When it comes to 2026 budget planning, how should you be dividing up your marketing spend throughout the whole year? Should you be spending it all during peak season or is it worth maintaining budget during the slower seasons?
Digible has seen the most success in terms of lead volume and brand awareness when the marketing budget is allocated throughout the whole year. What services you run and how far that budget will go varies based on the time of year, but it is worth planning ahead so there is still budget available to continue brand visibility in Quarter 4. We will discuss the importance of this approach later in the blog. In addition to the below recommendations, always keep in mind three things:
- Your property’s occupancy
- Changes in the market
- Levels of supply and demand
- Property location (city/suburb/rural)
- Home ownership landscape
- Your property’s leasing status
This outline will apply most closely for a stabilized property as the lease up strategy will depend on the individual timeline of pre-leasing, opening and stabilization goals.
Quarter 1: It’s still winter, are renters really looking to move now?
Post-holidays, renter demand will start to increase and it is important to get in front of those prospects with a full-funnel strategy.
In fact, Quarter 1 2025 saw over 138,000 market-rate units absorbed, with occupancy improving by 1.2%. It may still be pretty chilly weather-wise in some of your markets but as expiring leases continue, you’ll want to fill units by reaching the available renters. At this time of year, our primary target is renters ready to tour and sign a lease, so Digible’s recommended media mix consists of strong upper funnel awareness strategies, with a lesser emphasis on middle funnel consideration and lower funnel conversion tactics.
January through March we advise that your properties prepare for the rise in demand in the coming months by getting ahead of your competitors in three key locations:
- Showing your digital ads in apps through geofencing campaigns
- Social media with paid and organic posts
- On the SERP with paid search ads and SEO efforts
If properties maintain these services from the previous year, they will be in an excellent position for strategic optimizations since the campaigns won’t be in a learning phase caused by brand new launches or dramatic changes in the budget. We will focus our messaging toward renters looking for a fresh start in the new year.
For example, maybe your prospective renters have health-focused New Year’s resolutions and are focused on exploring properties with gyms. In response, Digible has seen positive results with including your property’s gym photos front and center across geofencing, paid social and performance max ads when those resolutions are top of mind in January and February.
Alternatively, prospects who are more focused on saving money in the new year will respond well to limited time specials where they can get a month free if they sign before a certain date. In that case, we will want to promote the urgency for renters to move in as soon as possible.
Ultimately we don’t recommend “freezing” out your ad spend during the winter as it is a valuable time to build brand awareness, get ahead of your competitors and reach the available renters by highlighting your concessions and amenities.
Quarter 2: When should I increase my budgets to encourage the best performance in peak season?
It’s time to increase our consideration and conversion tactics as we enter April. This doesn’t mean that our total budget needs to spike significantly. Instead, we can move some budget out of our upper funnel awareness channels and into paid social and paid search ads. We have given prospects a whole quarter to click through our display ads and visit our website, but now it’s time to show them more about the property and drive real action on the site.
Through paid social ads, we can show off unit amenities, available floorplans and the property location. Once we have prospects hooked on these details, we will send them to your floorplan page through a paid search sitelink. Here they can explore our unit pricing, size and layout. Then prospects can apply, call the property or submit a contact form.
At this point demand is high and rising as we get into the warm summer months. If you have low occupancy, now is the time to boost your paid search and performance max budgets to secure the impression volume necessary for increased leads. Digible will ensure that all campaigns are fully optimized to our qualified target audience so you can see the desired uptick in lead volume. Remember, we’ve already done the heavy lifting to build the lead pipeline in Quarter 1 so now we can continue to connect with those leads further in their renter journey.
By increasing and prioritizing our lower funnel services prior to peak season, we will be able to continue our conversion-focused interactions as demand surges in our market. This will allow us to maintain a steady flow of traffic through the summer months and help with any exposure from the slower season.
Quarter 3: The cold weather is right around the corner, how can I reach the remaining renters in my market?
The summer traffic is still flowing in quarter 3, so continue the high levels of lower funnel initiatives, maintain your consideration services (like paid social ads) and keep a small amount of budget in brand awareness (ie display ads). This is our final push before demand starts to decrease in October, so Digible will focus on adjusting your campaigns based on what did and didn’t work in quarter 2.
At this point, we recommend leaning heavily into the urgency language and concessions to fill those final units and attract prospects who are comparing your property to others in the market. By highlighting your property’s unique value propositions across all ads, your property will stand out when compared to the local competition. Some of our target audience has already moved, so we want to attract the remaining renters who are still looking for their next home.
Keep in mind, this is not the time to empty out your marketing budget so you have nothing left for Quarter 4.
Quarter 4: Does the low demand mean that I can turn off my digital ads until next year?
We understand that there is a strong urge to pull back budgets October through December when you see your lead volume drop, but your Q1-self will thank you if you don’t! The key in quarter 4 is consistency. We recommend pacing evenly throughout each month and keeping budgets stable during the holiday season. When you significantly pull back budget or even pause campaigns, this will force a new learning phase at the start of next year when renter demand increases again. We won’t be able to optimize your campaigns as efficiently and we will start the year behind your competitors.
Instead of scaling back your total budget, focus on visibility and awareness. Get in front of renters who are still researching their next home during the holidays. As you have seen, these folks might not be ready to convert but come January, they will be ready and we want your property to be top of mind for them. With these upper funnel-focused budgets, we will closely monitor pacing and reallocate budgets across campaigns to prioritize the highest-performers. This way we can utilize your budget as efficiently as possible in the wake of increased competition with holiday retail and e-commerce advertisers. Also, keep in mind that the reduction in search demand is actually relatively minimal, just -6% in search volume from September to December.
On top of that, our Maximize Clicks and Maximize Conversion bid strategies within Google Ads are designed to adapt to real-time market conditions. Therefore, we are continuing to efficiently utilize your budget during the low demand / high competition season.
Are you still feeling nervous about the drop in performance at EOY? Try investing in Performance Max and Demand Generation, which tend to see lower costs and increased engagement even when competition peaks.
For instance, the average CPC for PMax in Q4 2023 was $0.57 with an average conversion rate of 9.97%, while the CPC for paid search averages around $2.01. This fills our brand awareness requirement as well by serving ads across Google platforms, while also encouraging conversions from folks that are further along in their renter journey.
Additionally, if you haven’t tapped into regular SEO updates yet, Q4 is the time to get started! SEO is a long-term strategy where you will start to see significantly reduced CPLs and improved visibility across organic and AI-driven search formats after pairing SEO with PPC efforts for about 6 months.
This puts us into peak leasing season when Google is crawling your website and when demand is highest. By June 1st, we want to present a top tier user experience with fast load times and better content, powered by a clean back end website setup.
Now that you have held a consistent budget, with plenty of brand awareness, it is time to reap the benefits in Quarter 1.
A Strategic Yearly Budget Can Support Your Property’s Goals in Each Quarter
As you are planning your seasonal digital marketing budget for 2026, Digible is here to help!
