In the digital advertising world, the ground is shifting beneath our feet. Imagine waking up to find that the cost to secure a single click in your ad campaigns has skyrocketed overnight, threatening to devour your carefully calculated marketing budget. For multifamily advertisers, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario but a stark reality. As cities like Chicago, Seattle, and Miami become battlegrounds for visibility, the cost-per-click (CPC) wars are heating up, pushing advertisers to rethink their strategies. But what does this surge mean for your business, and how can you turn these challenges into opportunities?
Here’s the inside scoop:
The Recent Surge in CPC: How a significant increase in advertising spend and CPC is impacting advertisers in the multifamily space.
Impact of Rising Costs: Understanding the dual challenge of increasing costs and lagging click volumes, and what it means for your marketing budget.
Strategic Responses: Exploring beyond simply increasing budgets—innovative strategies to enhance your digital presence and maximize ROI.
Expert Guidance: How partnering with the right digital marketing experts can turn the tide in your favor, making your multifamily properties stand out.
What does the recent rise in cost-per-click mean for advertisers in the multifamily space and how can they combat it?
Setting good marketing budgets can be a challenge. And it can be an even greater challenge when you see sudden increases in expenses. Multifamily marketing budgets can change rapidly month over month, which is why it’s important to think of them as guidelines, not manuals. But, regardless of how you think about your marketing budget, you still have to think about it. Staying on top of trends in ad spend is important for anybody invested in digital marketing.
CPC Skyrockets: Navigating the Rising Click Cost
A recent study by Tinuiti points to a significant increase in advertising spend in the final quarter of 2023. Cost-per-click, a.k.a. CPC, rose 19% at the end of last year. This metric, as the name suggests, refers to the price advertisers pay for each click on their ads. While CPCs can vary drastically across different regions and industries, this represents a significant concern for advertisers in the multi-family space, where competition in major cities like Chicago, Seattle, or Miami can already drive costs up.
This rise in cost is compounded by another issue. While costs have risen, click volume and traffic lag behind. As the industry saw CPCs rise by 19%, Google reports that click growth stayed steady at 8%. In other words, the increase in cost is outpacing the increase in volume by more than 2:1. The same number of advertisers are competing for a similar volume of clicks. While a click may have cost $5 in December, it could now cost as much as $6. That might not seem like a big increase, but when you scale it out, you can see the impact. Spend $50 a day on advertising? Now you spend $60. And $1,500 a month has turned into $1,800. As spend outpaces click volume, multifamily professionals are left wondering how to stay competitive in a space that seems to be growing more and more expensive each day.
So, what’s the solution?
Cash Flood or Strategic Spend? Rethinking Multifamily Marketing Budgets
Spending more money might seem like a good idea at first, but it’s not a silver bullet. Raising budgets can still have a positive impact on performance, especially in a hot market, but it can be dangerous. When advertisers increase their budget, they’re playing a game of chicken. If you increase your daily spend to $100, you hope another property can’t increase theirs to $120, because then you might have to increase to $140, and so on. Eventually, you end up pushing costs higher and higher, but still capturing the same number of clicks and conversions. While Digible has a great tool that can be used to stay on top of budgeting, our company can’t magically produce more money for you to spend. An increase in budget might pay off, but there are other strategies to consider too.
Digital Reflections: Crafting Click-Worthy Conversions
The best way to handle a significant rise in cost is to make sure that your digital presence is as impactful as possible. That means putting relevant and actionable content in the right place at the right time. Digible recommends two different approaches to maximize your spending and get the most out of your campaigns.
It starts with some self-examination. A well-designed website will make sure that you’re turning the clicks you do get into conversions. After all, while clicks can be a useful way of measuring campaign performance, it doesn’t matter how many people click on your site if none of them turn into leads. Updating your website can give you a much better return on investment.
Performance Max campaigns are another option that are growing in popularity. Although these campaigns are most popular among online retailers like Amazon or Temu, Digible has seen significant improvement with clicks, conversions, and impressions among multifamily properties that have embraced this new campaign type. They are a great way to get the most out of a budget, with efficient spending across all Google platforms and beyond.
Future-Proofing Your Ads: Level Up with Expert Insights
As we navigate the ebb and flow of the digital advertising waters, the rise in cost-per-click presents both a challenge and an opportunity for multifamily advertisers. The landscape is evolving, with costs soaring and competition fiercer than ever. But within this challenge lies the potential for innovation, smarter strategy, and ultimately, standout success in a crowded marketplace. Your approach to this new reality can set you apart, turning potential obstacles into stepping stones towards achieving your marketing objectives.
-
Reflect on the significance of the CPC increase and its broader implications for your advertising strategy.
-
Consider the impact of these rising costs not as a barrier but as a catalyst for refining your marketing tactics.
-
Embrace innovative solutions, from enhancing your digital presence to leveraging cutting-edge campaign types, to ensure every dollar spent works harder for you.
And you don’t have to navigate the digital landscape alone. Digible is here to guide you, provide strategic insights, and the tools you need to thrive. Whether you’re looking to optimize your current campaigns or explore new territories in digital marketing, our dedicated team is ready to propel your multifamily properties to new heights.
Ready to transform your digital marketing challenges into opportunities? Contact Digible today and we’ll steer you on your journey of solutions and success for your multifamily campaigns.
