The multifamily industry has long evaluated performance of advertising sources by the number of leads they generate. Digital marketing vendors have not only talked about the quantity of leads they provide apartment marketers, but harp on how the quality of their leads is better than their competitors. With multifamily search engine marketing campaigns driving the majority of traffic to property websites, and typically being the highest source of call volume, PPC has been the centerpiece of most apartment marketing campaigns for the past decade.
In the argument of quality over quantity, Google has made an interesting edits to their "Call Ads," PPC ads that feature a phone number so prospects can call directly from the ad. The change now allows for Call Ads to feature a "visit website" link. According to Search Engine Land, Google states "The idea is to give consumers another way to contact and engage with the business during a time when call volumes are very high and wait times may be long — risking a bad customer experience." For multifamily pay per click campaigns, this should encourage more bottom funnel prospects who are familiar with your brand, pricing, and/or availability to call without clicking through the ad. Thus, your onsite teams will field calls with prospects who are more well-informed and more likely to tour or sign a lease. The addition of the website link to Call Ads allows for more top-funnel prospects to click through and learn more about your property on your community website.
Overall, we don't expect this to have a huge impact on PPC call performance in regards to volume. Ideally, this will encourage prospects to be more informed if they are not familiar with your apartment community making for more efficient use of your onsite leasing team's time.
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