Adverank Users See a 14.7x Return on Google Ad Spend

For every $1 our self-storage customers put into Google Search Ads, they get $14.70 back in lifetime customer value!

We dove into our past year of data to calculate a blended average across our entire portfolio, from single-location facilities to 40+ site brands.

Here is what we found...

Listening to Edward is what separates good from great.

We split our customers into two groups:

The operators who lean into the recommendations consistently get more out of their spend.

Why it works

Adverank continuously reads each facility’s search demand, competitive pressure, and lost-impression share, then surfaces specific budget moves through Edward. The recommendations only pay off when they’re acted on and the data shows precisely how much that engagement is worth: a 44% edge on return.

The number behind the number: lifetime value

Here’s what makes self-storage different from most Google Ads math. When people hear “14.7x return,” they picture $14.70 of revenue landing in the same month they spent the dollar. That’s not what this is. This is lifetime customer value — what a renter is worth over the entire time they stay with you. And that changes everything about how you should think about ad spend.

A storage customer’s lifetime value comes down to just two numbers:

A tenant paying $150/month who stays 14 months is worth $2,100. The identical tenant who leaves after 3 months is worth $450 — less than a quarter as much, from the exact same acquisition cost. Same ad, same click, same cost per move-in. Wildly different return.

That’s why a click that looks “expensive” usually isn’t. If a new move-in costs $280 to acquire but stays 14 months at $150, you’ve turned $280 into $2,100 of value. The expensive part of storage marketing isn’t buying the customer — it’s losing them early.

How the ROAS is actually calculated

We credit a customer's lifetime value and compare that to the ad spend that brought them in — for this we set a deliberately conservative attribution. So for any facility:

Notice the lever: every extra month of average stay pushes your ROAS up in a straight line. Retention isn’t a “nice to have” — it’s the single biggest multiplier in the equation.

Let's Look at Examples of Outliers 

The portfolio average is 14.7x, but individual brands range from under 2x to over 70x return on ad spend. Below are the extremes to give you some context of what can make or break your ROAS. It mainly comes down to longer lengths of stay and higher rents! All of the numbers below are for various time frames, max being 1 year.

Top performers

Lower performers

The brands at the top tend to keep customers longer and command higher rents, so every acquisition compounds into far more lifetime value. The brands at the bottom aren’t necessarily running "worse" ads, they’re often newer facilities still leasing up, or markets with shorter average stays or lower rents. When you compare "Company 1" to "Company 6" it is interesting because it's about the same spend, similar average rents, but drastically different lengths of stay and worse conversion rates that result in the hug difference in return.

Keeping customers is a part of your marketing strategy

Whether you run one location or fifty, the return on Google Ads isn’t just about what you spend, or even how well you bid. It’s about how long the customers you win decide to stay.

It can feel expensive to acquire a new tenant. But if you know your average renter stays a year or more, that up-front cost is one of the best investments you can make and it gets better every month they don’t leave. 

Responsiveness to Edward’s recommendations gets you more of the right customers; retention is what turns them into a huge return.

Not getting a 14-16x return on your Google Ad Spend? Let’s talk.