Structuring Google Ads for a lease-up vs. a stabilized community
A lease-up needs volume. A stabilized community needs precision. The same campaign structure cannot do both, and the account that filled the building is usually the account that overspends once it is full.
Two different problems wearing the same name
At 40% occupied, the job is to get as many qualified renters as possible to tour before the next competitor opens. At 95%, the job is to replace three or four move-outs a month at the lowest cost per lease, without disturbing a rent roll that is already working. Same community, same website, opposite objectives. An account built for the first will keep buying volume long after the building stops needing it.
The lease-up account
- Discovery over precision. Broad and phrase match on submarket and amenity terms, so the account learns which searches produce tours before you know them yourself.
- Brand defense from day one. A separate brand campaign the moment the community has a name, so listing sites and neighbors cannot collect renters who are already looking for you.
- Performance Max with brand exclusions. Useful for reach, but only if it cannot serve on your own name and report those as its wins.
- Wider geography. Relocation and commuter radii, because the renter who fills a lease-up often does not live in the submarket yet.
- Budget set from absorption. Leases needed per month, times what a lease costs, is the budget. A percentage of a marketing plan is not.
- Concessions in the ads the day they change. A “six weeks free” headline the week it launches, and gone the week it ends.
The stabilized account
- Exact match on proven terms. The search terms report from lease-up tells you which queries produced leases. Keep those, on exact match, and let the rest go.
- Aggressive negatives. Every query that produced clicks and no tours during lease-up becomes a negative keyword now.
- Brand stays on, always. It is the cheapest lease in the account and it protects the renewal-season renter who searches your name to check the current special.
- Budget from vacancy. Three move-outs next month is the budget driver. When the community is full, the non-brand campaign pauses and brand keeps running for a few dollars a day.
- Watch impression share lost to budget versus lost to rank. Lost to budget means money would help. Lost to rank means only better ads and landing pages will, and spending more just buys the same problem faster.
- Remarketing does the heavy lifting. The renter who visited and did not book is the cheapest tour available to a stabilized community.
Side by side
| Lever | Lease-up | Stabilized |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | Tours at volume, absorption pace | Replace turnover at lowest cost per lease |
| Match types | Broad and phrase for discovery | Exact on terms that already convert |
| Negatives | Light, learning | Everything that never produced a tour |
| Performance Max | On, with brand exclusions | Off, or on only for a slow floor plan |
| Geography | Commuter and relocation radii | Tight submarket |
| Budget driver | Absorption target | Vacancy count |
| Brand campaign | On from day one | On, always |
Swipe sideways to see the full table →
Making the transition
- Month one, around 90%. Pull the search terms report for the whole lease-up. Promote the converting terms to exact match in their own ad groups. Start the negative list.
- Month two. Narrow the radius. Cut broad match to a small discovery budget or pause it. Apply brand exclusions to PMax if they are not already there, and cap its budget.
- Month three, at target occupancy. Re-set the budget from vacancy. Pause non-brand when the community is full; leave brand and remarketing running.
- Every month after. Budget follows the move-out list. A stabilized community at 96% that is still spending like a lease-up is the most common waste we find in an account audit.
Questions about structure by phase
At what occupancy do we switch structures?+
There is no single number, but the tell is the same everywhere: when the leases you need each month drop to roughly what natural turnover produces, the account has a different job. For most Class A communities that is somewhere between 92% and 95%. The switch is a series of tightenings over two or three months, not a rebuild on one day.
Should a stabilized community run Performance Max at all?+
Often, but with brand exclusions applied and conversion signals limited to tours and applications. Without exclusions, PMax serves on searches for your community’s name and reports them as its own conversions, which makes it look far better than it is. With them, it can be a useful volume source when a floor plan is slow.
How much should each phase spend?+
Work backward from leases needed and what a lease currently costs, not from a percentage of a marketing budget. A lease-up carrying dozens of vacant units can justify several thousand dollars a month because every week of delay costs rent. A stabilized community replacing three move-outs needs a fraction of that, aimed only at the terms that already convert.
30 minutes, your accounts, your properties.
Bring one community's ad account. We'll show you where spend is leaking and what we'd do in the first 30 days. You keep the findings either way.
The person on this call is the person in your ads account. Cameron Day, owner.