Apartments.com visit traffic soars +158% and lowers cost per visit by 41% with Criteo’s full-funnel buyer journey strategy

The Challenge: Generating high-quality leads

Apartments.com is a leading rental marketplace under CoStar Group, Inc., dedicated to connecting millions of renters with their ideal homes. With a comprehensive database of listings and a user-friendly platform, Apartments.com empowers renters to make informed decisions while providing property owners with effective marketing solutions. The company wanted to generate high-quality leads to their property listings and boost site traffic. As a leader in the online rental market, they sought a partner to help them maintain their edge above competitors and achieve their marketing goals efficiently.

The Solution: Driving full-funnel audience growth

Apartments.com partnered with Criteo to use the world’s largest commerce dataset, implementing a full-funnel marketing strategy. They leveraged Criteo’s lookalike audience targeting across upper-funnel prospecting to reach new potential renters. For mid-funnel engagement, Apartments.com used Criteo’s automated prospecting solution to engage warm renters. Throughout lower-funnel conversion, the company harnessed site retargeting to re-engage visitors based on recency.

“Criteo’s elite dynamic creative capabilities, exceptional customer service, and vast media network have been instrumental in helping us reach and engage our target audience effectively,” said Lydia Barnes, Director of Digital Media at Apartments.com. “We’ve worked with Criteo for over a decade. Their proactive approach in understanding our business and helping us overcome obstacles has made them a vital part of our team.”

Throughout the campaign, Apartments.com launched custom dynamic creatives with tailored messaging for varied audience segments, optimized continuously based on performance data. The approach carefully balanced targeting new site users with awareness-focused messaging while re-engaging site visitors with more specific, conversion-oriented content. Criteo’s AI efficiently optimized budget allocation towards both acquisition and retargeting, ensuring optimal performance outcomes.

The Results: Exceeding reach and traffic goals

Apartments.com delivered impressive year-on-year improvements with a 158% increase in visit traffic, a 101% increase in reach, and a 41% decrease in cost per visit. These results highlight significant improvements in engagement, audience expansion, and cost efficiency. Apartments.com successfully attracted more qualified renters while optimizing their marketing spend.

“The results speak for themselves. Criteo’s ability to efficiently optimize our budget towards both acquisition and retargeting has been crucial to achieve our goal of driving the highly relevant renters to our site. Their performance consistently exceeds our expectations,” shared Lydia Barnes, Director of Digital Media at Apartments.com.