If you own or operate a location-based business, you’ve likely dreamed of the day you can attribute marketing dollars to real-life foot traffic. Google started working on making this dream a reality in 2014, but the feature only rolled out to a limited group of high traffic companies. Over the last few months, Google started making a larger feature roll out to small businesses and enterprises. Advertisers can now track the campaigns, keywords, and devices that lead to store visits in Google’s ad platform. Up until this point, advertisers have been able to attribute ad campaign success in Google Ads through website traffic, website events, online purchases, and phone calls. While these metrics do a great job of measuring the intent of searchers to visit a location, store visits allow businesses to see how this online intent actually translates to foot traffic.

Who can take advantage of Google’s store visits?

• Companies that have nonsensitive location-based businesses (Ex: Apartments, Car Dealerships, Hotels)
• Companies that have a Google Business Profile set up for each location and 90% of their location links verified
• Companies using location extensions in Google Ads
• Companies that received thousands of ad clicks and impressions
• Companies that have enough foot traffic and pass user privacy thresholds

How does Google track store visits?

Google uses a variety of signals to arrive at the store visits data they report in your Google ads account. Google maps data, store locations, wi-fi signal strength in stores, GPS location signals, Google queries, visit behavior, and a sample of 1 million users who opted into allowing Google to track their location history are all used to determine and validate this metric. Google surveyed over 5 million people to confirm they actually visited a store and used this feedback to update their algorithms. Google is very confident about this metric, they’ve claimed that this data point is “99 percent accurate”. (Wordstream)

How should companies interpret this data?

Advertisers can segment store visit data in Google ads by new and returning visitors. If your company is focused on generating new customers, you can analyze your search campaign data to get a better idea of how new store visitors are finding your business and which ad copy they engage with. Companies looking to generate more repeat business from existing customers are able to evaluate which campaigns lead to returning customer visits and optimize for this customer segment.

Marketers can also use store visit data to build better customer journey models. Advertisers can segment store visits by the number of days that elapsed between a prospect clicking on an ad and visiting the company’s location using the “days to conversion” metric. This data becomes even more interesting when you break it down at the campaign level. Consider comparing days to conversion by brand and non-brand campaigns to get an idea of how long it takes customers who uncovered your business through a non-brand search to visit you as opposed to someone who knew to search your company by brand.

While we know more searching than ever is happening on mobile phones, some high-value purchases or searches that take place in an office setting (B2B), may be more likely to take place on a desktop as opposed to a mobile device. Using store visit device breakdowns, companies can find out which devices high converting prospects use to search for their product or service.

How can companies use this data to generate more store traffic?

This new metric opens the doors for location-based businesses to better attribute and optimize their Google ads campaigns. Everything from ad copy, keyword targeting, location targeting, and device targeting can be evaluated using this metric. Once advertisers use this information to gain a better understanding of what drives store visits they can reallocate budgets and bidding to hone in on the campaigns that generate the most traffic.

Interested in seeing how this metric has impacted other businesses? Check out these case studies from Google.

AdWords Store Visits Data Proves Search Marketing Investment Drives In-Store Visits

AdWords Store Visits Helps PetSmart Measure How Google Search Advertising Affects In-Store Traffic

Office Depot Attracts On-the-Go Shoppers With Local Inventory Ads

The post Google Ads Now Tracks Store Visits appeared first on Conversion Logix.

Do you know what students type into Google when they search for an apartment? Do you know why some student housing ads get more clicks and impressions than others?

Most multifamily professionals know search marketing is an important component of a student housing marketing campaign, but they don’t know how student housing search marketing campaigns differ from general apartment search marketing campaigns, or what communities can do to stand out from others in the search engine.

By the end of this article, you won’t be like most multifamily housing professionals. You will have a better idea of how students search for apartments and what types of search ads they click on. You will know why some student housing search campaigns perform better than others and how your student housing community can use paid search campaigns to generate more traffic.

What do students look for in an apartment?

The best search marketing campaigns start with a clear understanding of the searcher and what they are looking for in a community. Many communities focus on flashy amenities and community spaces when they market to students. While these are great ways to stand out in the market and capture attention, we’ve found that more often than not, the best way to appeal to students is to focus on addressing their fundamental apartment needs.

A recent study conducted by For Rent University found that students look for practical amenities when they are searching for an off-campus apartment. The most important amenities to students are high-speed wi-fi, in-unit washer and dryers, parking, gyms, and computer/printing stations. Most of the amenities that students care about are centered around convenience.

Students are looking for a community that meets their basic needs at a price they can afford. The one apartment feature that stood out to us from this study was pet-friendly. Pet-friendly apartments have risen in popularity across general apartment communities and we found it interesting that this trend has also spilled into the student housing market.

How students search for apartments

Keywords

We’ve found that a majority of student housing searches are university-specific. It can be difficult for communities to rank organically for these types of terms which is why Google advertising plays an important role in a comprehensive student housing marketing campaign.

Some examples of commonly searched university specific keywords include:

• apartments near [college name]
• [college name] [city]
• [college name] apartments
• student housing near me
• [brand name] [city]
• [college name] student housing

Over the past five years, searches for “student housing near me” have increased in popularity which indicates more location-based mobile searching is occurring. This is why location-based targeting can be a valuable strategy to include in student housing paid search marketing campaigns.

Who is doing the Searching?

It’s no surprise that 18-24-year-olds saw the most student housing ads among our student housing clients’ search campaigns. But what we did find interesting is that more 45-54-year-olds were searching for student housing than 33-44-year-olds or those 55+. This indicates that in 2018 both parents and students were actively searching for student housing. There were also a lot of 25-34-year-olds who searched for these communities which may represent older undergrad students or grad students, another key segment that student housing communities might be overlooking.

Our Strategies

Targeting

Through location targeting, we are able to adjust budgets between campaigns and target searchers in the locations that are most likely to lead to website visits and conversions. Student housing campaigns differ from general apartment search campaigns in that more searchers are living outside of the city or state of the community.

We’ve found that non-brand keyword search campaigns targeting searchers located within the community’s state or within the nation received more ad impressions than non-brand local search campaigns and brand based campaigns.

We also found that ad engagement (measured by click-through rate) was higher for state and national brand campaigns than local campaigns. Out of state students, in-state students that aren’t from the local college town, and their parents are more likely to search for and have a need for student housing options, which is why campaigns targeting these locations generate more visibility and engagement.

Ads

The most important thing to include in the copy of search ads are the keywords you want to rank for. Google uses ad relevance to determine if you’re ad will be presented in the search engine. After incorporating relevant keyword copy, we’ve found that a few topics outperform others within student housing campaigns.

Ad descriptions and headlines that focus on how conveniently located the community is to the university, receive higher click-through rates and are more likely to be related to popular keywords. 50% of students believe that after price, proximity to the school, nightlife, and restaurants is the most important factor they look for when selecting an apartment.

When communities offer fully furnished units, we’ve found that highlighting this feature also leads to more ad engagement. Fully furnished units offer convenience and cost savings, two things that students really care about during the apartment selection process.

Concessions within ad descriptions also lead to more ad engagement. Students are price sensitive and we’ve found that including offers within paid search ad copy is an effective way to catch their interest in the search engine.

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions that appeal to the needs and desires of the student housing market lead to more ad engagement and website traffic. Structured snippet extensions and call out extensions are the extensions we typically use to highlight apartment amenities and features in Google ad campaigns.

Structured snippets and call out extensions give advertisers an additional line of copy under an ad’s description. These are some examples of structured snippet extensions that performed well for our student housing clients.

Notice how this ad extension focuses on some of the popular convenience based amenities we discussed earlier in this blog post. Through ad extensions, your community can convey its unique selling points and signal to students that you offer the features they are looking for. Ad extensions are also a great way to generate calls, share your location, showcase great review ratings, and qualify students with floor plan pricing.

The post Search Marketing Strategies for Student Housing appeared first on Conversion Logix.

Are you getting the most out of your search engine marketing campaign? Compare the following concepts to what you are currently practicing to see if you are maximizing your budget.

Specific Landing Pages

It is important to build specific landing pages for your campaigns and ad groups instead of pointing traffic to just your homepage. A custom landing page is crucial to a successful engagement with your consumers. If your landing page has a clear call to action, you can lead consumers to a specific action. Landing pages can also provide other opportunities on your website that they might have missed if they were directed to a generalized page.

Focused Keyword Lists

Sustaining a focused and relevant keyword list will provide more value to your search marketing efforts than a list with many generalized keywords will: a bigger list of keywords is not necessarily better. With so many campaigns and ad groups, a generalized keyword list can become difficult to keep track of in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. If your keyword list is too large, it can become difficult to gather valuable insight on specific keywords.

Negative Keywords

When you first start an SEM campaign, you will typically spend hours researching the best relevant keywords for your product or service. If you want to get the most out of your campaign, you should also be using negative keywords. Negative keywords will prevent your ads from showing if they are searched/triggered. Managing these negative keywords can help reduce costs on irrelevant traffic and ensure that you are only reaching your intended consumer.

Conversion Tracking

High clicks and low CPC’s are great, unless the traffic coming through isn’t worthwhile. Conversion tracking allows you to identify which keywords and ads are performing best in your campaign. Conversion tracking focuses on the quality of traffic coming to your website and the specific actions that they are taking. Conversion tracking is a must for any campaign.

Trial and Error

With the constant shift in the way consumers are searching for services and products, you have to be willing to adapt your campaigns to adhere to the masses. A trial and error method allows you to constantly evaluate your results and refine your strategy to improve on what is and isn’t working. This will enable you to have the best possible campaign, while reaching customers in a way that is proven to work.

The post Five SEM (PPC) Tactics You Should Be Utilizing appeared first on Conversion Logix.