Instagram Stories was introduced back in 2016 and since then it has taken off to become one of the most used features on Instagram. The Facebook-owned, 15-second format has allowed businesses to create engrossing and powerful advertising for a wide audience. Before jumping straight into brainstorming your quarter-minute masterpiece, let’s go over the 5 things you need to know about creating Stories ads for your apartment community.

1. Best Way to Reach Millennials and Gen Z

Millennials and Gen Zers are a huge segment of apartment renters. Instagram Stories is a great way to reach this demographic. 60% of Millennials and Gen Zers watch and post stories to their account, while 25% actively watch Stories of products and services they want to buy. Still not convinced you’ll be able to reach a younger audience with Instagram Stories? Almost two-thirds of US-based Instagrammers are 19-29 years old, a higher proportion than almost any other social media platform.

2. Higher Reach

At the end of the day, if no one sees your ad, they can’t take action. Over 500 million Instagram users watch Stories on a daily basis, and the relatively new format means you won’t be competing with as many advertisers as you would on traditional Instagram ads.

3. Powerful Targeting

Facebook has one of the most robust audience targeting tools in the industry. Marketers will be happy to know that all those powerful systems can be applied to Instagram Stories as well. You can use interests, locations, and behaviors to create the perfect audience for your ad.

4. Stories Format

Stories take up the full vertical screen on mobile devices. Only your content is viewable to the user. This allows your story viewers to be fully engrossed in your video with no distractions. Stories can take the form of a single vertical photo, a single video, or a sequence of photos or videos in a carousel format.

5. Brand Recall / Video

As with any marketing channel, video content is one of the best-performing ad formats on Instagram Stories. Tap-forward rate, which is when a user skips past your content by tapping it, is 5.65% lower with video than it is with images.  (Source: Socialinsider). Not only will more people view your story, but they will remember it too. According to Insivia, 95% of a video’s message is retained by viewers. If that still isn’t enough to persuade you, video social posts receive almost 50% more views than static images

Conclusion

Story ads are a great way to get your business in front of your audience. In only three years the story format has grown faster than anyone could have predicted. Plus, it is one of the least competitive formats to advertise on. This magic mix of a huge audience and low competition won’t last forever though, so marketers that jump on it now will have a huge head start on the competition. Need some help getting started? Schedule a consultation with our digital marketing experts today!

The post 5 Things Apartment Communities Need to Know About Stories Ads appeared first on Conversion Logix.

Winter is a dreary time of year for apartment communities. The days are shorter, the weather is colder, and with the holidays taking center stage during the month of December, searching for an apartment isn’t top of mind for many apartment seekers across the country. While many leasing teams try to weather through the storm with the same strategies that brought them leads and leases in the summer, you came here because you know deep down you need to change your strategy.

Like you, we know that seasonality plays a role in a community’s ability to fill vacancies. We’ve helped communities all over the country to fill vacancies in the winter and we’ve gathered our best tactics and strategies in a winter guide to help leasing teams navigate the slow winter months. We analyzed thousands of apartment marketing campaigns across hundreds of clients to give better insights into the marketing mix, budget allocation, ad messaging, ad imagery, and conversion strategies communities can use to improve leasing results. To give readers a better understanding of the recommendations we provided in the guide, we wrote this blog post.

In this blog post, we share the marketing landscape we see affecting apartment communities in the winter so your team fully understands the challenges and opportunities facing your community in the least magical time of year.

The Challenges…

Most communities invest in a paid search strategy year-round to augment their organic website traffic. While paid search is traditionally one of the best sources of paid website traffic for apartment communities, paid search campaigns aren’t as promising in the winter as they are in the spring and summer. 

After the summer months, online Google searching for apartments steadily declines until it reaches an annual low in December. Searching picks up after the holidays in January and February but remains lower than the spring and summer months that follow.

When looking at lead conversion rates on apartment websites from organic Google search traffic, conversion rates start to drop below average from September all the way into February. When looking at conversation rates specifically in the winter months, December rates are lower than January and February. 

The drop in organic searches that occurs in winter reflects the overall lack of apartment searching during this season. Amidst a drop in the number of people searching Google for apartments, the number of apartment communities advertising on Google stays constant.

As a result, we’ve seen the price of apartment ads on Google increase during the winter months. Higher costs, fewer searchers, and steady competition creates a paid search environment that is less favorable for apartment communities.

The Opportunities…

Social media and display marketing are cheaper in the winter after the holiday season. Cost per click drops on Facebook and Instagram in January and February. January is the cheapest time of year to market an apartment on Facebook. The average CPC for apartment Facebook ads in January is 15% lower than the annual average. December is a slightly more expensive time of year to market to apartment seekers on Facebook. This is due mostly in part to the pool of advertisers running ads in the news feed in anticipation of the holidays. Once the holidays are over cost per click on Facebook drops 20%. Cost per click on Instagram drops 35% from December to January and remains 20% lower than the annual average through February.

Since it’s cheaper to reach apartment seekers on social platforms during January and February, apartment communities’ ad budgets stretch further on these platforms. This increases the volume of quality of website visitors coming into a community’s site.

The percentage of Facebook ad traffic that takes a lead action on apartment websites climb 27% on average from December to January. Instagram advertising conversion rates increase 67% on average from December to January and remain higher in February. More conversions per dollar spent make awareness-building platforms a better investment for communities in the winter months, especially after the month of December.

Creating a strategy for the winter months…

December is a tough time to market an apartment. Renters are focused on the holiday season and aren’t actively searching for apartments online. While marketing to apartment seekers on Facebook and Display networks isn’t at its peak in December, search is at its lowest point of the year, making awareness campaigns a better use of your ad dollars. As other advertisers compete to show holiday ads in the news feeds in December, prices remain higher across all platforms. Once the chimney smoke clears and the holiday season is over, communities are presented with a favorable outlook across social ad platforms like Facebook and Instagram and Display networks.

In the winter, communities get a better return on their advertising investment from channels that build awareness, compared to channels that capture demand. Advertising channels like Google ads are more expensive this time of year compared to the spring and summer and the audience searching is smaller. Apartment communities looking to get the most out of their marketing budget are better off shifting more ad spend towards awareness campaigns on social and display platforms and less on search ad campaigns from December to February.

So how do you build social and display ads that are positioned to succeed in the winter? What kinds of concessions and conversion strategies can communities use to create better winter marketing campaigns?

The post Winter Apartment Marketing Outlook appeared first on Conversion Logix.

You have an amazing website, you have a great sales team, and you are providing leads with a compelling way to engage with your community online, but your units are still sitting vacant. What’s missing and how do you fix it? It’s at this point in the process that leasing teams turn to internet listing sites to bring in traffic. They look to these listings as a solution to their vacancy problem. After all, this is where people go when they look for an apartment, this must be the best place to get leads, right? So you make sure your community posts listings across popular listing sites and then you wait for the leads to come in the door.

If you’ve tried this and aren’t getting the leads you were hoping for or paid way too much to advertise across these sites without great results, know that listsings aren’t the only way or the best way to target apartment seekers online.

In Facebook’s ad platform you can target the same types of people in your local area who are searching for an apartment but with more targeting options, more ad formats and greater control over the cost of the ads and the landing page experience. 

Who Should You Target in Facebook Ads?

Facebook is one of the most powerful ad platforms out there. Not only does Facebook know who is in the market for an apartment, the platform can tell which apartment seekers have a pet, whether they like to eat at fancy restaurants or cook at home, and if they love to work out at the gym. When you advertise to apartment seekers using Facebook’s ad platform you can promote your apartment community using a variety of detailed targeting options across Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook’s Audience Network.

Inside the Facebook ad platform, you can specifically target people in a local area who are searching for apartments on internet listing sites while mixing in all sorts of interest and behavior-based targeting to find the right audience for your community. These are some of the most popular apartment listing sites that are available as targeting options inside Facebook’s ad platform.

• Apartments.com
• Apartment Guide
• Zillow
• HotPads
• Apartment List
• Zumper
• Rent.com

Attributes You Can’t Target in Facebook Ads

Due to fair housing laws, there are several things apartment communities either cannot or should not use to target apartment seekers online. These targeting options extend beyond Facebook ads but Facebook has become one of the first platforms to preventively restrict advertisers from targeting people in a way that violates fair housing laws. Here are some of the targeting options you either cannot or should not use in your Facebook ad campaign.

• Gender
• Age
• Income
• Educational Status and University Attended
• Family Status
• Zipcode (you can still target people in a 15-mile radius)

Get the Best Results for Your Budget

After running thousands of apartment ads on the platform we’ve come to learn what works and what doesn’t. Successful apartment ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram require a thoughtful blend of in-market and interest-based targeting while keeping the audience size and targeting costs in line with the budget a community has on the platform. Targeting strategies have varying costs and some interests and in-market strategies have proven to be more successful than others. As Facebook grows its platform, new targeting options and improvements to old targeting options become available. Advertisers who’ve achieved this level of scale are able to apply the lessons they’ve learned and the tests they’ve run to give your community a leg up on the platform.

While ILS sites often require lofty budgets for advertising and present your ad next to competing properties in your area, Facebook and Instagram give you many ad formats and placement options for you to capture your prospect’s attention and keep them on your website, rather than one that markets your competitors. Facebook makes it possible to reach the people who visit listing sites in a more targeted way while using optimization strategies that help you see better results for your budget. Bidding strategies and conversion tracking can help play a role in getting communities a better return on their ad spend.

The Post-Ad Experience

Once you start generating engagement from your Facebook ad, you can send these prospects to specific pages on your website, prompt them to schedule a tour and add these leads to an email list or retarget them on the Facebook platform. We’ve seen success by using interstitials that prompt people to claim an offer or schedule a tour after clicking an ad. By sending people to your website where you control the post-ad click experience, your community has more tools at their disposal to convert prospects into leads, tours, and leases.

Learn More About Facebook Ads

Whether you need a larger audience or a smaller more qualified one, Facebook’s ad platform gives you an wider array of customization options and offers a more powerful platform for advertising than internet listing sites. When your current traffic level isn’t cutting it and you need to generate leads quickly, targeting apartment seekers on Facebook and Instagram can help your community reach their leasing goals faster. If you’re interested in learning more about Facebook advertising for apartments, check out some of the insights we’ve shared in these blog posts.

Boost Posts vs. Ads on Facebook & Instagram

Carousel Ads vs. Single Image Ads on Facebook & Instagram

Other Ways to Target Apartment Seekers Online

Facebook and Instagram aren’t the only platforms that let you target apartment seekers with visual rich media. Display targeting and YouTube advertising both offer audience targeting options that let you promote your community across popular websites. YouTube advertising makes it possible to target people on YouTube who are searching for an apartment in Google and Display platforms let you target in-market apartment segments that pull in interest, website browsing and search data to find new prospects for your apartment community. 

While Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube offer powerful advertising opportunities, they limit you to the placements within their platform (or partner network in the case of Facebook’s Audience Network). Display advertising makes it possible to reach people on a much bigger network of websites which helps you promote your community in your area in more online spaces and to a bigger audience. If you are interested in learning more about how we use Display advertising to generate leads for apartment communities stay tuned for our upcoming Display Advertising article where we share the industry-leading tracking and optimization techniques we’ve used over the past few years to build superior Display advertising campaigns.

The post How to Target Apartment Seekers on Facebook and Instagram appeared first on Conversion Logix.