How Self-Storage Operators Should Plan Their Digital Marketing Budgets for Next Year

Tis’ the season! Budget planning season! For self-storage operators, digital marketing is no longer optional or “nice to have.” It’s how future customers find you, compare prices, check availability, and ultimately decide where to rent. But budgeting and analyzing how much to spend and where to spend it, is where most operators get stuck.

The good news? Creating a smart, data-driven digital marketing budget doesn’t have to be complicated. With a clear framework, the right benchmarks, and tools like the Storage Market Index Calculator, you can build a by-facility budget that supports occupancy goals, avoids wasted spend, and puts every marketing dollar to work.

So make a list and check it twice! Let’s walk through how to estimate spend, how to allocate it by channel, and how to adjust it based on your facility’s occupancy throughout the year.

Why Budgeting Matters More This Year

Competition has increased across nearly every market, which means so does the cost per click and cost of customer acquisition. If you think you can just copy and paste last year's budget for 2026, it isn't going to go as far. Even in areas where supply was once tight, new developments and REIT expansions, an increased number of operators competing for digital attention, and aggregator sites have created more digital competition and choices for customers.

At the same time, the consumer journey has consolidated online. When someone needs storage, the first move is almost always a search like:

• “Best self storage facility”

• “5x10 storage unit price”

• “climate controlled storage”

• “Covered RV storage or parking”

If you aren’t present in those moments through search ads, organic listing (SEO), Google My Business page,  you’ve missed that potential move-in. More self-storage operators all competing for the same pieces of digital real estate means…costs per click are going up!

A well-structured digital marketing budget ensures:

• You’re capturing high-intent search demand, not missing it due to lack of budget

• You’re staying visible to warm prospects through retargeting

• You’re using social campaigns to peak interest or promote a special strategically when occupancy is stagnant

• You’re not overspending at full facilities or underspending at low-occupancy sites

The right budget should reflect both market size, search demand and facility occupancy.

Start With Benchmarks: How Much Should You Spend?

Across the industry, operators typically use one of three approaches to estimate annual marketing spend:

1. Percent of Revenue

The most common framework, with ranges depending on occupancy:

• 1–5% of revenue for stabilized facilities

• 5–10% of revenue for moderate-occupancy facilities

• 10–20% of revenue when you’re in lease-up or trying to accelerate growth

This approach scales spending based on facility performance. A good way to ballpark what to spend at each location. 

2. Occupancy-Adjusted Budgeting

This method aligns perfectly with how storage actually works: marketing and occupancy are directly linked. Facilities below target occupancy need more budget; full facilities need less. This method allows you to set a similar starting budget for each location, and adjust over time as occupancy increases or decreases.

3. Market-Based Budgeting

The part that is missing from these other methods is that it doesn’t take into account the market size for locations. Use this benchmark calculator to see what to expect depending on each market tier - https://calculator.storagemarketindex.com/.

If you operate in a dense market with multiple REITs and deep pockets, even a stabilized facility may require a stronger search budget just to maintain ranking.

Use the Storage Market Index Calculator to Project Needs

Tools like the Storage Market Index Calculator (https://calculator.storagemarketindex.com/) make it easier to set realistic, data-driven budgets based on expected costs per click and conversion rates.

How to Use This Calculator

This calculator estimates key performance benchmarks for your self-storage Google Ads campaigns, based on aggregated, anonymized data from real-world facilities across the U.S. 

Use it to see how your campaign performance stacks up against market norms by tier (primary, secondary, tertiary markets). 

1. Select the market tier for the location you’re wanting to see benchmarks for

2. See market demand benchmarks

3. Adjust your locations actual performance data to see how that impacts return

4. Determine how many new move-ins you need to hit next year’s goal and multiply by the cost per move-in to estimate what you may spend to hit that goal.

For example:

• If your website converts visitors at 2%

• The cost per click is $10 on average

• And you need 300 move-ins for the year

Then you’d need roughly 15,000 ad clicks, resulting in an annual search budget of $150,000.

This creates a baseline: a facility-specific budget, grounded in math of historical data rather than guesswork.

How to Allocate Your Budget by Channel

The benchmark calculator helps with search ad budgets, but what about other channels like social or banner ads? Once you know how much each location should spend on search, the next step is deciding where else to invest it. For self-storage, the recommended hierarchy is clear:

1. Search Marketing (Core Budget)

Search drives the highest-intent traffic, the most conversions, and the fastest occupancy gains. 

Why search first? Because customers searching for storage are ready to rent now. If your facility isn’t present on Google, every other marketing channel becomes more expensive and less effective.

Recommended allocation: 65–75% of total digital budget (depending on occupancy)

2. Retargeting & Listing Sites (Supplementary)

Website visitors do not always convert on the first visit. Visual ads of your brand/promo/move-in special that follow those prospects as they browse around other sites (aka retargeting) keeps your facility top-of-mind during their buying decision journey.

Retargeting generally costs way less than search and boosts conversion from existing traffic.

Recommended allocation: 10–15% of search ad budget

3. Social Media Campaigns (Situational / Seasonal)

Social ads can be powerful when:

• Your occupancy is stuck despite using search and retargeting

• Search volume is low and you need creative ways to spark interest

• A facility needs an awareness push (new ownership, expansion, rebrand)

• Need to be front and center during a seasonal event

Social is not a high-intent channel, especially for self storage. But that doesn’t mean you can’t leverage it well to increase brand awareness, spark ideas, promote deals, and retarget those who’ve signaled interest. Think of social media ads as 30 day “booster” campaigns, not something that should remain “always on” like search and retargeting.

Recommended allocation: 10–20% depending on need

How to Adjust Spend Based on Occupancy and Market Type

Here’s a simple framework you can include in your budget planning doc:

Occupancy Under 60% — Lease-Up or High Vacancy

Goal: Aggressively capture demand

Spend: 10–20% of revenue

Where to invest:

• Heavy search campaigns

• Retargeting

• Social ads to expand your reach and awareness, especially if the facility is new

This is the phase where paid search is your best friend. Make sure you have enough budget to catch all the high intent searches in your area! Once that’s established, use retargeting to catch those from falling out of the funnel, and social media campaigns to promote your brand and specials!

Occupancy 60–80% — Growth Stage

Goal: Break out of stagnation

Spend: 5–10% of revenue

Where to invest:

• Search remains primary

• Retargeting becomes more important

• Targeted social campaigns sparingly during strategic times

Use your SMI benchmark to set realistic expectations.

Occupancy 80%+ — Stabilized

Goal: Maintain occupancy and protect market share 

Spend: 1–5% of revenue 

Where to invest:

• Core search budget to replace churn, may not need to focus on maximizing search coverage, but focusing on specific keywords. Lower the budget to maintain, but switch that budget to other locations if possible.

• Retargeting budget can be cut in half

At this stage, efficiency matters more than scale.

What Operators Should Track to Measure ROAS

Marketing spend is only useful if you measure the results. Key KPIs:

• Reservations generated

• Lead → Rental conversion rate

• Attributed move ins (not always possible, but f

• Cost per rental (CPA)

• Return on ad spend (ROAS)

• Occupancy growth month over month

With Adverank’s new tools (including the new Big ROA$), this becomes even easier, since operators can see true ROAS with real rental data.

Software and Automation to Help

The truth is, even with all our best estimates and tools to set the right budget, odds are you’re going to be off. That’s why it’s always good to not treat your marketing spend like a flat number, but as a flexible spend that ebbs and flows with your facility occupancy, market demand, search volume, and growth goals.

When operators plan budgets with this in mind, invest search-first, and use tools like the Adverank, they avoid the two biggest marketing mistakes in our industry:

• Wasting spend as locations become full, sending paid traffic to sites with less inventory

• Not spending enough at critical locations, missing out on high intent searchers 

Next year’s budget shouldn’t be a guess. It should be a data-backed estimate to help you plan and set expectations. 

Combine that with a tool like Adverank that alerts you when you need to make adjustments to those budgets, when to fire up social media campaigns, and reports on your return on ad spend, and you’ve got everything you need to maximize your marketing spend!