The Best Lever for Multifamily Marketers to Improve Occupancy - Google Ads

Before re-entering the world of multifamily, I spent the previous few years in e-commerce. From both as an operator and a seller to e-commerce brands, the playbook was pretty clear; make/find winning creative and scale it to the moon. In the multifamily industry, we only have so many units to fill and the name of our game is maximizing occupancy (as opposed to an asset managers goal of maximizing NOI). With that parameter comes the need for flexibility. The greatest tool at our disposal with the most flexibility and largest reach is Google Ads. Here is why it should be at the top of your list to learn and master in-house.

It Starts at the Search

For nearly three decades, when we've needed an answer about anything - from apartments in our area, or restaurants with great happy hours, to shirts that make me look skinny - we've gone straight to Google.

But search is changing. Some are predicting doom for the king of search. Yet, Google Search is still the 800-pound gorilla in the room. They're 373x bigger than ChatGPT as of March 2025. They also grew 20%+ from 2023 to 2024. So before you go shifting your entire multifamily marketing strategy to catering to the AI engines (which will likely be dominated by the ILS anyway), let's acknowledge how powerful, useful, and dominant Google Search is.

It's the bedrock of my marketing strategy when occupancy dips.

How you can Win with Google Search

There are essentially three products within Google Search. In my course, we go through each product in detail to make sure you know how to maximize your effectiveness in each channel.

1. Sponsored

2. Google Business

3. Organic

As this post is about improving occupancy through lead generation, I'm going to focus on the Sponsored channel. The other channels certainly have a place in improving occupancy, especially Google Business, but Sponsored, or Google Ads, is like a microwave. You get results quickly.

When you have an owner breathing over your back sending you multiple emails a day, you need to swing the biggest advertising hammer you can to drive traffic to your property.

(On a side note, you can ALWAYS add your property to an ILS or even upgrade your packages if need be. However, for Apartments.com you generally get stuck with either a fat bill and fixed contract terms which limits your flexibility).

Google Ads is your way to leapfrog your competitors and the ever-increasing ILS networks. It drives traffic to your website and doesn't your property side-by-side with other competitors. That's a huge benefit as that spotlight is valuable, undivided attention you don't receive from being on an ILS.

Google Ads has six (as of now) platforms that are used by nearly 5 billion users.

Bottom line: you win by running Google Ads.

Best Google Ads Campaigns for Multifamily Marketing

The first headline in this blog post is It Starts at the Search for a reason. Google Search is your best friend here. Start by running either a Search campaign, a Search + Display, or a Performance Max campaign.

The reality is these ad products change all the time and often show different results based on your creative, but reaching people you know are in the market for an apartment is the first right step you want to take.

Performance Max and Display campaigns can also be retargeting tools for people who check out your site, then get your ad served on another one of Googles suite of products like Gmail or YouTube.

The standard for our team is using either Performance Max which we think of as full-funnel OR Search + Display along with Video Demand. The great thing is that once you have a decent formula for your campaigns and have set goals within Google Ads, a lot of maintenance simply requires modifying your keywords you target (exact vs. broad search, apply negative keywords etc.,) and updating creative (new videos, banners for display ads, copywriting etc.,).

Minimizing Multifamily Marketing Costs

Along with being able to target prospects at the search, you also can a hero to your company by minimizing spend once occupancy stabilizes. Once occupancy and the trend is high, we will turn spend down to as low as $0-$1 a day. Let's say a bunch of move-outs unexpectedly happen next week, increase your budget to $50 a day with a few clicks.

That flexibility is so key to being a high-achiever in this industry. We want to make sure as marketers that we are spending money like it's our own, which means not spending a dollar more than we have to on advertising. Certainly, there's branded campaigns that can be beneficial, but specifically for lead-generation we want to minimize it as long as occupancy is high.

What's the Catch?

Getting Google Ads setup correctly is a process. It takes months to do right. Google Ads is also expensive in terms of it's one of our highest marketing expenses (that's because the ROI is strong and the cost of vacancies often dwarfs the cost you pay to fill the unit).

But with that being said, having someone in-house master Google Ads helps you control costs AND improve occupancy. I also think from a team-building perspective, it gives people a great opportunity to move up in their career by learning the ins and outs of Google Ads. Empowering your team means giving them the opportunity to learn a tool that is standard across marketing.

Takeaways

Google Ads is still a beast. It still drives high-intent traffic to your properties. It takes a lot of time to get setup correctly, but is worth the investment. Doing it in-house ensures you have control over your most vital tool for improving occupancy (that is not an ILS).

If you want more tips on how to be a better marketer in the multifamily industry, consider buying my Multifamily Marketing Mastery Course and learn how to punch vacancies square in the jaw.

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