Understanding what metrics to focus on and what they mean can be difficult. Here's a brief tutorial:

Clicks: 

  • What it means: Your ad appeared to a user, they clicked on it and visited your website. 

Impressions:

  • What it means: How many people saw your ad. One search can result in multiple impressions if they click to the second page of search results and your ad appears again.

Average Cost-Per-Click (Avg. CPC):

  • What it means: How much you actually end up paying for a click, on average. Depends on your bid, the quality of your ads and your competitors’ bids and ads, amongst other things. 

Total Spend or Cost:

  • What it means: How much you actually paid to Google for all clicks in the given period of time.

Cost-Per-Conversion (Average CPV):

  • What it means: How much you paid for each conversion you received (wondering what counts as a conversion? See below).

Conversions:

  • What it means: Respage counts a conversion as someone who clicked on your ad and did one of the following:
    • Called the property (phone)
    • Submitted a contact form (web)
  • How do you measure success? Typically, if these numbers are increasing, you're in good shape. However, there are several factors to keep in mind when evaluating your campaign's conversions:
    • Seasonality: The multifamily industry is greatly affected by seasonality. In a typical calendar year, we tend to see an influx in traffic and conversions in January, then traffic tends to decrease in February & March, and then starts increasing again come April, with the strongest months typically being June/July. Traffic generally begins to subside in August, and this trend continues through the end of the year, with December typically being the slowest month.
    • Budgets:
      • Did you recently increase or decrease your campaign's budget? If so, this can greatly affect the number of conversions you receive.
      • Is your budget too small for the area in which you're advertising? This can greatly affect the number of conversions you receive as well.
    • Website Structure: Being able to easily find information on your site, including how someone can contact you, is important to capturing conversions.
    • Rental Prices & Specials: If your budget is high enough, you're getting several clicks to your site, your website is structured well and you're still not seeing the number of conversions you'd expect, you may want to consider comparing your rental prices and specials with your competition.
    • Increased Competition: Is your rental market oversaturated? Have several new properties recently opened in your market? If so, this may affect your conversion rate.

Click-Thru-Rate (CTR):

  • What it means: CTR is the percentage your ad gets clicked compared to the number of people who saw your ad.
  • How do you determine a successful CTR? A typical campaign starts with a CTR of 1-2%. By adding negative keywords at the start of the campaign, and then constantly reviewing and eliminating irrelevant search terms people are using when they see your ads, Respage clients typically start with a higher CTR, and that CTR typically increases as time goes on. However, it's important to keep in mind that seasonality can affect CTR from time to time. If you're CTR is increasing over time, you're in good shape.