Not All A.I. is ChatGPT: How Adverank’s A.I. Works to Predict Occupancy and Optimize Ad Spend for Self Storage

When most people hear “AI,” they immediately think of tools like ChatGPT—large language models (LLMs) that generate text, assist with writing, create images, format content, answer questions, generate ideas and streamline content creation.

But there’s another kind of AI that’s just as powerful but less flashy and interactive. These types of AI have the potential to change how self storage operators understand relationships between large sets of data, allocate marketing spend, and plan for growth.

Big data requires some big a$$ AI! The AI that powers Adverank isn’t used to help our customers write ad texts, select keywords, write blog posts or generate images. Adverank’s AI is used to analyze large amounts of data to forecast occupancy, predict returns, and help you allocate digital ad spend more strategically across your portfolio. 

Instead of wordsmithing, our AI is learning, growing, and getting smarter every day. Here is how it works:

Learning: Adverank’s AI isn’t writing ad copy—it’s learning. Every day, it gets smarter by analyzing and learning from 90 days of your facility’s real performance data. Things like current Google ad budget, move-ins, move-outs, current occupancy, target occupancy, advertising campaign clicks each day, each week, etc.

Comparing: It doesn’t stop there. It lines up and starts to compare your facility data to 180 days of our anonymized, proprietary dataset we call, the Storage Market Index. This index is composed of data trends and inputs from self storage facilities across nearly ALL 50 states as a way to understand your market in context to the industry and location.

Why do we need AI to analyze that? Think of it like this. Each day we need to compare and review the equivalent of:

• A single sticky note to an entire research library.

• A grocery list to an entire warehouse of inventory.

• A backyard garden to every tree in Central Park.

  
  

That’s the scale needed to power Adverank’s recommendations and it's running EVERY DAY, no need to hire a team of analysts.  Big data needs big AI!

Predicting: The magic comes when Adverank algorithmically forecasts your NEXT 30 days using all this ENRICHED data with a turbo charged metric we call Predicted Occupancy (PO)—your forward-looking occupancy outlook that is always moving and changing.

Suggesting: So NOW machine learning can kick in. PO powers and calculates ad budgets—based on what is predicted to happen—automatically, everyday, getting smarter, and recommending budget increases or cuts to maximize ROI.

Meet the AI Behind the Forecast

Adverank’s Predictive Occupancy (PO) engine uses advanced time series models—specifically ARIMA and SARIMAX—to forecast future occupancy based on your past performance.

Here’s how it works

• ARIMA (AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average) analyzes historical occupancy data over 90 days to forecast what’s likely to happen next. It detects trends, seasonality, and patterns based on:

  • Autoregression (AR): How past occupancy levels influence future ones.

  • Moving Average (MA): How previous forecast errors affect upcoming predictions.

  • Integration (I): Adjusts for data that trends over time, making forecasts more accurate.

• SARIMAX (Seasonal ARIMA with eXogenous regressors) takes it a step further by incorporating external variables—like market-wide occupancy trends pulled from our Storage Market Index (Index). This helps you account for forces beyond your facility’s four walls.

Why It Matters for Operators

This isn't just AI for the sake of AI. It's a real recommendation model that lets you feel confident before spending more dollars, based on real historical industry data.

Inside the Adverank platform, we’ve built an interactive experience where you can:

• Toggle between campaign strategies (e.g., AI Mode, Search Dominance)

• Set occupancy goals for each location

• Modify spend based on predicted occupancy outcomes

• Accept budget adjustment recommendations that anticipate seasonal pushes or improve new store lease-ups

In short, we’re turning data + machine learning into a decision-support tool—giving you the foresight and flexibility to run smarter and more effective campaigns that focus on occupancy growth.