Expert advice: Navigating key performance indicators for optimal PPC results

With 87% of renters starting their search on a search engine, it’s critical to maximize your property’s presence on PPC—and find out how you can continuously optimize campaigns. This means understanding which key performance indicators (KPIs) to pay attention to and how they reveal actionable steps you can take to drive more conversions.

In this article, we’ll cover which KPIs to watch and why, core lead sources, and what to do if you’re not hitting performance goals.

Perfect your PPC campaigns by knowing their purpose

If you’re wondering which KPIs have the most insight into your PPC campaigns, start by identifying where they are in the marketing funnel. Other channels like geofencing are ideal for brand awareness, but bottom-of-the-funnel KPIs are of the most importance for PPC ads. Metrics such as conversion rate, cost per lead, and total number of leads generated are the best indicators of search campaign success. Additionally, using Google Analytics 4, you can measure factors such as new traffic generated from the PPC campaign, time on site and the top pages driving user engagement.

Identify your core lead sources

Knowing key areas that drive leads from your ads and having tracking in place (so your PPC ad gets the credit!) is also critical for monitoring performance.

In multifamily-focused paid search solutions like RentSearch., there are two core sources where properties bring in leads:

1. The property website
2. Phone calls to the property leasing office

When a lead clicks through to the website, they are often directed to the Contact Us page to fill out a form. To get rich insight into the renter’s behavior, ensure that your advertising partner or team proactively sets up tagging using Google Tag Manager on your website.

This allows you to track who visited the site from the ad, how long they were on the pages visited and provides other insights to give a wide view of user behavior.

Phone calls are another core source of leads from PPC ads and that activity can be tracked granularly with proper setup in place on both your PPC ads and website.

Call extension buttons on the PPC ad drive phone calls directly to the leasing office. When a lead clicks through to your website before calling in, that activity can also be tracked back to your PPC ad with dynamic tracking numbers in place.

Understand the KPIs that matter most

Continuously optimize your PPC ads with reporting that is most relevant to your property’s goals. Here’s a quick breakdown of the top KPIs you’ll want to make sure your advertising partner or team has access to.

• Impressions: The number of times your ad is displayed to a user.
• Impression Share: The percentage of total impressions that your ads receive compared to the total number of impressions that your ads were eligible to receive.
• Clicks: The number of times users click on your ad.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions, it measures the percentage of people who clicked after seeing your ad.
• Average Cost Per Click (CPC): The average cost you pay for each click on your ad.
• Leads: The number of users who completed a web form or called the property using one of our call tracking numbers.
• Conversion Rate: The percentage of clicks that resulted in a lead.
• Cost Per Lead (CPL): The cost per lead generated from the PPC campaign.

What to do if you’re not hitting your goals

If you notice KPIs are slipping below what you anticipated, here are a few things to note and steps you can take to get back on track.

Take into account The Google Ads learning period. When you first create a new campaign or make significant changes to an existing one, Google’s algorithm is learning how to best deliver your ads based on your campaign objectives and settings. For PPC campaigns, the learning period typically lasts about 60-90 days, and during this time, the performance of the ads may be less stable or predictable.

Watch out for seasonality. Seasonal slumps, like winter months, could be causing a dip in campaign performance compared to high spikes you may see during peak leasing season.

Consider availability. If occupancy is high at your property, low availability could be deterring leads.

Understand your attribution. With significant changes to how users are tracked via 3rd party cookies and with more digital channels and lead sources than ever before, accurate attribution can be tough. If your PPC campaign’s metrics look off, try to understand where there might be discrepancies or potential misattribution.

Troubleshoot with your advertising partner or team. Paid media analysts can help you dig into the campaign data, optimize keywords and target neighborhoods, refine your bidding strategy and more to help improve performance.

Convert more leads with RentSearch.

Award-winning Google search campaigns that keep occupancy rates high, managed by a team of experts trained in FHA-compliant, multifamily-focused ad strategies. Fill out the form below to get started.