A community association management firm has the strangest customer in this guide. The people who sign the contract are a handful of volunteer board members, neighbors elected to run the association. The people who call the office, pay the dues and write the reviews are the hundreds of homeowners those board members represent. Most association firms' marketing is built for the second group, and the ads only work when they reach the first.
This last bonus chapter is about advertising to HOA and condo boards. It covers who actually writes an association firm's reviews, what the firms' websites put first, how boards choose a manager, what they type into Google, and the fear that keeps an unhappy board from switching. The firms and reviews come from the four association managers in our example set, and the board members' own words come from Reddit threads nationally.
A Board Hires the HOA Firm. Homeowners Wrote 174 of the Reviews, and Board Members Wrote 4.
We read the Google reviews of the four association managers in our set, 301 with text, and sorted them by who wrote them. Of the 190 whose author we could identify, 175 came from homeowners and residents and 4 came from board members. On one firm's listing, 87 of 89 reviews were from homeowners, and none from a board.
The homeowner reviews are about what homeowners deal with: dues, billing, violation letters, how fast someone answers the phone. Plenty are complaints, because a homeowner meets the management company when something goes wrong. The few board reviews read like a client's. One board's review opened with "Our community had been burned out by the last 3 property management companies."
That changes what the star rating means. As Chapter 12 showed, the rating sits right beside the firm's name on a listing card, and for an association firm it mostly measures how homeowners feel about being managed and billed. A board choosing a manager reads a rating built by people who aren't in the room. Reddit board members seem to know it. One board member, writing in capital letters, told others not to lean on online reviews, and another explained why: "A good management company isn't noticed. Nobody ever posts good reviews about their management."
Three of 4 HOA Firms' Websites Put Homeowner Tasks Up Top. None Put a Board Portal There.
The websites lean the same way. Three of the four association firms in our set put homeowner tasks in the top menu or header: homeowner sections, payment links, homeowner logins; the fourth's only resident item up top is a rental application link. None put a board portal link in its header. And none of the four showed a management fee or a per-door price anywhere on the pages we checked, while three of the four residential managers did. One board member's complaint about a bad firm was specific: "they charged us $200 to copy our tax return and $125 to 'store' the document." A board page that explains what's included, and what costs extra, answers a question every board will ask anyway.
That makes sense for daily traffic. Most visitors to an association firm's site are homeowners paying dues. But a board ad sent to that home page lands a board member in the middle of the homeowner traffic, looking for the one link that's for them.
A board ad needs a board page, the same way Chapter 4 gave owners their own page. It should name who it's for in the first line, show the services a board is buying, introduce the manager who would be assigned, explain how the transition works, and end with the proposal request. Homeowner logins and payment links can live in the footer.
Boards Hire From a Short List of Firms Someone Recommended. A Firm Without the Referral Has to Reach Them Through Search.
Board members on Reddit most often describe interviewing several firms, usually ones someone recommended, and some ask for written proposals. One explained where their short list came from: "our HOA attorney had suggested some that he trusted as well as developers, contractors, agents, other residents." An ad's job is to get the firm onto that list, with a proposal request as the first step.
All four firms in our set have a proposal form, and they vary a lot. The forms run 6, 9, 9 and 11 fields; one requires only an email address. One firm's home page puts a "Get a Proposal in 24 Hours" button among its main banner buttons, alongside "Homeowner Login" and "Pay Dues," and its ads promise a "Free proposal in 24 hours." The 24 hours is a strong promise for a board on a deadline, and the page backs it. The word "free" appears in the ad but not on the pages we checked, the kind of small gap between ad and page that Chapter 8 warned about.
For the account, the proposal request is the conversion. A board that signs months later is the real result, so the tracking from Chapter 1 applies: record the request, mark the signed management contract in the CRM, and send it back to Google. A board campaign will produce few of either, and that's normal for a sale this size, since one signed association can bring well over a hundred homes at once; one firm in our set serves 45,000-plus families across 250-plus communities.
Board Members Hire the Manager Who Will Run Their Meetings. "Any Management Company Can Do the Books."
When board members talk to each other about choosing a firm, they talk about a person. We coded 106 Reddit comments from board members and homeowners judging their management company. The most common theme was trust and fit, and most of those comments said the individual manager matters more than the company. One put it in a line: "The property manager is the key. Any management company can do the books." Another described the question they'd ask every firm: "tell me why your key people assigned to my account are the right people."
The complaints point the same way. A board member listing what's going wrong with their current firm named "financials accuracy, poor vendor selection, poor followup, poor communication and a terrible portal." Those are the things a board ad can answer, as long as the board page proves each one: a sample monthly financial report, how vendors get bid out, and a look at the board portal itself.
Two firms in our set already write to boards directly. One ad opens "Board members: We handle finances, compliance & maintenance so you don't have to." Another promises "Clear communication, great meetings, accurate reporting, vendor coordination & technology." The next step most don't take is the person: a headline that names how many communities each manager carries, or an ad that leads to a page introducing the manager a board would actually get.
Almost No One Searches "HOA Management RFP." Boards Type "HOA Management Companies," About 9,900 Times a Month.
Board members search the way anyone shopping for a service does. In Keyword Planner for the whole US, "hoa management companies" draws about 9,900 searches a month, with high-end bid estimates up to about $34.75. "Community association management" draws about 4,400, with bid estimates of roughly $3 to $11, far below the HOA phrasing, which makes it worth testing alongside. "Hoa management companies near me" draws about 2,900 and "condo management companies" about 1,600. Searches for the process barely exist: "hoa management rfp" and "how to choose an hoa management company" both register zero.
Those company searches are what a board campaign buys. Chapter 6 already split them away from the residential owner list; here they get a budget line and a landing page that belong to boards alone. It will be small. Only 7 of the 58 HOA and condo management domains we found in our example market showed search ads in the 90 days we checked, and 2 of those 7 were national firms. That's a thin field to bid against, but it's also a sign of how few board searches a single market produces. A board campaign will rarely reach the 30 proposal requests a month that automated bidding needs, so it stays on Chapter 7's manual bids until it does.
Boards Dread the Switch to a New Manager. The Firm That Explains the Handover Answers Their Biggest Fear.
An unhappy board often stays with a firm it dislikes because changing is a project. One board member described the worst part: "The hardest part of changing conventional companies is having reset up all the accounting, payment gateway and everything for the new company." Another described a board that is finally starting to look: "After 20+ years with the same mediocre property management company the Board will be searching for another company."
That fear is an opening for the firm that addresses it. A transition page that walks a board through the first 90 days, from moving the bank accounts and dues payments to introducing the new manager at the first meeting, answers the question every unhappy board is asking before it will even request a proposal. One ad line pointing to it, something like "We handle the switch, start to finish," speaks to the board that's ready to leave and afraid of the move.
For the same idea in another business that sells to associations, see how landscapers win commercial and HOA contracts.
Owners, Renters and HOA Boards Are Three Different Buyers in One Ad Account. Give Each One Its Own Campaign.
That's the last of the sixteen chapters. A property management account runs two or three different businesses through one login: owners hiring a manager, renters leasing an apartment, and sometimes boards choosing an association firm. Owners, renters and boards each need a separate campaign, landing page and conversion, and each faces different rules. All three launch the same careful way, on owner, renter or board searches typed exactly, with bids a person controls; Google's automated bidding waits until rental analysis requests, tour requests or proposal requests reach about 30 a month. Start with Chapter 1 on tracking signed owners if you're setting up an account, or Chapter 15 on listing sites if leasing is your question. Every chapter is listed on the Google Ads for Property Management guide home, and our Google Ads management page explains how we'd run owner, leasing and board campaigns for you.
