Property Management Marketing and Google Ads

Formerly known as Google Adwords, Google Ads is the most popular online advertising platform in the world right now! Why? It's hosted by the most commonly used search engine in the world.

With a 60%+ market share in the United States and 90% market share globally, if you have even the bare minimum for property management marketing, you know that Google is not to be ignored. Google Adwords was started in 2000 and stayed that way until its rebranding to Google Ads in 2018.

At Geekly Media, we primarily focus on the power of inbound marketing to grow leads and create long-term clients. However, we also know that inbound marketing takes time. Combining the benefits of paid ads with inbound marketing is one way to boost traffic to your website and increase your conversions.

Let's take a deep dive into Google Ads and how it can benefit your property management marketing plan.

Are Paid Ads Right for Your Property Management Business?

There are benefits and drawbacks to paid ads—just as there are for other marketing expenses and strategies. We'll start with the negatives so you can move on to another blog id the paid ads approach isn't what you currently need for growth.

When to Pass on Paid Ads

• Paid ads (when used as the only marketing strategy) only drive single-visit traffic looking for a quick click.
• When the user enters their research phase, you may lose that traffic as they find more relevant organic links on the SERP pages.
• You can refine the accuracy of paid ads over time, but it does take some time—and until you reach full optimization, your ad spend will be more per qualified lead.
• It can be hard to compete against large competitors also running paid ads in the same location. If you're a startup and there is a massive chain with a huge marketing budget in your town, paid ads just might not be worth it.
• There is a level of skepticism that comes with clicking on paid ads. Be sure to have informative content on your site to convince your visitors you deserve their business!

Reasons to Use Paid Ads

• Organic placements are showing up further and further down the front page of Google. Not only do you have to scroll past a section of paid ads to get there, but you also have to scroll past Google My Business listings—and a featured snippet, if there is one.
• Users don't like to have to hunt for what they are looking for; paid ads can drive the traffic we used to see without them.
• You have a new website that isn't ranking yet and needs to get some quick wins and traction.
• Paid ads can be optimized over time to produce increasingly better results.
• When combined with another property management marketing strategy such as inbound marketing, paid ads can have a positive compounding effect.

Getting Started

When you're ready to get started, you'll need to do a few things to get ready to run ads successfully. Google will walk you through the creation of your account and ads, but these additional tasks will help you make the most of your time.

Google Analytics

• If you don't have Google Analytics set up yet, start here.
• You should have Google Analytics account regardless because it is a very valuable property management marketing tool—and the more history you have, the better.
• Creating this and linking it to your Google Ads account will help you track your traffic in one dashboard.

Create a Landing Page That Converts

• You'll need to route your Google Ads traffic somewhere that promotes conversion.
• A landing page with a content offer is usually your best bet for this.
• It gives the user something of value right away that they don't have to dig for.

Do Your Keyword Research

• Google Ads can bid on keywords for you, but you'll still want to be informed about what is best for your market.
• Start with keyword research: a great tool for this in the Google suite is Google Ads Keyword Planner.
• You can use your keywords for other content creation, so it is always time well spent

Building a Marketing Plan That Includes Paid Ads

Just as you probably wouldn't want to risk your retirement fund on a single investment, your marketing approach should also be diversified. Developing a marketing plan that includes paid ads is better than paid ads alone!

To build a marketing plan, you need to create a marketing budget that will work for the current financial scope of your property management business. Starting with your budget allows you to pave the way towards sustainable growth. If you don't have the time, a quick rule of thumb is that 7-8% of your gross revenue will work to start.

Next, allocate a percentage of your budget for your pay-per-click campaigns, and then do the math to ensure that you will get the return on investment you need using this calculator from HubSpot.

Now that you have a budget, you can begin to work on strategy! You'll probably want to start with a higher percentage of your budget dedicated to paid ads and then slowly decrease that spend over time as your inbound marketing strategy picks up steam and starts to generate sustainable organic traffic.

Are you looking for more tips to support the inclusion of paid ads in your property management marketing? We hear you! Download our definitive guide to paid ads: it's got the information you need to turbocharge your marketing campaigns—plus, it's free!