tools available online, but today we’ll touch on just two of them: Google Keyword Planner and SEMRush. Google Keyword Planner has the distinct advantage of being free when you create a Google business account. SEMRush, on the other hand, is the most popular paid keyword research tool available today and offers some additional functionality. Both these tools allow you to type in a keyword (for example, “apartments in Toronto”) and output a list of related keywords alongside their search volumes and competitiveness. Both also allow you to search for keyword ideas based on a website URL (for example, the website of a competitor).
The main difference between Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush is that those who pay for SEMrush enjoy the option of getting a deeper dive into the keyword strategies of your competitors and where you can most easily beat them at their own game. SEMrush also offers more nuanced representations of the competitiveness of a certain keyword; rather than telling you whether the competition is low, medium, or high, it provides a numerical “competitive density” value as well as a “keyword difficulty” rating. This helps you see both how difficult it would be to rank for a given keyword as well as how many of your competitors are actually trying to rank for it, which is a sometimes subtle, but important distinction.
Regardless of what tool you choose, the basic strategy in selecting your target keywords is simple: find the relevant keywords with the highest search volume and the lowest keyword difficulty possible. This is the sweet spot where ranking for these keywords will actually help you earn added site traffic (because many people are searching for these terms) and there’s not so much competition for the keyword already that your efforts are unlikely to get you within the first page of Google results for those keywords.
Every keyword research journey starts with a query into your tool of choice, but where do you start exploring? Below, we discuss how to get started once you’ve selected your keyword research tool.
Start With Common Sense
When it comes to keyword research, your intuition is a great place to start. Think: if I were a potential resident for this apartment community and others like it, what would I search for? Start relatively broad, with terms like “apartments in Austin” or “Birmingham student apartments” and see what comes up. If your search is broad enough and common enough, a tool like SEMrush or Google Keyword Planner will then pull in an entire list of related keywords, allowing you to compare and contrast among the results. Remember, you’re after the variations with the best balance of high search volume and low difficulty or competitiveness, without straying beyond what’s relevant to your product.
As you see additional variations, you can repeat the process by using one of these variations as your new query to generate a new list of keywords that are related to that keyword. For example, say you search “apartments in Austin” and “2-bedroom apartments in Austin” comes up in the related keywords. You might then search “2-bedroom apartments in Austin” and see more options like “2-bedroom apartments in East Austin,” “2-bedroom apartments in downtown Austin,” etc. As you explore, be sure to keep track of the metrics of the promising keywords you find so that you can make a list of relevant keywords you want to target, organized by priority. Both Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush have useful “save” or “add to plan” options that can help you collect your list without having to write it all down manually.
See What Competitors Are Doing
Don’t forget that keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush allow you to explore keywords that a specific URL is ranking for! You can use this to check in on your competitors and see what they’re up to. This not only helps you see what you’re up against, but it can also be a useful shortcut to identifying keywords that may be relevant to your product too. Type in some of your competitors’ websites to see where their traffic is coming from and identify areas where you might be able to rank for the same keywords (SEMrush is a great tool for this, but Google Keyword Planner works decently as well).
However, keep in mind that you are not your competitor, so the keywords that drive traffic and conversions for them may not always work for you. For example, if you are a C-Class property and there’s an A-Class property nearby ranking for keywords that include the word “luxury,” that may not apply to your property. Even if you manage to drive traffic by incorporating “luxury”-related keywords, you’re unlikely to see conversions from users who arrive at your site after looking specifically for a luxury apartment. Once they arrive, they’ll realize your property isn’t what they were looking for and usually bounce quickly, which can actually hurt your SEO rankings in the long run.
How To Apply Your Findings
Now that you’ve completed your keyword research, how do you apply your findings to start ranking in Google, launch great search ads, and connect with your audience? There are lots of ways you can apply your new knowledge to your digital real estate marketing strategy! See our post below to keep exploring.
Quick and Dirty SEO Tips for Apartment Marketing in 2021
by threshold | Jul 20, 2021 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
Identifying key audiences is critical to any marketing campaign, and that is even more important when you are attempting to drive foot traffic and the right audience to your website. That’s why real estate marketers are constantly innovating around digital targeting tactics in an attempt to maximize your reach without wasting ad spend on unqualified leads and impressions. Addressable marketing is one of the most cutting edge advancements in audience targeting because it allows apartment marketers to target their audience on a household-by-household basis, achieving a granularity that was previously unheard of in location-based marketing.
If you’re new to addressable marketing and unsure if it’s right for your real estate asset, this post can help you understand what addressable marketing is, how it works, and how it can add to your real estate marketing plan.
What is Addressable Marketing?
Addressable marketing campaigns allow ads and other media to be served to individual households across a number of personal devices—Connected TVs, smartphones, personal computers, etc. These ads can target prospects based on household location, age, income level, home equity information, number of household members, and a variety of interests, resulting in highly qualified online and offline traffic from prospects who are more likely to convert.
Because it targets your audience household-by-household, this tactic shares many of the benefits of a direct mailer while also saving on design and printing costs and allowing you the flexibility to target your audience with data aggregation tools rather than requiring you to have a list of addresses ready at hand. Think of it like the direct mailer for the digital age.
How Does Addressable Marketing Work?
It used to be that location-based targeting was relatively limited in terms of the specificity it could achieve, but nowadays, it is possible to use GPS data combined with IP information and plat line data to specifically target on a household-by-household level. This image from Simpli.Fi, one of Threshold’s vendor partners, shows the evolution of available technology.
When creating an addressable marketing campaign, you start by defining the audience you’re hoping to reach across factors like household location, interests, and other demographic information such as age, income level, etc. Then, through data aggregation tools, micro-geofences are drawn around each physical address that meets those data requirements. Next, a conversion zone is drawn around a specific location where you want to measure foot traffic (e.g. your leasing office).
When a prospect enters your micro-geofenced locations (e.g. physical home address), they will be targeted with your ads on their mobile and desktop devices for a set amount of time (30 days is typical). When the customer enters the conversion zone (e.g. leasing office) with their mobile device after being served your ad, the conversion zone recognizes the prospect and attributes their visit as an offline conversion. OR, if a prospect converts online by filling out a contact form, that action is measured as an online conversion.
Who Should Be Using Addressable Marketing Campaigns?
Addressable Marketing tactics can be useful for any real estate vertical, whether it be student housing, multi-family, senior living, or commercial. But in general, the more time your audience spends at home (or at the geofenced location), the more opportunity you have to engage them with Addressable Marketing campaigns. This makes it a great option for multi-family communities with a target audience that includes work-from-home professionals. It also makes addressable marketing a particularly lucrative choice for senior living brands.
In fact, since the COVID-19 pandemic changed how we work, live, and relax, the emergence of addressable marketing as the next frontier of digital real estate marketing has only been bolstered. Targeting users while they are at home has become especially important during a time when going out is no longer the norm. In fact, with fewer prospects visiting leasing offices, addressable marketing is one way to off-set the reduced in-person marketing opportunities.
Simpli.Fi, a leading provider of addressable marketing services, put it this way:
As the COVID-19 outbreak continues and social distancing becomes the new normal, people are spending more and more of their time at home. It is essential for businesses to be able to effectively reach consumers in their homes in order to increase online sales.
Furthermore, because addressable marketing is emerging as the direct mailer for the digital age, it is regarded as a particularly excellent choice when marking housing to seniors. Because addressable marketing campaigns use data aggregation tools and fine-tuned targeting factors like age, home equity, and interests, they are able to hone in on senior prospects who may be ready to move, like empty nesters looking to downsize, for example. For more advertising tactics for senior living, check out our post on the Top Digital Marketing Strategies for Senior Housing.
Ready to see addressable marketing in action? You can see how an addressable marketing campaign contributed to 165 online conversions for one senior living property by checking out this Senior Living Case Study. And when you’re ready to try it for yourself, you can always reach out for a free consultation on our contact page.
by threshold | Jul 9, 2021 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
Written by Alfred Perez, Digital Success Manager
In 2010, 1.8 billion people had access to high-speed internet. Six years later it was 3 billion. Now, experts are forecasting that the entire world—and its roughly 8 billion people—will have high-speed internet access as early as 2022. With all that connectivity, much of our lives take place fully online already. These realities paved the way for new approaches to work when the COVID-19 pandemic hit: many businesses have shifted their attention to working remotely and/or a hybrid approach.
According to Review 42, before the coronavirus hit, 4.7 million people were already working remotely. Once the pandemic hit, 88% of the organizations, worldwide, made it mandatory or encouraged their employees to work-from-home. One benefit to employers and employees of this approach is that the rise in the availability to work-from-home offers the employees the option of living in cheaper, outskirt cities rather than being tethered near the office to avoid commutes.
WFH, The New Normal
The longer this pandemic forces people to work remotely, the more businesses are looking to expand their remote offerings and policies for current and future employees.
- In April 2020, a Gallup survey revealed that 60% respondents said that they’d prefer to work remotely as much as possible once coronavirus is under control.
- In August 2020, a report by CNN polled about 800 employers. 83% of respondents said they would have more flexible remote work policies after the pandemic.
- In September of 2020, Reuters surveyed about 1,200 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in which they said they expect 34.4% of their employees to be permanently remote for 2021.
How Apartment Communities Can Adapt to This Shift
To stay competitive, owners and managers should consider providing amenities and services to appeal to potential residents who work-from-home and tailor their marketing messaging with this focus.
There are 3 main focuses that owners, management, and apartment marketers can use to attract residents who work-from-home:
- Tools and resources like high-speed internet or fiber internet. 92% of residents would like to have high speed internet in their apartments. 76% were interested in having USB ports in the wall.
- Allow the potential resident to visualize living and working there. Apartment marketing constantly adapts to the current situation and right now, it’s work-from-home. Examples include virtual staging tools to stage balconies or workspaces in vacant apartments, large windows for ample light, amenity spaces where residents can plug in and get to work, and rooftops and courtyards for a fresh video call backdrop. There has also been a correlation between work-from-home residents and being a pet owner so try incorporating apartment ads and messaging on your website related to that as well.
- Don’t forget about your current residents when you’re out looking for new ones. Current residents are more likely to renew and they are the best source for referrals. People crave human interaction and work-from-home residents are no exception. Adapting the community spaces to be more work-from-home friendly and hosting community events will help retain work-from-home residents.
Remote Work Is Not Going Anywhere
The pandemic threw a screwball in just about every business, but one thing is for sure, we learned how to adapt because of the rise in technology advancements. By allowing employees to work-from-home, businesses have lower overhead costs and studies show that employees are also more productive. We’re more connected than ever and businesses can still operate remotely in full effect. When the pandemic has gone away, we know working remotely will stay. That means the adaptations you make to your apartment marketing strategy will be beneficial even after the pandemic wanes.
by threshold | Jul 6, 2021 | Creative, Design, Digital Marketing, General, Marketing, Tech/Web
Floor plans: every apartment marketing team needs them, but how important are they really? You might be surprised at how big a role floor plan graphics have to play in your digital real estate marketing strategy. Not only can a lack of floor plan graphics result in poor UX on your website, but it can also rob you of key branding and marketing opportunities that help drive qualified leads and conversions.
Here are some of the key ways floor plan images can make or break your digital real estate marketing results.
Prospects Refine Their Apartment Search Based on Floor Plans
Keyword research shows that, no matter what your market or your target audience is, people are searching specifically for floor plans based on the number of bedrooms. It’s part of what makes ILS platforms like Zillow and ApartmentFinder so popular; users can refine their search by the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. But when they take their search to Google, they refine their search manually by typing in search terms like “3-bedroom apartments in Austin” or “studio apartments Austin.”
These search habits have a lot to teach us about user intent: from the very beginning of their apartment search, the number of bedrooms is central to their housing decision. When a prospect encounters difficulty in gathering detailed floor plan information about your property, they’re that much more likely to bounce from your website or disqualify your property as they move into the consideration phase of the digital renter’s journey.
And the more information prospects can learn from these floor plans, the more likely they are to recognize your property as a viable option and take the next step by scheduling a tour or starting an application. In other words, 3-D floor plans, floor plans with dimensions, and higher-resolution floor plan graphics help result in more qualified leads coming in through your web presence.
Floor Plan Images Can Be Used Throughout Your Digital Real Estate Marketing
Floor plans aren’t just for your brochure or your website (although you should definitely use them there!). Floor plan images also provide fodder for additional digital marketing platforms like Google My Business posts, social media posts, and ad images or video. And the higher quality these floor plans are, the more versatile they will be.
Say, for example, that one of your floor plans has a high vacancy rate while others are sold out. Having high quality floor plan images means you can easily promote that specific floor plan through your posts and stories on Instagram and Facebook. You could also run an ad campaign featuring the floor plan graphic alongside interior photos or renderings. Carousel ads and video ads work particularly well for this purpose.
Floor Plans and Site Plans Add Branding Opportunities
Floor plans aren’t just a convenient way to convey information. They’re also an opportunity to show users that you’re committed to providing a positive user experience, which also signals that they can expect a positive renter experience at your community. Plus, floor plans and site plans can be used in creative ways to highlight your brand personality. Doing so ensures that your units don’t blend in among all your competitors offering similar unit types.
Everything from brand colors and patterns to unique messaging can be added to your floor plan design. You could show off your branding through the floor plan design itself or by adding a branded border or background. You could even implement a unique hover state on each floor plan image on your website, if you have the ability to do so. Whatever tactic you choose, the more you can signal that your apartments are unique to your community, the more likely it is that your prospects will pay attention and eventually reach out to schedule a tour or start an application.
High-Quality Floor Plans Signal Modernity and Reliability
Not all floor plan graphics are created equal. A low-quality, low-detail floor plan image can be almost as bad as no floor plan at all. Your floor plan images should be accurate to scale, have good color contrast (which is particularly essential for prospects with color blindness or other vision impairments), and match the look-and-feel of your brand. If they feature easy-to-read dimensions, room labels, and amenity labels for sought-out features like in-unit washer and dryer and walk-in closets, that’s even better. Best of all, 3-D floor plans help bring your apartments to life complete with interior design elements and a clearer sense of scale for the viewer.
For the sake of argument, let’s compare the two floor plan images above. While the 3-D floor plan on the right does not include labels or dimensions, it still does a much better job of portraying the scale, features, and personality of the one-bedroom apartment it represents. A user viewing this floor plan can imagine themselves living there and feels confident that the unit comes with the amenities that are important to them, since they are clearly visible in the image. Meanwhile, floor plans like the one of the left don’t inspire much confidence in the user viewing them. Why? Not only does it lack detailed labels or dimensions, it also makes it challenging for the viewer to understand how large each room will feel, how modern the unit is, and what amenities it has. The apartment on the left could be fantastic, but it comes across as lackluster and illegible, making it less likely that a user will continue exploring this community for long enough to fall in love.
Those are just some of the key ways that floor plan graphics can make or break your digital real estate marketing results. For more information on how you can improve your digital marketing results, check out our post on How To Improve UX on Your Property Website (and increase conversions) or take a scroll through the Digital Buyer’s Journey For Real Estate.
by threshold | Jun 15, 2021 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
Property Management Software like Yardi, RealPage, and Entrata are an essential part of many property managers’ day-to-day operations. For some management teams, they are an indispensable part of customer relationship management, lead flow, digital marketing, and more. With so much functionality centralized on one platform, property management teams may find it tempting to rely solely on their chosen PMS for all their digital marketing needs. But does that mean missing out on your maximum ROI?
Today, we’re covering some of the pros and cons of Property Management SaaS products like Yardi, RealPage, and others in order to assess the gaps in their service offerings. Along the way, we’ll compare the strengths of these SaaS products to the strengths of a relationship-oriented real estate marketing partner offering a People-as-a-Service approach to digital marketing needs. In the end, we’ll recommend a hybrid approach to apartment marketing strategies and explore how PMS and marketing agencies should work together to maximize ROI for the Property Management teams they serve.
Pros and Cons of PMS Websites
Let’s start by reviewing the website offerings of some of the leading PMS. While Property Management Software like Entrata and RentCafe offer streamlined website templates, there are pros and cons to using them. The largest advantage to this strategy is that the website you create integrates with the other products in their suites (including their CRM products) with minimal effort. This helps facilitate lead flow so that your leasing staff can easily follow up on leads and turn them into leases.
However, there are limitations to RentCafe, Entrata, and other PMS’s website templates. For one thing, while these websites tend to focus on lead flow, this doesn’t necessarily translate into exceptional UX. In other words, while it’s easy for leasing staff to act on the leads that come through a PMS website, it’s not necessarily maximizing the number of users who actually convert after arriving to your site. When a user finds their way to your site, their experience there can quickly make or break their likelihood of filling out a contact form, scheduling a tour, or starting an application. They need to be able to get a strong sense of your brand, easily navigate to the information that’s relevant to them, and be guided to the action you want them to take without feeling pressed. A website that puts the User Experience first, rather than lead flow, can generate more leads and conversions. Plus, a savvy web developer can help ensure your website integrates into your PMS suite even if you don’t use a template provided by the PMS itself.
Not only that, but these PMS websites don’t provide easy ways to perform a website refresh as trends change, nor do they facilitate SEO updates to help ensure you’re incorporating the most effective keywords to maximize your qualified traffic. Working with an agency partner on your property website can give you the flexibility to update these elements as needed so you don’t get stuck with an out of date site.
Finally, using a template provided by popular PMS like Entrata and RentCafe means your website ends up looking like many other websites on the market. With limited options to choose from, it can be hard to find a template that reinforces your unique branding and stands out from your competitors. This means your site and your brand can become forgettable and fewer prospects keep you in mind as they move from the awareness phase to the consideration phase of their renter’s journey.
Pros and Cons of PMS Digital Marketing
Major Property Management Software like Yardi and Entrata offer an array of PPC advertising and SEM services, often supported by Google and Facebook Partnerships. While these PMS cover some of the most popular digital real estate marketing strategies like Google Search Ads, Google display ads, Remarketing ads, and Facebook ads, there are certain services they don’t cover. This typically includes emergent strategies like OTT & CTV ads and Addressable Marketing campaigns.
And that’s just in the digital marketing bucket; there are also many traditional marketing tactics that could supplement these digital strategies, which PMS do not assist with. For brochure design, exterior signage, flyers, leasing office design, and more, you’ll get more help from a full-service real estate marketing agency partner.
Additionally, while their CRM platforms make it easier to automate lead nurturing efforts and renewal campaigns over email, they don’t always assist with the creative process of copywriting and designing beautiful emails that earn opens, clicks, and conversions. A real estate marketing agency is typically better equipped provide email marketing options that coordinate with your unique branding and utilize best practices that result in increased brand awareness, loyalty, and conversion actions.
Pros and Cons of PMS Customer Service
Your mileage may vary when it comes to the PMS customer experience. While some PMS platforms assign account managers (sometimes at a premium) and have experts available to work with you to optimize and implement your real estate marketing strategy, there are others that follow the more bare-bones SaaS model that emphasizes the ability to do it yourself. For example, G5 promotes its “Knowledge Base” as a Customer Care strategy, but isn’t focused on providing individualized customer service that is responsive to your input and unique needs. In general, Software as a Service products focus on making it easy for the average user to get what they need without hands-on attention, which is what allows them to cut down costs and serve more clients at once.
The downside of the SaaS model is that the end user has less flexibility and less assistance when they need it. Software aren’t flexible to feedback from a leasing agent and they don’t automatically adjust to changes in your audience or in your marketing goals. While some Property Management Software companies offer calls to review strategy and discuss optimizations with expert consultants, you’ll typically get more communication and hands-on campaign management from a real estate marketing agency where you have a dedicated account manager and regular reporting calls.
The Best Real Estate Marketing Solution
So, taking all these pros and cons into account, should you use a PMS or rely on a real estate marketing agency instead?
Ultimately, the answer is that you don’t necessarily have to choose one or the other. For many, a hybrid approach is the best option. Leading Property Management Software offer excellent CRM, budgeting tools, resident portals, and other solutions. But adding a real estate marketing agency to the mix helps you leverage better website design, more diverse advertising mixes, and more consistent branding while also enjoying the benefits of hands-on customer service, which ultimately enhances results.
For those with the budget to do so, even a modest one, we recommend combining PMS with a marketing agency relationship.
by threshold | May 20, 2021 | Digital Marketing, General, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
Written by David Belachew, Digital Marketing Strategist
Ever since Apple’s announcement of their all new App Tracking Transparency feature (ATT) last summer, anxiety has been rampant for digital real estate marketers in the multi-family housing industry. ATT will require app developers and partners such as Facebook and Google, to ask users permission “to track their actions across other third party apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes.” Within the first week of the launch of ATT on April 28th, over 96% of iOS 14 users have chosen to opt out of app tracking.
Initially, digital real estate marketers were all fearful of the impact of losing valuable tracking data from these users. Without this information, digital real estate marketers will have a more difficult time assessing the performance of their digital campaigns and will likely have less data to rely on when making budget allocation decisions.
However, in response to the feedback shared by advertisers from some of Apple’s largest partners, Apple rolled out a tool called SKAdNetwork, which will allow advertisers to “measure the success of their ad campaigns while maintaining the privacy of their users.”
In conjunction with SKAdnetwork, both Facebook and Google have rolled out new features and policy updates that will also balance both the privacy concerns of users and ad attribution concerns of their digital advertising partners.
We recommend that digital real estate marketers who actively use Facebook and Google advertising platforms follow these platforms’ new guidelines to offset the negative impact of the ATT on their campaigns. With that in mind, this blog will provide you with some valuable tips on how you can improve the performance of your digital campaigns and confidently report on online behavior of iOS 14 users on your real estate website.
Use Diverse Sources Of Remarketing
As more users choose to opt out of tracking on their iOS 14 devices, both Google and Facebook expect to have a smaller pool of users from their website remarketing audiences. This means that getting the desired results from campaigns whose objective is to remarket users based on their online activity on your property’s website will become more difficult.
With that being said, we recommend that digital real estate marketers diversify their retargeting audience sources to improve the reach and performance of their remarketing campaigns. These sources may include, but are not limited to users that:
- Viewed a specific percentage of a real estate marketing video asset, including from YouTube and Facebook videos, or videos embedded on your property’s website
- Engaged or commented on an organic post from your property’s Facebook or Instagram page
- Clicked on the call to action button from your property’s Facebook or Instagram ad
By expanding your retargeting sources beyond just your website visitors, you will lessen the likelihood of losing the opportunity to promote your property to iOS14 users.
CRM Tool Integration
Even as Google and Facebook implement new attribution modeling techniques that will estimate the volume of conversion actions generated from iOS14 users, both companies have been vague about how large of a negative impact ATT will have on reported conversion attribution from campaigns on their advertising platforms.
With that being said, there are several tools from popular CRM platforms in the housing industry that have the ability to fire native events directly to leading tag management and analytics platforms such as Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics.
These leading CRMs and tools include, but are not limited to:
- Setmore – A popular scheduling tool used by property managers to schedule in-person and virtual tours with prospects
- RentCafe – A popular CRM used by property managers to help develop their property’s website, provide an applicant and resident portal for the property, and help improve resident retention
- Knock Doorway Bot – Similar to the G5 bot, this bot, developed by Knock, helps pre-qualify users by providing them pricing and floor plan availability and also encourages users to schedule virtual or in-person tours and complete a contact form submission.
Integrate Your Google Analytics and Google Ads Accounts
As mentioned above, integrating your CRM with a compatible analytics platform can go a long way to understanding user behavior on your property’s website. However, if you use Google Analytics (GA) to track and report on traffic activity on your property’s website, there are several actions you can take now to better understand the performance of your campaign across most platforms, which will allow you to make smarter optimization decisions.
From contact form submissions to completed applications, you can create Goals from your Google Analytics account to measure valuable actions taken by users on your property website. Once these goals are created, you can measure the volume of goal completions across multiple channels, such as organic, paid search, paid social, display, etc.
You can also transfer your GA goals as conversion actions into your Google Ads account. Once you complete your conversion configuration on Google Ads, these conversion actions can be reported and optimized from your paid search and display campaigns and may lead to a higher volume of qualified leads generated on your website.
Another added benefit of linking your Google Analytics account to your Google Ads account is that you can better fine-tune your website remarketing audiences. You can configure your remarketing audience by focusing on users who visited a minimum threshold of pages on your website, spent a specific amount of time on-site, and so much more. These remarketing audiences will ensure that your display campaigns will only target users who are more likely to convert on your website while filtering out users who have shown little interest in your property.
