What Worked in 2025: Proven Marketing Strategies That Filled Apartments Faster
- 20 October 2025
Staying ahead in apartment marketing isn’t easy. With rising competition, shifting renter behavior, and tighter budgets, hitting leasing goals has become more challenging than ever.
To uncover what’s really working, we asked our Digital Apartment Marketing Strategists and Ad Operations Experts to share the strategies that consistently helped properties attract more leads and fill vacancies faster and at lower cost.
In this blog, we’ll walk through their top takeaways from the past year so you can put these proven insights to work in your own marketing plans.
Connect with Renters at Every Stage of the Funnel
Both Liam and Marissa emphasized that high-performing campaigns succeed when every stage of the renter journey is accounted for. Rather than leaning too heavily on one channel, they found the best results came from an orchestrated mix that builds awareness, nurtures interest, and captures intent.
“Performance is strongest when campaigns are designed to guide renters from awareness to action,” Liam explained. “Display, Social, and Precision Mobile Targeting (our geo-fencing strategy) build visibility at the top of the funnel, while Performance Max and Paid Search campaigns capture high-intent prospects ready to convert.”
Marissa added that balanced budgets play a critical role in making that strategy work. “When spend is distributed across Google, Social, and Display, renters encounter your message multiple times throughout their journey,” she said. “That consistency keeps your property top-of-mind and improves conversion efficiency.”
Liam remarked that this approach of building familiarity and consistent messaging throughout the renters’ journey has been especially critical in competitive rental markets where visibility, timing, and message consistency determine who fills units first.
👉 See It In Action: Read about how this Austin lease-up generated over 215 leases in nine months in an ultra-saturated market by applying a strategic full-funnel media mix strategy.
Turn Unified Data Into a Competitive Advantage
For many teams, the biggest unlock in 2025 wasn’t a new channel but connecting the dots between data sources to understand which efforts were truly driving conversions. Integrating data across platforms is becoming a defining factor in how apartment marketers make smarter, faster decisions.
“When campaign, CRM, website, and property management data are connected, marketers can finally see how renters move from the first awareness to lease,” says Liam. “It’s no longer just about which ad got the last click. It’s about understanding how all your channels work together to fill units.”
This unified view moves teams beyond surface-level metrics like CTR and CPC to focus on what truly matters: acquisition costs, leasing velocity, and channel influence. As attribution models grow more sophisticated, marketers can shift budgets proactively and invest where performance is proven, not assumed.
For marketing leaders, this evolution turns reporting from reactive to predictive, transforming data into a planning tool rather than a post-mortem.
👉 See It In Action: Forward-thinking marketers are already using platforms like Conversion Logix iQ (CLiQ) to connect their campaign, CRM, and leasing data. Watch this demo from our Chief Analytics Officer, Martin Stein, to see the unique attribution insights our clients are unlocking with our new Conversion Path Reports.
Engage Renters on Instagram Stories
In a crowded digital landscape, Instagram Stories proved to be a high-performing format for apartment marketers. Jessica pointed to its mix of reach, interactivity, and visual appeal.
“Stories mirror how today’s renters browse,” she explained. “When you showcase an attractive community in that format, you see stronger click-through rates and above-average conversions.”
The data backs this up. According to Sprout Social’s “2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report”, 84% of social users have an Instagram profile, more than any other network, and half of all users interact with brands on the platform at least once a day. 61% of users turn to Instagram to discover new products, and 69% say they see the most engaging brand content there, making it the leading channel for brand discovery and engagement.
Instagram’s audience composition also makes it ideal for reaching renters. Pew Research Center’s 2024 study shows that 78% of adults under 30 use Instagram, compared to only 15% of adults over 65, a near-perfect overlap with prime renting demographics.
👉See It In Action: Read this case study to learn how Instagram Stories Ads played a critical role in helping a North Texas lease-up drive 71 leases in six months.
Make Social Spend Work Harder With Creative Targeting
Christine stressed that the most effective social campaigns in 2025 were the ones that spoke directly to clearly defined renter interests. By including additional lifestyle preferences such as: residents interested in convenience, premium amenities, or multilingual content, her team has been able to reduce wasted spend and improve ad engagement.
“When your ads are tailored to multiple layers of audience interests, the response is much stronger,” she said. “It’s a more efficient use of ad dollars than trying to reacheveryone with broad keywords.”
For marketing leaders managing multiple communities, this approach demonstrates how precise targeting and tailored creative can stretch budgets further while improving lead quality across the portfolio.
👉 See It In Action: Read about how this North Florida apartment generated a 24x return on ad spend with creative ad targeting and how this South Florida condo community generated demand with a Spanish-speaking campaign and international targeting.
Build Smarter Search Campaign Foundations
Paid Search remains one of the highest-intent channels in multifamily marketing, and success often starts before the first ad even goes live. Kat and Liam explain how smarter campaign foundations produced measurable efficiency gains across their portfolios.
Kat emphasized that Paid Search campaigns perform best when budgets are concentrated into fewer, well-planned builds. “When you put the work in up front researching the market, audience, and keywords, you give the campaign the best chance to succeed,” she explained.
Liam elaborated on what goes into building smarter, more precise campaign architecture:
“Well-researched structures incorporate market insights, competitor positioning, and migration patterns to deliver more meaningful reach from day one.”
Concentrating spend into these stronger builds gives AI algorithms the runway they need to learn and optimize efficiently. Liam explained that this “smarter, not broader” approach leads to sustained performance gains and clearer insights into what truly drives qualified traffic.
👉Follow These Guidelines: Your budget plays a critical role in determining what an efficient campaign structure looks like. Follow these recommendations to maximize results and avoid stretching your budget too thin.
| Paid Search Budget | # of Campaigns |
| $400-600 | 2 |
| $601 – $1,500 | 3 – 4 |
| $1,501 – $3,500 | 4 – 5 |
| $3,501 – $4,500 | 6 – 7 |
| $4,501+ | 7+ |
Leverage AI to Optimize Search Spend
Google’s Performance Max campaigns remain a reliable way to allocate ad dollars where they’ll have the most impact. Jessica pointed out that this AI-based ad strategy helps reduce cost-per-lead while increasing qualified tour requests. “Performance Max allows Google’s AI to direct spend to the channels that are actually driving results,” she noted.
“It’s been a big win for efficiency and lead quality and you can often see results relatively quickly. There’s a luxury lease-up we’re working with in Vero Beach, FL that saw a 33% lift in key event conversions this October within just 20 days after adding it to their strategy.”
👉 Dive Deeper: Want to know if this strategy is right for your community? Read this to learn how Performance Max ads work and when to use them.
Don’t Overlook Bing’s Untapped Potential
While Google Ads dominates most marketers’ Paid Search strategy, Bing quietly accounts for 7–8% of U.S. search traffic. Kat highlighted Bing’s unique audience advantages, including higher-income professionals, privacy-conscious users, and renters on browsers where other platforms fall short.
“Bing is an overlooked but powerful layer during peak leasing season,” she said. “It consistently helps us reach renters that Google alone might miss.”
👉See It In Action: Read this case study to see how Bing Ads helped four student housing properties capture market demand.
Increase Lead Gen With Smarter Virtual Tour Promotion
Virtual tours are valuable but often anonymous. Christine explained how integrating virtual tours within lead applications can give leasing teams more data to work with.
“Normally, someone can view a tour without ever sharing their name,” she said. “By requiring a quick sign-in, the onsite team gets another chance to connect and move that prospect closer to a lease.” This is a strategy we’ve been deploying for our clients through our SpotlightTM application.
👉 See It In Action: Read this case study to see how this Phoenix community leveraged gated virtual tours, among other strategies, to secure 125 leases in four months.
Key Takeaways for 2026
The past year showed that filling apartments faster isn’t about doing more; it’s about doing the right things better. The properties that saw the strongest results combined smart strategy with tactical precision.
💡Key Takeaway #1: Diversify Your Media Mix
Balance advertising budgets in a way that guides prospects from awareness to action across multiple media formats and channels. Base these decisions on insights derived from centralized data. Try adding creative targeting to social media ads and short-form video to your mix to drive more engagement from top-of-funnel strategies.
💡Key Takeaway #2: Maximize Your Search Budget With High-Impact Campaigns
Avoid overbuilding search campaigns when you have a limited budget compared to competitors. Identify your best targeting and channel options and ensure you have enough funding to remain competitive in the auctions that matter most for your property’s success. Try out lower-cost channels like Bing to stretch your ad dollars further.
💡Key Takeaway #3: Small Tweaks Can Make a Big Impact on Lead Generation:
Look for hidden opportunities to make small adjustments to grow your first-party lead list, from gating previously ungated materials on your site to deploying AI-based targeting in the ad platforms you’re already investing in.
As you look ahead to 2026, think about how you can leverage these tested and proven approaches to remain competitive in an evolving digital landscape.
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