A 2026 AMA Crystal Awards Winner for Best Paid Search Campaign (Large): How Optidge restructured a broken Google Ads account and built the attribution infrastructure to connect ad spend to signed leases for the first time.
SimplyHome is a build-to-rent subsidiary of Camillo Properties, managing communities of newly constructed single-family rental homes across five Texas and Oklahoma markets: Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Bryan, and El Reno. In a rapidly scaling sector, SimplyHome offers renters the space, privacy, and lifestyle of homeownership without the commitment of buying.
Despite investing in Google Ads through a previous agency, SimplyHome had a fundamental problem: they could not connect ad spend to actual leasing outcomes. As SimplyHome’s VP of Marketing put it, “The lead, that is numero uno for us. Making sense of website traffic, leads, and movements. That’s the whole game.” Their previous agency focused exclusively on vanity metrics, with no mechanism to trace a click through to a signed lease.
The disconnect was systemic. HubSpot and Entrata (their property management system) were not connected to advertising data. Leads entered the CRM with no source attribution. The previous campaign structure compounded the problem: broad national targeting, generic rental keywords attracting apartment seekers rather than single-family renters, and no segmentation between brand and non-brand traffic. For a business where a single lease can generate a significant amount in lifetime value, SimplyHome was flying blind on one of its most important marketing investments.
Optidge audited SimplyHome’s existing account and found critical structural failures: campaigns were not segmented by market, broad apartment-focused terms dominated keywords, and Performance Max was cannibalizing branded search. We rebuilt the account around a market-by-market architecture, with each of the five markets receiving its own dedicated Search campaign, market-specific ad copy, sitelinks, and landing pages. Performance Max was repositioned as a neighborhood discovery tool focused on visual storytelling, with top-performing exact-match terms excluded to prevent cannibalization.
Keyword strategy was anchored in the insight that build-to-rent renters search hyper-locally and prioritize move-intent language. We systematically prioritized terms like “homes for rent in [City],” “new homes for rent near me,” and “single-family homes for rent [City],” while filtering out apartment-related searches through weekly search term analysis.
Each market received tailored keyword sets reflecting local demand patterns. When San Antonio presented unique challenges, the team pivoted to hyper-local targeting around “homes for rent near Fort Sam Houston” to reach military families with a defined housing need.
Ad copy led with the core differentiators that set build-to-rent apart from apartments: space, privacy, and a homeownership lifestyle without buying. CTAs were calibrated for move intent: “Schedule a Tour,” “Now Leasing,” and “Move-In Ready.” Custom landing pages were built for each market with HubSpot-integrated lead forms, dynamic “Homes on Special” components, and location-specific promotions. When SimplyHome launched seasonal offers, ad headlines were pinned to feature the promotional language and amplify it during peak leasing periods.
Optidge built the attribution infrastructure SimplyHome had never had. HubSpot was integrated with Google Ads to trace every lead from initial click through guest card completion, application, and lease signing. Deal stages were mapped to create a visible pipeline from marketing spend to revenue. Working with the dev team, data flows between Entrata and HubSpot were established so lease outcomes could be attributed back to specific campaigns and keywords, a capability SimplyHome’s previous agency never delivered.
The campaign generated 7,425 leads via Google Ads over seven months. Of those, 3,571 progressed to Guest Card Completed status, 123 started applications, and 188 were approved for leases.
Monthly budgets scaled 48% over 6 months, an increase driven by proven results. On the strength of these outcomes, SimplyHome renewed the Optidge engagement and committed to further scaling the program.
For a company that had never connected a single Google Ads click to a signed lease, SimplyHome now operates with full-funnel visibility from ad impression to move-in. The amount of lifetime lease value attributed to Paid Search in just seven months is the clearest possible measure of what that visibility is worth.
This campaign won a 2026 AMA Houston Crystal Award in the Best Paid Search Campaign (Large) category.
SimplyHome is one of many real estate and property management companies Optidge serves. Optidge provides specialized digital marketing including paid search (PPC), paid social media, SEO, and HubSpot CRM integration for growing businesses across Texas and beyond.