In a fantastic addition to multifamily Pay Per Click campaigns, Google has begun rolling out image extensions to Search Engine Marketing Ads. The extension, shown to the right, allows apartment marketers to visually show their communities on the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This is a welcome feature to PPC advertising as the multifamily Internet Listing Service (ILS) landscape has become less and less competitive over recent years due to a variety of acquisitions. Marketers can now not only display their properties on the Google SERP with eye catching headlines and descriptions, but can now show prospective renters what their properties look like during an online search.
With limited competition in the ILS landscape for multifamily marketers, Google Ads provides a proactive and more strategic avenue to generate lead volume for apartment communities. The introduction of image extensions gives Google Ads an even greater opportunity to have a positive impact on lead generation for the industry. Some click through rates for our campaigns at Street Digital Media are reaching over 20% for image extensions. If the Google SERP continues to become more visual, ILSs like Apartments.com and Zillow.com could see welcome online competition in a space that has increasingly lacked competition over the past five to ten years.
Image extensions are slowly rolling out in various parts of the country. If you haven't been notified of this feature by your current marketing agency yet, make sure to bring these up as they are a welcome enhancement to your ads that are seeing incredibly high click through rates.