Automation has been a dominant theme during the last several years, yet many multifamily operators struggle to understand the power of the technology or how to leverage it to improve staff and property performance.
By automating digital marketing campaigns, multifamily operators can optimize their marketing budgets to get more from one of their largest expenses.
Recently, we spoke to Andrew Cederlind, president and chief operating officer at Conversion Logix, about the firm’s advances in ad automation and how it enables clients to analyze occupancy trends. “Depending on floor plan availability or overall occupancy, Conversion Logix can adjust the Google Ads budget to either accelerate conversions or save costs by halting unnecessary keyword buys,” according to Cederlind.
Grabbing the Lowest-Hanging Fruit
“The lowest-hanging fruit is using automation for campaigns and keywords that are based on floor plan availability,” Cederlind says. “You don’t want to be giving Google your money by paying for keywords that list apartments that aren’t available.”
The key is determining for the community the right parameters, rules, and thresholds and putting them in place.
Another opportunity, Cederlind says, is using ad automation to help his clients’ communities adjust when it recognizes that a glut on a certain floor plan is going to occur in the near future (such as 60 days out). In that case, the marketing spend can be adjusted to maximize exposure for those apartments.
In the case of a lease-up, ad automation can adjust and optimize keyword spend so that the marketing budget can be moved to where it’s needed most.
Cederlind says automation reduces errors that could come with manual information entry. Automation also helps with updating ads based on availability in real-time, and with the correct rent prices.
“We recommend keeping a human in the loop for vetting changes made through automation,” he says. “This process saves a lot of time and helps multifamily operators react quicker to trends. What may have taken days to implement a budget or strategy change can take as little as a few minutes.”
Recognizing Trends and Taking Action
Conversion Logix has run tens of thousands of ad campaigns for its multifamily clients.
“We have a deep understanding of how these trends look and how and when to shift things—in collaboration with our clients—specific to their knowledge and history of their communities and their priorities and goals. It means that we can come to them with our recommendation instead of waiting for them to come to us. This gives them peace of mind when it comes to marketing decisions.”
He says ad automation success can be measured by looking at cost savings as well as improved occupancy trends.
In its automation beta, Conversion Logix is seeing savings between $100 to $200 per month by automating its paid search spend to adjust to available floor plans in real time.
“More important, success is about increasing building occupancy,” Cederlind says. “That is our north star.”
To get started, apartment communities will succeed by providing the information that their marketing supplier partner needs, such as what concessions are available, and what floor plans are popular or not.
Learn more about how Conversion Logix’s Ad Automation engine can save your team time and help maximize your marketing investment.
