4 ways to rethink your marketing budget for AI search

If you already read “How to build a multifamily marketing budget,” you know that building next year’s marketing budget isn’t what it used to be. AI has changed how renters find apartments. That means the way you planned last year might not hold up now.

Take last year’s budget, keep the same sources, add a 5% bump — and you’ll end up with gaps. Things have shifted too much for that. This year calls for a fresh look at where your money goes and why.

Two of our most experienced leaders, Esther Bonardi and Catriona Orosco, walked through what a strong marketing budget for AI search looks like. Their advice comes down to four essentials and one guiding idea: It’s not about spending more. It’s about spending smarter.

Start with a plan, end with data

A good marketing strategy begins with good planning and ends with good data. In between, four things need to go right:

• Sources: Invest where your highest-value leads begin.
• Signals: Prioritize what AI and renters are most likely to notice.
• Touchpoints: Fund every interaction that moves renters forward.
• Data: Measure what drives decisions, not just activity.

Keep reading to find out how you should be thinking through each of these four essentials.

Budget tip 1: Invest in the sources that bring high-value leads

Sources are where renters and AI discover your community. You already know you have to budget for them. The trick this year is deciding which ones deserve your money. A few sources have changed in ways you can’t ignore.

Start with organic search. You used to think of it as SEO, but it’s evolved a lot. The way you approached it last year might not hold up now. Make sure yours covers everywhere you need to be visible, including AI-powered search experiences.

AI engines don’t work like traditional search. Instead of matching keywords to results, they pull from lots of information and generate an original answer. That answer recommends where a renter should look. It’s a different search environment, and it changes what you invest in.

A few more sources belong in the same conversation:

• AI-powered search experiences: These engines generate answers and recommendations for renters.
• Google Business Profile: This matters more than ever with AI overviews from Gemini.
• Reputation and social media: These are search signals now, not just brand-building.

ILSs still matter in the renter journey, of course. But some marketers used to put 80% of their budget into ILS marketing, and that’s starting to shift. More renters are using AI and getting AI overviews in their search results. So, some of that money is moving toward organic and paid search.

It’s a good idea to keep one or two strong ILSs in your budget. Just don’t assume they deserve the same share they got last year.

Paid search is where some of that financial reallocation might go. Pay-per-click advertising and Google Ads aren’t inexpensive. Plan to spend what you’d pay for an elite ILS. The good news? You tend to get a better return, especially when you’re using AI. In a recent analysis of 32 campaigns, using AI in pay-per-click advertising drove 42% more clicks than traditional search advertising. That’s more effective marketing for the same money.

Two more ideas should shape how you spend:

• Share of wallet: Look at your budget today and make sure you’re maximizing what you have. Say you’re spending 40% of your budget on one source that delivers only 10 to 15% of your leads. That source has too much share of your wallet for what it returns.
• Seasonal demand: Occupancy fluctuates, so build that into your plan. Knowing when your dips happen tells you when to spend more.

The takeaway for sources is simple. You can’t just rinse, wash and repeat last year’s budget with a little extra money on top and expect to get comparable results.

Budget tip 2: Budget for the signals AI engines & renters notice

Signals help you get discovered, stay visible online and earn recommendations from AI systems. They help renters make decisions too. These engines reflect the way a customer shops, so investing in signals gives you more for your money.

Think of signals as the online version of a good word-of-mouth recommendation. When you suggest a restaurant to a friend, you mention the reviews, your own visit, the photos you saw. AI engines weigh the same kinds of things. Four of these signals are worth funding.

Visual media

Renters want good photos, videos and virtual tours. So do the AI engines. When you ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, they look for strong visual media across your whole website. That means:

• A virtual tour page in your main menu, not just a photo gallery
• Unit-level virtual tours
• Short-form video
• Photos on your neighborhood and amenities pages

Invest in a program that helps you capture media and syndicate it everywhere it needs to go. Otherwise you’re stuck with a pile of manual work. Nobody wants that!

Content & blogs

Content tells search engines what your property is about. Blogs demonstrate your expertise and authority. Written content is the roadmap that helps engines and renters understand who you are, where you’re located and what makes your community unique.

Today’s engines look for specificity and context, not the same word repeated a few times. Which schools are nearby? If you’re pet-friendly, are there dog parks? The more clearly you answer questions like these in your page content and FAQs, the more relevant you become for specific local searches. And Google is prioritizing local intent. Content also helps engines find and interpret the media you already paid for.

Blogs take it a step further. This is where Google’s E-E-A-T comes in: Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. A static amenities page tells Google what you offer. A blog post like “most requested apartment amenities in Austin” tells Google you understand the market and can speak credibly about it.

Blogs also capture long-tail queries. Those are the specific questions renters ask long before they fill out a guest card. People don’t start with “two-bedroom apartments near downtown.” They start with “best dog parks” or “walkable neighborhoods near downtown.”

And here’s the beauty of it: Although paid marketing stops the moment your budget stops, blog content is evergreen and keeps working for you. If a staff blogger isn’t in the budget, an agency or an AI writing tool can help you produce and schedule content. Here are some helpful blogging tips (and 10 topic ideas) to help you get going.

Reputation

Reviews, ratings and management responses are critical for AI search. Pay close attention to your reviews and respond as a human, not a corporate template. When AI engines evaluate your reputation, they notice canned, defensive responses.

Address the actual review. Be open and transparent. Follow through on what you promise. If you say you’ll fix the broken elevator, fix it. AI tools can draft a response, but a person should review it for empathy and accuracy. A reputation management system makes this manageable.

Social media

When AI engines evaluate a property, they often find the marketing looks great but the real resident experience is missing. You need authentic content, like posts from resident events and everyday life around your community.

Consider budgeting a small incentive to get residents sharing photos and videos. Then put a system in place to create, schedule and post consistently.

Signals are what tell AI engines whether your property is worth recommending. Skip them, and you probably won’t be very visible.

Budget tip 3: Fund the touchpoints that move renters forward

Once your marketing brings renters to your website, touchpoints carry them from lead to lease. These are the experiences that answer questions faster, reduce uncertainty and create a seamless renter experience. They lead to better conversions too. Some need direct budget. Others just need to be turned on and optimized.

Visual media is both a signal and a touchpoint. For example, a recent study by LCP Media found that communities with unit-level virtual tours build renter confidence, resulting in a 2.5% revenue lift.

Chatbots and AI assistants are the other touchpoint worth direct investment. In another study, they had the highest conversion rate of any touchpoint. Renters get answers the moment they need them. If you haven’t invested in one, it’s a smart place to start.

Other touchpoints don’t require the same spend, but they need to be active and optimized:

• Cost calculators: These give renters a complete picture of monthly living expenses.
• Floor plan and unit assistants: These match renters with the best unit for their needs.
• Nudge marketing: This encourages renters to take the next step, like filling out a form or viewing a virtual tour.

One important thing to remember is that traffic alone doesn’t create leases. Sure, a renter can find you through an ILS, PPC or SEO. But if they hit friction on your website, you’ve paid to acquire a visitor without helping them convert.

Our RentCafe websites include cost calculators, floor plan assistants and nudge marketing. If your current system doesn’t offer these, price out what it would take to add them. It may be worth considering a new platform.

Budget tip 4: Measure the outcomes, not the activity

Your best budget decisions start with the right metrics. One of the biggest mistakes we see is measuring activity instead of outcomes. If you have another dollar to spend and you’re wondering where it should go, these are the metrics to weigh:

• Cost per lead and cost per lease: A source might deliver cheap leads, but if they never convert, you’re not saving money. Look at both together.
• Lead-to-lease conversion rate: This shows lead quality. A source with fewer leads that convert at a higher rate can be more valuable than a high-volume one.
• Total rental income by source: Not every lease produces the same financial outcome. A source that attracts renters to premium units or people who renew at higher rates delivers more value. Ask how much revenue a source produced, not just how many leases.
• Average days to rent: Speed matters. The faster you fill open units, the more revenue stability you have. Two channels with the same lease count aren’t equal if one moves people in faster.
• Journey metrics: The renter’s journey isn’t linear. Someone might see a display ad, read a blog post, come back through organic search, then convert through a PPC ad. Credit only the last touch and you miss everything that built awareness. Look at view-through conversions before you cut anything.
• Occupancy trends: Don’t evaluate data in isolation. This industry has real seasonality, so connect your marketing performance to occupancy. That tells you when to lift your budget.

Put these metrics to work and a clear pattern shows up. For example, in an analysis of just under 2,000 properties, combining organic search and paid search delivered the best cost per lease. It also produced roughly double the lease volume of the top three ILSs combined.

For about the same total spend as a single high-priced ILS, that search combination produced far more leases at a fraction of the cost per lease. And those figures don’t yet reflect the newest AI gains in search and PPC. So there’s likely more room to improve. It’s a clear case for treating organic and paid search as a pair.

Two takeaways to carry into your budget planning

Catriona Orosco, on share of wallet:
“At first glance, a budget might feel balanced. But when you evaluate the actual lease production, you may discover that one ILS is generating 15% of leases, while SEO and PPC together account for 50%. In that case, it’s important to think not about how you spend more, but how you spend smarter — reallocate toward the channels producing the highest lease volume and the strongest-intent traffic. You lower your cost per lease and maintain your lead quality. You’re not giving up anything.”

Esther Bonardi, on measuring what matters:
“Success isn’t measured by marketing activity. It’s measured by business outcomes. One of the biggest mistakes we see is measuring the activity instead of the outcomes. When you combine marketing metrics with business outcomes, that’s when you’re really moving from reporting performance to actively managing that performance.”

Spend smarter, not more

Adjusting your marketing budget for AI search isn’t about finding more money. It’s about pointing the money you have toward the sources, signals, touchpoints and data that move renters toward a lease. When you measure real business outcomes instead of activity, you shift from reporting on performance to managing it.

Ready to put numbers to it? Our budget worksheet walks you through industry price ranges for every marketing type, from virtual tours and websites to SEO/GEO, PPC, reputation management and analytics. If you didn’t get your copy yet, don’t hesitate to email us.