One of the things self-storage operators love about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is they don’t pay for impressions; they pay for clicks. This means that money is only spent when someone visits your website. The only problem with this is many operators don’t think it’s a big deal if they don’t get clicks, since it’s not costing them money.

The fact is click-through rate is a very important metric for self-storage operators to monitor. It indicates the percentage of people who have visited your website after seeing a paid-search ad. Really low click-through rates create two major problems:

1. You aren’t acquiring new tenants. The whole purpose behind marketing your storage facility is to bring in new tenants, right? If people aren’t clicking, then this advertising avenue is doing absolutely nothing for you. While you may not be spending money, you aren’t going to be making any either. If you’re looking to occupy more storage units, you have to focus on driving qualified traffic to your website.

2. Your ads will stop being displayed. Paid-search advertising options like Google AdWords are how search engines make their money. If you aren’t receiving clicks and paying for their services, they will stop showing your ads. It’s that simple. If your facility has high occupancy now but you need PPC advertising down the road, you’ll have to take extra measures to be shown in search results due to your previous poor performance. This might include bidding extra across the board.

Improving Click-Through Rates

So how do you improve your click-through rate and avoid these issues? Consider the tips below to ensure your paid-search ads are working effectively, resulting in qualified visits to your website.

If you’re running paid-search advertising campaigns, make sure attention is given to the click-through rates on your various ads. Managing this correctly will help you acquire new tenants, reduce the cost of your advertising campaign, and make long-term success easier to achieve.

Nick Bilava is the director of sales and marketing for Storage.com. He has been an active member of the self-storage community for more than seven years and can be found at various industry events throughout the nation. Nick’s goal at Storage.com is to help self-storage operators market their business more efficiently and effectively.