Apartment Owners Urged To Stop Chasing Shiny Marketing Objects

Watch whether awareness and branded search volume are rising over time

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Apartment Owners Urged To Stop Chasing Shiny Marketing Objects

Smart apartment owners and operators are pouring money into marketing, but too often they are chasing noise instead of net operating income.

At this year’s National Apartment Association Apartmentalize conference in New Orleans, panelists warned that FOMO, shiny new tools, and vendor hype are pulling attention away from the metrics that actually move occupancy, rent growth, and long‑term asset value. For commercial real estate investors, the message was blunt: marketing that cannot be tied to awareness, demand creation, and leasing velocity is just an expense, not a performance lever.

What Investors Should Watch

Kara Rafferty, senior vice president of sales for Apartment Geofencing, and Jessica Gooden, director of pre‑lease operations at Hillpointe, urged owners and marketers to separate signal from buzz. Gooden said the real distinction is between channels that simply capture demand already in the market and channels that actively create demand for a property. “You need both to sustain leasing velocity,” she said, noting that healthy portfolios balance near‑term lease-up needs with longer‑horizon brand building.

Instead of obsessing over which specific channels produced signed leases last week, Gooden recommended watching whether awareness and branded search volume are rising over time. She pointed to website traffic, tour conversions, and whether prospects mention specific marketing content—videos, images, or stories about the property—as indicators that campaigns are actually influencing behavior. For investors, those are early‑cycle signals that marketing dollars are building a demand moat around an asset, not just buying a short‑lived spike in leads.

When Marketing Becomes a Trap

The panelists noted that even sophisticated teams can be pulled off course by executive pressure, competition, and “shiny object” tools that promise instant leads. Gooden and Rafferty said marketers often feel compelled to “keep up” with what looks exciting online, even when it does not match the asset’s positioning, target renter, or budget. Rafferty added that supplier partners naturally get excited when clients get excited, which can reinforce spending on tactics that look impressive but do not move key metrics.

Rafferty’s advice to owners was to ask one basic question before green‑lighting a new campaign: Does this product fit the property’s needs and measurable goals? If the answer is unclear, it is usually a sign that the spend is being driven by fear of missing out rather than a disciplined marketing strategy tied to returns.

Authentic Content That Converts

Both speakers emphasized that authenticity is emerging as a durable edge in multifamily marketing. Gooden said content that feels real—showing how residents actually live, work, and connect at a community—tends to resonate more and stay top‑of‑mind compared with templated, overly polished material. When content becomes too familiar and repetitive, she warned, it starts to resemble a generic commercial rather than a place someone can imagine living in.

Authentic content also creates a feedback loop that owners can measure. If prospects arrive on tours referencing a TikTok they saw, a short‑form video that caught their eye, or photos that made the neighborhood feel accessible, that is qualitative evidence that the story being told in the market is working. Over time, pairing this feedback with conversion and occupancy data helps investors understand which narratives actually differentiate an asset and justify continued investment.

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Streaming TV’s Growing Role

One of the most investor‑relevant takeaways from the Apartmentalize session was the growing role of streaming TV advertising in multifamily. Rafferty said streaming campaigns are gaining momentum because they extend reach beyond social and search and reach renters where they actually consume content, often before they have begun an active apartment search. “Your ads will be shown on the biggest screen in the home,” she said, underscoring the branding power of streaming placements compared with smaller mobile or desktop formats.

The panel recommended that streaming creative focus less on unit features and more on community lifestyle, neighborhood vibe, and amenity storytelling. Done well, these campaigns build familiarity with the property and its location, which can later show up as higher branded search volume, more direct website visits, and warmer in‑person tours. For investors, that translates into faster lease‑ups, stronger pricing power, and a more defensible position in competitive submarkets.

Measuring Streaming Differently

Rafferty and Gooden cautioned that streaming TV cannot be evaluated using the same yardstick as a pay‑per‑click campaign. Gooden advised owners and marketers to study streaming performance over a longer period—up to 90 days—rather than chasing immediate, last‑click lease attribution. The goal, she said, is to see whether brand awareness, search behavior, and downstream leasing metrics improve as exposure builds, not whether each ad view can be tied to a single signed lease.

Treating streaming like a long‑cycle brand investment rather than a short‑term lead source aligns it more closely with how multifamily assets actually perform. For investors accustomed to examining rolling 90‑day leasing and renewal patterns, this measurement window may be a more intuitive way to assess whether streaming is helping stabilize and grow NOI.

Residents As Co‑Creators

Another notable shift highlighted at Apartmentalize was residents’ willingness to appear in TikTok clips, short‑form videos, and photos used on community websites and social channels. Gooden said more residents are volunteering to participate, giving properties a chance to feature real people and moments rather than staged lifestyle shoots. This not only reduces production costs but also amplifies the authenticity that prospects increasingly expect.

Rafferty noted that many communities are also experimenting with influencer partnerships, though she urged owners to resist the urge to chase either the highest‑priced influencers or the cheapest options. Instead of fixating on follower counts, she said teams should scrutinize the influencer’s audience demographics and overall fit with the property’s culture and renter profile. The panel underscored that in multifamily, as in other relationship‑based businesses, “people lease from people they like.”

Aligning Marketing With Asset Strategy

For commercial real estate investors, the message from the Apartmentalize session is clear: marketing strategy must be built around a tight set of metrics that connect directly to asset performance. Awareness levels, branded search volume, qualified website traffic, tour conversions, and leasing velocity are all markers of whether a property’s story is reaching the right audience and converting interest into revenue.

Rafferty and Gooden urged owners to use these metrics to pressure‑test every new channel and vendor pitch. If the tactic cannot be clearly placed on the spectrum of capturing demand versus creating demand—and if its impact cannot be measured over the right time horizon—it is unlikely to justify its cost in a market where capital is scrutinizing every line item. For investors, insisting on this discipline can mean the difference between marketing that merely looks modern and marketing that actually underwrites returns.

Source: GlobeSt.