QUICK SUMMARY // In this guide, we'll introduce the multifamily digital advertising fundamentals you need to promote your apartment communities to prospective renters online, attract more qualified traffic to your website, and lease units faster.
Introduction
Generation Z is the largest group of renters in U.S. history. As digital natives, they instinctively turn to their smartphones for instant answers—including where to lease.
They don’t sift through long apartment listings on an ILS. They search for specifics: Which apartments near my favorite Austin park allow dogs?
No matter where they search, digital advertising influences their decision.
Communities that prioritize digital ads put themselves in front of renters at the right moment. Those that don’t? They risk being invisible when prospects are ready to sign a lease.
But staying visible isn’t the only reason digital advertising is essential.
Most traditional advertising, like ILSs, locks you into a fixed monthly fee, with no control over results. Meanwhile, apartment demand fluctuates constantly. Static marketing like this means you get what you get—whether you need more leads or not.
Digital advertising gives you control, flexibility, and the ability to generate qualified leads when you need them most.
Keep reading to learn how it works and why it should be a key part of your multifamily marketing plan.
IN THIS GUIDE
- What is digital advertising for apartments?
- Why should apartment marketers use digital advertisements?
- What are the key digital advertising platforms for marketing apartments?
- How do I target my apartment's digital ads to prospective renters?
- How much will my apartment's digital ads cost?
- What metrics will help me see if my apartment's digital ad campaigns work?
- What is the best way to manage my apartment community's digital ads?
- Need help with your apartment's digital ads? You're in the right place.
What is digital advertising for apartments?
Digital advertising for apartments is a strategy marketers use to attract prospective renters online by running paid ads on platforms like Google and Meta (Facebook). These ads can appear as text, images, or videos that showcase an apartment community’s identity, amenities, units, and unique features. Whether it's on the Google search engine results page, Google Maps, in their Instagram feed, or while watching a video on YouTube, the ultimate goal of these ads is to meet prospective renters whenever or wherever they're searching for apartments online, drive them to your community's website, generate more qualified leads, and improve leasing.
Why should apartment marketers use digital advertisements?
Apartment owners and operators should consider using digital advertising because it provides greater control, precision targeting, and measurable results compared to traditional marketing sources like Internet Listing Services (ILSs).
Ads on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Instagram can reach high-intent renters based on location, demographics, and online behavior, ensuring that marketing dollars attract the most qualified prospects. Unlike ILSs, which list multiple properties side by side, digital ads drive prospects directly to an apartment community's website, where they can schedule tours, apply, or contact the leasing team without distractions.
Additionally, digital ads offer real-time performance tracking, allowing owners to adjust budgets, messaging, and targeting strategies based on actual data. This flexibility ensures a lower cost per lease over time and eliminates the inefficiencies of fixed contracts and shared leads familiar with ILSs. By leveraging digital advertising, apartment communities can generate higher-quality leads, lease units faster, and maximize their marketing investment with scalable, data-driven campaigns.
What are the key digital advertising platforms for marketing apartments?
Google and Meta are two of the most essential digital advertising platforms for marketing apartments. Each platform offers powerful channels with enormous reach where many prospective renters will conduct the most critical parts of their apartment search.
Google Ads
Google Ads is a powerful digital advertising channel that allows marketers to highlight their communities in Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, and over 2 million websites within its display network. It’s an essential multifamily marketing source that provides flexibility and control over campaigns, placements, and budgets.
[READ: Explainer: Google Ads for Apartments]
Meta Ads
Meta Ads is a versatile channel that complements Google Ads by increasing visibility and driving traffic. While they provide valuable exposure—especially for larger communities or competitive markets—it’s best to view them as a supporting tool since social media users often have a casual browsing mindset, unlike higher-intent Google searchers.
Whether using Facebook News Feed for photo and video ads, Instagram Stories for immersive full-screen content, or Reels for longer, engaging videos, Meta Ads help build awareness and keep your community in front of prospects.
How do I target my apartment's digital ads to prospective renters?
For your digital ads to deliver the results your community needs—more traffic, leads, and leases—you must target the right audience. This means reaching prospective renters who are actively searching for your apartments or communities like yours.
So, where do you begin? Effective targeting starts with four key steps:
1. Identify your Ideal Resident Profile (IRP).
Your Ideal Resident Profile (IRP) is a semi-fictional representation of your apartment community’s typical renters. It considers their demographics, goals, challenges, and lifestyle preferences.
Start by asking:
- What is your community’s value proposition?
- Who is currently renting from you?
- What are your residents' daily routines, interests, and needs?
- Do they have pets or specific lifestyle preferences?
Understanding your IRP helps shape everything about your apartment marketing strategy, from the messaging in your digital ads to the keywords you target, as we'll explain next.
[READ: How to identify your apartment's ideal resident profile]
2. Do keyword research.
Keywords are the foundation of digital advertising because your ads are only as successful as your target keywords. They represent the search terms renters use to find apartments online and determine whether your ads appear in relevant searches.
Invest time in keyword research before setting up any campaign to identify the terms most likely to connect with your audience. For example, if your IRP includes pet owners, targeting terms like "pet-friendly apartments in [location]" ensures your ads appear for prospects searching for those features.
3. Use multiple campaign types.
Once you’ve identified your audience and keywords, it’s time to connect with renters through campaigns. Campaigns ensure your ads reach the right people at the right time.
Here are four essential types of campaigns for apartment marketers:
Defensive campaign
A defensive advertising campaign is an apartment marketing tactic that protects or defends keywords specific to your community's name or identity against competitors. It ensures that your property reaches potential residents actively searching for it on Google.
Remarketing campaign
Remarketing campaigns target prospective renters who have already interacted with your apartment's website or brand online, keeping your apartments top of mind by giving them more exposure throughout someone's competitive search. Recent privacy changes have shifted how remarketing works, but it remains a powerful tool when done responsibly.
[READ: The Future of Remarketing Ad Campaigns for Multifamily Marketers]
Keyword Targeting campaign
A keyword targeting campaign expands the reach of search terms your prospective renters may use that are relevant to your apartments, such as certain features ('pet-friendly apartments') or your location ('apartments for rent near [school]'). There are many possibilities here, but it's really important to hone in on keywords that your IRP would use.
Google Performance Max campaign
Performance Max utilizes AI to automatically show ads across all of Google's advertising channels (Search, YouTube, Display Network websites, Gmail, Discover, and Maps), all from just one campaign. It's a great digital ad 'starter kit,' driving performance while simplifying campaign management.
[READ: What are Google Performance Max Campaigns? A Quick Guide for Multifamily Marketers]
4. Use geotargeting.
Every digital ad requires location-based targeting. However, choosing where to target an ad can make or break its success. That's why geotargeting is an essential and powerful tactic for apartment marketers.
For example, if your community is in Houston, your ads should focus on Houston and its surrounding areas—not the entire country. Most renters move within close proximity to their current location, so targeting locally increases your chances of reaching high-intent prospects.
Geotargeting is often used interchangeably with geofencing, but the strategies differ significantly. Geofencing draws tight boundaries around particular buildings or neighborhoods, while geotargeting is much broader (e.g., a 30-mile radius around a location) and more compliant with Fair Housing laws.
[READ: How to Do Geotargeting for Apartments The Right Way (Because It's So Easy to Get Wrong)]
How much will my apartment's digital ads cost?
The cost of digital advertising varies for each apartment community. Property class, unit count, seasonality, turnover, and other factors can all impact the amount each property spends.
The snapshot below illustrates the average high and low digital ad budgets for RentVision's clients during the busy leasing season of 2024, broken down by property class and unit count. (Note: What was ultimately spent fell somewhere between.)
In general, communities with more units spend more on digital ads because they experience higher turnover. Similarly, high-end properties often face tougher competition, as prospective renters in this market usually take longer to decide where to lease, requiring more ad exposure to stay top-of-mind.
To set the right digital advertising budget for your community, check out these resources:
- How much do multifamily PPC ads cost? You might be surprised.
- How to Set a Dynamic Apartment Marketing Budget for 2025
What metrics will help me see if my apartment's digital ad campaigns work?
Tracking the proper metrics is critical to understanding whether your digital ads are performing and helping you avoid wasting your budget on unqualified traffic that doesn’t lead to leases.
The four most common metrics apartment marketers should pay attention to with their digital ads are Cost-Per-Click (CPC), Bounce Rate, Time On Site, and Conversions.
Cost-Per-Click
Cost-Per-Click (CPC) is the average price you pay every time someone clicks on one of your digital advertisements. If you paid $1,000 for a specific ad campaign that's clicked on 200 times, then the cost-per-click is $5.00.
The lower your cost-per-click, the better that particular ad campaign performs. (Although that’s not always the case, if your bounce rate is high, then a low CPC could also mean you're traffic is less qualified … keep reading!)
Bounce Rate
Bounce Rate is a website metric, but it can tell you a lot about the performance of your digital ads. It tracks the number of times someone visits a page on your website and leaves without taking action.
A high bounce rate indicates two things: you’re either getting unqualified traffic, or the traffic is qualified, but the website is not providing these interested renters with the information they need to take the next step.
Poor engagement could be due to long load times, broken pages, or other issues that make for a poor user experience. All of them can directly impact the success of your digital ads.
Time On Site
Time On Site is the average time a user spends on your website. Like the Bounce Rate, following this website metric will help you assess how qualified the traffic is being driven by your digital ad campaigns.
A higher Time On Site should be a goal, indicating that the average visitor finds it helpful and engaging. Inversely, if users spend less time on your site, it means it's not beneficial or engaging. For apartment marketers, the more someone engages with your community online, the more likely they rent from you
Conversions
Conversions occur when a user clicks on one of your digital advertisements and then completes an action on your website that benefits your apartment community. This is the ideal outcome of any of your digital ad campaigns.
A set of ads that achieve high conversions should take precedence over other less-effective campaigns. In Google, you can track multiple conversion types depending on what you need, including visits to specific pages on your website, phone calls, tours watched, meetings scheduled, and more.
You can use conversion data to optimize campaigns further so that your ads consistently produce the best outcomes.
[READ: These Are The Success Metrics Every Multifamily Marketer Should Use]
What is the best way to manage my apartment community's digital ads?
Digital advertising has enormous benefits for apartment marketers, but it's also challenging when first getting started.
Apartment marketers are often charged with managing multiple ads for multiple communities (and their multiple floorplans) simultaneously. However, occupancies can change daily, and every community has unique needs, and keeping up with those needs can quickly become overwhelming.
As Zach Olsen, Director of Marketing for TLR Group, said when describing the difficulty of managing digital ads on his own , "All of that work would've taken about 30-plus hours of my week."
So, before diving into digital advertising, ask yourself: “Can I manage this in-house, or should I seek help from a vendor?”
Managing digital ads in-house is achievable if you’re handling marketing for one or two communities.
But outsourcing to a company specializing in multifamily pay-per-click ads might be better if you're responsible for multiple properties.
To help you decide, check out these resources:
- In-House vs. Outsourced: What's Best for Multifamily PPC?
- What To Look For When Choosing A Multifamily PPC Advertising Company
Need help with your apartment's digital ads? You're in the right place.
Whether you’re new to digital ads or looking to improve your campaigns, you’re on the right track.
Digital advertising is essential for multifamily marketing. In this guide, we’ve shown how search and social media ads drive quality traffic, improve leads, and—most importantly—fill units.
Now, take the next step.
Predictive Advertising by RentVision removes the guesswork, automatically optimizing your budget and ads daily to target floorplans with the most upcoming vacancies.
It has helped:
- A Texas apartment increase traffic by 161%
- A Florida property management company improve occupancy by 8.1% in under 250 days
- A multifamily marketer streamline ads across multiple states
No digital advertising experience? No problem. Our solution does the heavy lifting so you can focus on what matters most—and get your time back.
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Our multifamily digital advertising solution automatically adjusts to the changing occupancy in your communities, driving high-quality traffic exactly when you need it most and saving your marketing dollars when vacancy is under control.
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