The Best Way to Advertise an Apartment for Rent – A Deep Analysis

So, you have an apartment for rent but wonder how best to advertise it.

There is a lot of content out there giving great advice on the existing different marketing channels, but the question about “the best way” is often neglected.

That’s why this article will focus on “The Best Way” in the first place and the different marketing channels secondly.

I will define the criteria for best, do a deep analysis of the different marketing channels in terms of traffic, and provide you with information that influences the conversion rates of your rental ads.

 

The Criteria for “Best”

Most of the articles you find on the subject of the best way to advertise an apartment for rent don’t have their focus on the “best,” but rather on the different ways there are.

They give you many different methods where and how you could advertise, but don’t conclude the best way.

To find the best way, we must first define the criteria for “best.”

To do that, we can return to the three essentials I covered in my article about the 80/20 principle in real estate marketing.

These are traffic, conversion, and economics/your offer.

So, when we look at the different marketing methods, we want to know the traffic it gets or can generate, estimate the conversion rate for new tenants, and use the right offer (your apartment).

So, first, check the different marketing channels and analyze them according to the above criteria.

 

Available Marketing Channels Including Metrics – The Traffic Part

When it comes to real estate marketing channels (actually the case for all marketing channels), you either use the traffic of others or you use your own.

But strictly speaking, there is not much difference between the two.

Because if you use your traffic, you have likely built it already.

You did it either by investing your time, the time of others (in the case of content marketing and SEO), or by having paid for it and retained it by using an email list.

Of course, the email list should also be used in the case of content marketing.

So, the main difference is time, and the question is if you start from scratch or if you already have an established website that you can use.

For the sake of this article, let’s say that you can’t count on the traffic you already have to your real estate website.

In this case, when you use the traffic from other “web assets,” you usually pay for it, but sometimes you can also get it for “free.” 

Marketing methods where you pay for traffic that others already have are:

• Property portals (in our case, apartment rental portals)
• Search engine marketing (e.g., Google Ads or Bing Ads)
• Social media marketing (e.g., Facebook Ads)
• Other PPC marketing (e.g., push advertising, native ads, etc.)

First, let’s check the free and partially free rental property portals.

 

16 Free and Partially Free Property Portals to Advertise Your Apartment

In some way or form, all the rental property portals are free.

The thing is that although you might get a free posting in many, your visibility will likely be suboptimal without paying additionally for advertising.

So, below, you will find a collection of the most well-known ones, which I categorized as free and partially free.

4 Really Free Rental Property Portals

• Craigslist (free)
• Oodle (free)
• Rentdigs (free)
• Rentberry (free)

12 Partially Free Rental Property Portals

• Zillow’s Rental Manager (first posting of the year free)
• Hotpads (first posting of the year free)
• Realtor.com (posting free but commission based)
• Padmapper (free for one rental property)
• Rent.com (basic listing free, but not advertising)
• Airbnb (posting free but commission based)
• Apartments.com (basic listing free, but not advertising)
• Nextdoor (basic listing free, but not advertising)
• WalkScore (basic listing free, but not advertising)
• Cozy.co (basic listing free, but not advertising)
• ForRentUniversity.com (basic listing free, but not advertising)
• ApartmentFinder (basic listing free, but not advertising)

1) Craigslist

Only a few real estate professionals don’t know this popular classified platform.

Should you not know it already, it’s a classified advertisement website where you can post completely for free classified ads in sections such as jobs, housing, for sale, services, items wanted, gigs, community service, and more.

The overall monthly traffic is 351,500,000, with a rental property inventory size in the U.S. of 1,500,000.

2) Oodle

Oodle is kind of a copy of Craigslist and is also an online marketplace. It was founded in 2004.

You can also advertise completely free; the monthly traffic is 1,830,000, and the property rental inventory size is 1,094,237.

The property rental inventory size is 1,094,237.

3) Rentdigs

On Rentdigs, you can also advertise property rentals for free.

The difference between the first two is that it doesn’t offer a wide variety of sections and only focuses on different rental properties.

According to similarweb, the monthly traffic is 697,870. Inventory data wasn’t available.

4) Rentberry

Rentberry is another free rental property platform similar to rentdigs.

Their focus is also on available international rentals and not that much on the U.S. market.

According to similarweb, the monthly traffic is 668,950.

I requested the inventory size from the provider, and they reported having an inventory size of 125,000.

5) Zillow’s Rental Manager

I already covered Zillow in-depth in this, this, and this article.

It is a well-known platform where real estate professionals and independent property owners can advertise their properties.

Zillow’s Rental Manager combines different tools and information to help you manage your rentals.

When you post your rental property there, your listing will be displayed on Zillow, Trulia, and HotPads.

In terms of pricing, the very first posting is free for the first year.

According to similarweb, Zillow gets a monthly traffic of 256,600,000 and has an inventory size of 54,709.

The next would be HotPads, but this platform is part of Zillow.

This platform offers its users a different view of the data Zillow already has, such as, for example, a certain map view with a focus on apartment rentals.

Technically speaking, it’s basically a sort of data filter of Zillow for apartment rentals.

6) Realtor.com

Realtor.com should also be quite well known, and it’s another real estate listing platform providing property for sale and rent.

The only ones able to advertise or list there are realtors and brokers.

So, as a direct apartment owner, you will need to work with a realtor and be ready to pay a commission.

According to similarweb, the monthly traffic is 136,570,000, with an overall inventory size of 202,012.

7) Padmapper/Zumper

Padmapper can’t be mentioned without mentioning Zumper Pro.
It’s a rental property portal solely focused on apartment rentals, and Zumper bought it in 2016 (source).

Padmapper’s mission is to make apartment hunting almost fun.

Apartments are displayed on a big map, and potential tenants can filter them according to their needs.

So since Padmapper is actually Zumper, the monthly traffic for Zumper is 707,130, and the inventory size is 195,479.

8) Rent.com

Rent.com is another rental property platform and apartment search engine.

Its focus is rather on millennials, and it was founded in 1999 as viva.com.

The monthly website traffic is 9,780,000.

I also requested the inventory size from the provider without a response yet.

9) Airbnb

This one is a well-known rental property marketplace specializing in vacation rentals.

Its specialty is to help property owners or people with access to a property who Airbnb calls “hosts” to share their places with “guests.”

Airbnb’s monthly traffic volume is 58,340,000, and the overall inventory size is 4,400,000.

10) Apartments.com

Apartments.com is an online apartment listing website with several other rental property websites as part of its networks, such as ForRent.com,

ApartmentFinder.com, Apartamentos.com, ForRentUniversity.com, ApartmentHomeLiving.com, CorporateHousing.com, After55.com, WestsideRentals.com, and Cozy.co.

The monthly traffic volume of apartments.com is 38,620,000, and its inventory size is 120,049.

11) Nextdoor

Nextdoor’s focus is not just an apartment rental platform but a facilitator to connect neighbors and everything else in the neighborhood.

So, apartment rentals are just one of many things you will find on that platform.

The monthly traffic volume is 121,210,000, and the inventory size is undisclosed.

I requested it from the provider, but the response is still pending.

Although the monthly traffic is 121,210,000, you will have to consider that you not only share this traffic with others offering rental properties but other items, services, etc., from the respective neighborhood.

While this is not direct competition, it’s the same traffic you will have to share.

12) Walkscore

I find quite inspiring the concept of walkability score.

This rental property website provides potential tenants with the classic search function and a particular colored map overlay for the area they are searching.

The different areas are rated in terms of walkability score.

Having the green color means being close to or at a 100 walkability score, and being in the red color range means coming close to a 0 walkability score.

Walkscore is part of Redfin and has a monthly traffic volume of 928,420.

I also requested the inventory size from the provider with a pending reply.

The data generated by Walkscore can also be used on other websites to further promote certain neighborhoods and properties.

For that, they offer a widget you can include on your website.

Can we already conclude which of the above is the “best”?

If we stopped here and only the cost was the criteria for “best,” we could say that the four free portals from above are the best.

But what about traffic? 

What I did, which you might have noted already, is that I analyzed them with a reasonably accurate tool called similarweb.com. 

This tool can analyze the monthly traffic of a webpage.

Where this tool couldn’t be applied, I used secondary data from further research on the web.

So, after having this traffic data, we can just compare the monthly traffic of the different websites and sort out the best one with the most traffic. Right?

Well, not so fast. 

There is also a second step involved. 

You also need to consider the competing rental properties you will be up against and with which you will be sharing the overall monthly traffic. 

So, we need to determine what average monthly traffic one rental property listing will get. 

Why?

Because if you know this number, you can apply a certain conversion rate and estimate the number of leads the particular platform may generate for you. 

And if monthly costs are involved, you can also determine your cost per lead or acquisition.

You will find below-average numbers, so they need to be taken with a grain of salt. 

This is because, in some geographic areas, you might have fewer competing rental properties and thus get more overall traffic per listing.

In contrast, this competition could be much higher than the average in other areas, and you will get less traffic per property.

Or the demand in certain areas will give certain sections of an apartment rental website above-average traffic.

On another side note, before I present you with the results, not all of the above rental property portals reasonably disclosed their inventory size, so I could use it in my calculation.

From some, I could get the inventory size at once (disclosed on their web pages), or at least check each geographic area one by one (kind of laborious work) and sum up the total number of listings.

And here are my results, also including pricing information:

So, from the available data, we can make out two winners in terms of best when it comes to traffic per rental property listing.

In the free category, the winner is Craigslist, with average monthly traffic of 234.3 page views per listing. Zillow’s Rental Manager is the winner in the partially free category, with 4691.4 page views per listing per month. 

 

Advertising Your Apartment With PPC Campaigns

These marketing channels are a bit easier to analyze.

Regarding real estate, you can expect an average conversion rate of 3.4% for Google Search Ads and a 10.68% conversion rate for Facebook Ads.

I already discussed this in my article “All You Need to Know about Real Estate Prospecting Conversion Rates.”

By applying some marketing math, I concluded that you could expect costs per acquisition of $69.7 for Google Ads and $16.29 for Facebook Ads.

You will likely pay this per lead when having a decently converting campaign on these platforms.

Regarding native ads, you can achieve costs per acquisition of $6.66.

Now, let’s summarize this a bit and compare the costs per acquisition to rental property platform winners from above.

• CPA of Craigslist: $0
• CPA of Zillow’s Rental Manager: $0.85
• CPA of Native Ads: $6.66
• CPA of Facebook Ads: $16.29
• CPA of Google Ads: $69.7

You may wonder how I came to the price of $0.85 for Zillow’s Rental Manager.

I calculated the number of leads you might get with the monthly traffic per rental property of 4691.4. 

Assuming an average conversion rate of 1% for real estate (source) would mean 46.9 monthly leads.

The costs per month per rental property are $39.96. If we divide $39.96 by 46.9 leads, the result is $0.85 per lead.

When we compare the different CPAs, we can conclude that you may stay away from PPC campaigns to advertise apartment rentals and focus first on the two rental property platforms, Craigslist and Zillow’s Rental Manager.

You may start with PPC advertising once they are exploited to their full potential.

So, after comparing the above numbers, Craigslist and Zillow’s Rental Manager are still the winners.

How to Influence the Conversion of Your Apartment Ad

Traffic is not everything we need to analyze when finding the best way to advertise an apartment rental.

We also need to consider what influences your apartment ad’s conversion rate.

So, what is it?

It’s applying copywriting principles and the benefits of your offer (your apartment). 

The two are connected because without knowing the benefits of your offer and who (the type of tenants) may benefit from them, you won’t be able to write a good ad copy.

So, we need to prepare before we write the ad copy.

You will first need to do the following:

• Collect or research your potential tenants’ needs, wants, motivations, and desires.
• Research also the pain, hurts, and problems.
• Collect the benefits and features of the respective apartment rental and ask yourself how they align with the first two points.

Some features and benefits are, for example:

• A convenient location (e.g., walkability, close to amenities)
• New appliances and/or energy-star-rated appliances
• Oversized suite
• Open concept
• Modern design
• A contemporary kitchen with granite countertops
• Parking
• Nearby highway access
• Lots of natural light
• Panoramic views or a nice view
• Air conditioning
• Affordable rent
• Friendly neighborhood

This is the rough overview of things you can do first.

There is much more to it, persuasion and psychological wise. 

Some of it I already covered in my article about how to market a unique property, and in my free copywriting checklist you can get when you opt-in to my newsletter.

Further information you also may want to think about is the following:

• The rent and security deposit
• When will the apartment be available
• Which utilities are included
• The tenant screening process
• Your pet policy
• Your contact information

Once you have done the preparation, we can start writing the ad copy using elements of the well-known copywriting formula AIDA (Attention, Interest/Problem, Desire, Action).

For a high-converting rental apartment ad, the anatomy of applying the AIDA principle in a variation would be this:

• An attention-grabbing headline (Attention/Hook)
• Describe the “dream” of living in the apartment and neighborhood and contrast it with the problems you might have found during your research about your type of tenant (Interest/Problem).
• Adding a differentiator (Interest/Problem): How do your offer and yourself compare to other competing apartment rentals or your overall competition?
• Describe your offer and how it solves the respective problem of your potential tenants (Desire).
• Motivate them to act and contact you for an appointment, which is the call to action (Action)

 

Conclusion

So, the best way to advertise an apartment for rent, according to my analysis, is to start with Craigslist and Zillow’s Rental Manager.  

In both, you get a decent amount of traffic per rental listing per month and can create a great listing ad by applying the above-mentioned copywriting principles.

Once you exhaust the full potential of these platforms, you can branch out to other marketing channels with a less favorable traffic volume per listing per month.

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This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.

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