A walkthrough of Adverank’s new ROAS module, portfolio insights, and smarter budgeting tools.
Table of Contents
Overview of the ROAS Module
I’m going to talk about the ROAS module that we’ve added. This is a new feature inside Adverank that you may have used, poked around with, or seen in recent announcements. We’re really excited about it because it helps answer that core question: Is this worth it? In other words, is the investment you’re putting into Google Ads delivering a good return, how should that be calculated, and how should you think about attribution and all those big questions?
Demo Account and Summary Screen
I’m going to jump over into the product now and show you a test account we use called Closet Storage. All of this is demo data, so some of the numbers may look a little larger than normal or a bit odd, but it’s just there to demonstrate different scenarios. When you log in, you’ll be familiar with the summary screen. This is where all of your locations—whether you have 5 or 100—are pulled together into a single report view. This is also where that new ROAS module lives. You can click it to open and expand the view.
Portfolio-Level Google Ads Metrics
You’ll see pretty quickly that this is all data coming directly from your Google Ads. You’ll see the total number of times your ad has been seen in a search result (impressions), the total number of times those ads have been clicked and driven traffic to your site, how many online reservations have been made as a result, and ultimately the metric we care about most: how many move-ins have occurred during the same time period that those ads were running. You can change the timeframe to one year, one month, and so on, and those numbers will update live.
All of that gives you a top-level snapshot. You’ll also see the total ad dollars spent during that period—around $8,500 in this example—and how that translates into cost per move-in, cost per click, and cost per impression, and how all of those metrics relate to each other. Ultimately, the calculator is there to give you this key number: your return on that $8,500.
Attribution, Lifetime Value, and ROI
What determines that return is how many of those move-ins you choose to attribute to being influenced by your ads. The attribution slider starts at 50% by default, but if you want to be more aggressive, you might say that 75% of those move-ins were probably influenced by ads. If you want to be more conservative, you might set it at 25%. For demo purposes, you can even drop it to 10% and say, “Of those 156 move-ins, I believe only 15 were actually influenced by the ads.” You can still see what that means to your business in terms of lifetime value from just those 15 move-ins.
If you hover over the numbers, you’ll see that those 15 move-ins are worth about $55,000 in lifetime value. We base that on your average length of stay and the average rent you collect. This will be different for every location and every portfolio, and it’s pulled directly from your PMS data. In this example, the average length of stay is 909 days and the average monthly rent is $119. We do the math for you and calculate that those 15 move-ins are worth roughly $55,000.
So if you spent about $8,500 and generated $55,000 in lifetime value, that’s roughly a 5.5x return on investment. That’s a really positive result. In general, I’d say anything over a 3–4x return is a good benchmark, because there are other costs associated with that $8,500 in ad spend. A 5x return is a strong industry standard to aim for. And remember, that’s using a very conservative attribution level of just 10% of move-ins. If you slide the attribution higher, you’ll see those returns increase significantly even at 20–25%.
That’s the main new feature I wanted to show you at the portfolio level. All of the familiar items are still on the page as well. You can change what’s charted at the top, see your top five move-ins and move-outs across the portfolio, and all of that data is still available on the dashboard. It’s also worth pointing out that you’re not limited to seeing all portfolios together. You can drill down into individual locations inside Adverank to see more granular data.
Location-Level ROAS View
You’ll probably recognize this view: it’s the same layout you see in the daily emails, with recommended budget changes up or down depending on performance. As a reminder, you can click once to apply the recommendation, or click into each individual location to learn more about what’s been happening over the last month, year, or week. You can confirm those adjustments one by one, modify them, or set a different budget than the one we recommend.
Within each location, you’ll see the Return on Ad Spend module embedded on a new tab, and this is where the ROAS data is specific to that single store. For example, you might see that $1,500 was spent and 13 move-ins occurred. By default, we’re attributing half of those move-ins to ads, but you can decide whether you think it’s all, none, 10%, 25%, or something else. It gives you a directional sense of whether it’s worth spending that money and whether it’s contributing to the overall lifetime value of new move-ins at that facility.
Comparing Locations and Adjusting Budgets
You’ll still see the original data as well—move-ins and move-outs by date, plus the advertising metrics. The clicks you see from your Google Ads campaign targeting that location should match what you see in Adverank, so if there are 62 clicks in Google Ads, you’ll see the same 62 here. From there, you can review other key metrics and compare across locations. That lets you spot specific sites that may not be getting as strong of a return as your total portfolio and decide where budgets or other factors might need to be adjusted.
I wanted to showcase this ROAS module because it’s new and powerful, and to give you a bit of training on how to use it.
Setting Occupancy Goals and Strategies
While we’re here, I’ll also point out a few related features that are relatively new: the different modes and how to set goals and strategies for each location. If you haven’t done this yet, make sure each facility has an occupancy goal set. That goal helps inform the budget decisions that our AI engine is constantly generating for you.
The closer a location gets to its goal, the more conservative the recommendations will become. If it goes past that goal, Adverank will start recommending that you dial back ad spend so you’re not wasting dollars driving new traffic to facilities that are already full. You can also set your strategy—how aggressive, moderate, or conservative you want to be with budget adjustment recommendations. All of this influences the type and size of the recommendations you see in your daily email.
Adverank Modes: Classic, Search Dominance, and AI Learning
Those three modes—Classic, Search Dominance, and AI Learning—are a key part of that system. AI Learning Mode requires about 90 days of data for the AI to learn from, but once it’s ready, it’s our most accurate and effective mode. You can always see which mode you’re in at the top of the screen. If you switch to Search Dominance, you’ll know you’re in that more aggressive mode for that specific location. Search Dominance is built to maximize visibility so your ads show as often as possible when someone searches in your market.
Classic Mode is more measured. It looks at additional data points and incrementally increases your presence to capture as much search as possible without being overly aggressive. Once you’ve reached that 90-day mark, AI Learning Mode will be available, and you can switch to it when you’re ready. That mode uses past performance, your adjustments, and broader data patterns to recommend budgets that are tuned specifically to your portfolio and markets.