Paid Media Case Study

The Metropolitan: A Search + Social Lead Engine That Reached 90% Occupancy Ahead of Schedule

When The Metropolitan came to GrowME, the 430-unit Beltline building needed a lead generation strategy in a Calgary rental market that had just swung from a rent spike to a price war. On a modest starting budget, GrowME built a lead engine across Google Search and Meta that helped the building reach 90% occupancy months ahead of its own projected timeline.

three months ahead of schedule

across Search and Meta campaigns

in estimated lease revenue per dollar spent

Industry · Residential rental, multifamily

Market · Beltline, Calgary

Services · Google Search, Performance Max, Meta Ads

Engagement · Ongoing since December 2025

The GrowMEthod

Two Channels, One Lead Engine

Search alone couldn’t win this. The best known apartment listing sites already own the top organic and paid positions for the exact terms renters search, and The Metropolitan’s starting budget wasn’t big enough to out-bid them everywhere. Working the GrowMEthod, GrowME set the strategy, then built the acquisition and conversion layers around it. Search captured high-intent searchers directly, Performance Max brought back people who compared and left, and Meta met renters where they already spend time browsing, using a lookalike audience built from The Metropolitan’s own customer list.

Acquisition

Google Search

Captures high-intent renters at the moment of search.

Conversion

Performance Max

Brings back shoppers who compared and drifted off.

Acquisition

Meta Ads

Reaches renters on a lookalike of past tenants.

Starting Conditions

Niche / Market

Residential rental, 430-unit purpose-built building

Target GEO

Beltline, Calgary

Occupancy Goal

95%

Existing Lead Channels

Listing platforms (apartments.com, RentFaster, Rentsync), walk-ins

Existing Lead Volume

20-30/week from listings, 8/month walk-in

Starting Ad Budget

$1,500/month

Market Conditions

Rent had roughly doubled the year prior, then softened. No rent caps in Alberta. New competing buildings undercutting on price to fill occupancy.

The Challenge

A crowded, well established competitive set. apartments.com, RentFaster and other listing websites already hold strong organic and paid positions for the exact search terms renters use, and both are default destinations renters go to before searching for a specific building by name.

A modest starting budget in a competitive, high-volume keyword category. Generic rental keywords carry huge search volume, most of it low intent (competitor research and price shopping), which meant every dollar had to be protected from that noise.

Renters don’t always convert in one visit. People shopping for an apartment compare multiple buildings, browse several listing sites, narrow down a shortlist, and only then book a tour, so a single touch Search campaign was never going to capture the full opportunity on its own.

A softening, unpredictable rental market. With no rent caps and new supply undercutting on price, timing and message mattered as much as targeting.

The Strategy

01 Team

A Dedicated Paid Ads Pod

GrowME assigned a dedicated Paid Ads Strategist as lead on the account, supported by a developer for landing page and conversion tracking implementation and a designer for ad creative and incentive focused assets across Search and Meta.

02 Search

A Tightly Focused Keyword Strategy

The campaign targeted the core, high volume keywords for the rental industry alongside high intent location terms for downtown Calgary and the Beltline. Because a term like “apartments for rent” carries enormous search volume but pulls in competitor research, price shopping, and general low intent traffic, GrowME built an extensive negative keyword list specifically to filter that noise out before it ever touched budget. Direct tour bookings via Calendly, Schedule Tour form submissions, and phone calls were set as the sole primary conversion goal, with all other website actions as secondary conversions.

03 Creative

Incentives Built Into the Ad Itself

GrowME researched how competing buildings were positioning themselves and what move-in incentives they were offering, then worked with The Metropolitan to shape a set of offers built specifically for the campaign. Those incentives were built directly into headlines, descriptions, image assets, and callout extensions, not left as something a renter only discovers after they’ve already clicked.

04 Performance Max

Built Around Real Buyer Behaviour

Renters don’t sign a lease on the first listing they see. GrowME added a Performance Max campaign specifically to retarget people who had already shown interest but drifted off to compare other options, bringing them back through other platforms instead of losing them to a competitor mid search.

05 Meta Ads

Meeting Renters Where They Already Are

Since The Metropolitan couldn’t win every Search auction against the major listing sites, GrowME layered in a Meta campaign to reach renters on social media instead of only competing for search intent. Using a lookalike audience built from The Metropolitan’s own customer list, the campaign found an audience close enough to past tenants to convert efficiently, which is what drove both the cost per lead and the click through rate well past typical benchmarks.

Results

Results: Google Search

192 conversions (calls and booked tours) between January and August 2026, from 7.61K clicks and 216K impressions on $12.3K in spend, on a budget of $1,500 a month.
Cost per lead of $64.06, calculated on total ad spend against all 192 tracked conversions.
An average 23% lift in online inquiries during peak lead months, layered on top of what The Metropolitan's existing listing platforms (apartments.com, RentFaster, Rentsync) were already generating.of 0 – no off-site authority
Search-driven leads returned an estimated 97x on ad spend, or $97 in estimated lease revenue for every $1 spent. Based on the building's lowest monthly rent on a 12-month lease, that puts estimated revenue generated from Search at approximately $1,209,600 against $12,300 in spend.

Results

Results: Meta Ads

Run separately from the Search campaign above, from February through August 2026:

The lookalike audience, built from The Metropolitan’s own customer list, is what made this cost per lead possible. Rather than targeting broad rental-intent audiences on Meta, the campaign found people who matched the profile of The Metropolitan’s actual past tenants.

The Result: Occupancy

The Metropolitan reached 90% occupancy before the end of June 2026, three months ahead of the September target the property had set for itself.

About the Author

Abas Omar

Ads Team Lead, GrowME Marketing

Abas leads GrowME’s paid ads team, bringing years of hands-on experience in paid media strategy and optimization across Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, Amazon DSP, and more. He specializes in building campaign structures that hold up under real-world budget and competitive pressure, turning raw ad spend into verified, trackable business outcomes for GrowME’s clients.

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