Asset Growth

Founder

Exponential Growth

Signet Science

Advisor, Organic Growth & Channel Strategy

Beacon Digital Marketing

Senior Manager, Search Marketing & Analytics

Freelance

-Comprehensive technical website audits for local businesses and large brands.
-Off-page link building strategy & implementation.
-Keyword research, mapping, & competitive analysis.
-Paid search campaign creation and ongoing optimization.
-Web Analytics implementation and strategy.
-Custom dashboard creation in Google Sheets and Data Studio.

Digital Marketing & Analytics Consultant

Austin & Williams

Analyze, develop and execute strategy as related to SEO. Conduct advanced SEO research using industry standard tools. Create SEO deliverables: Keyword research/mapping, Technical website auditing, On-Page optimization, Link acquisition strategy, Preparation of SEO point of view/decks, Digital performance reporting and Analytics implementation.

SEO Strategist

Advice Media | MedNet

-Created and optimized digital marketing campaigns in the medical industry.
-Web analytics audits & implementation.
-Monthly digital performance reporting to optimize campaign results.
-Advanced SEO tactics included: technical website auditing, page speed improvements, custom off-page SEO strategy, keyword research/mapping, on-page optimization, and content audits.
-Account manager and main point of contact for clients.
-PPC campaign optimization and reporting

Digital Marketing Specialist

I help self storage facilities get more customers through Google. As a business owner myself, I've had to learn how to grow my business without a large marketing budget. This requires being as efficient as possible and focusing on channels that can compound and lead to long-term growth.

With close to a decade of experience in digital marketing and customer acquisition, I've developed a process for building marketing strategies that deliver tangible results. I've used this exact process to successfully grow my clients' self storage businesses and my own business.

Getting new customers to learn about your self-storage services and ultimately want to rent a unit requires a proven process for leveraging a mix of channels, SEO, and PPC. My strategies are designed to maximize your facility's visibility on Google and NOI.

What My Clients Are Saying:
"John has worked with me on multiple projects and virtually every project saw an increase in web traffic and conversions."
“He is able to drive such impressive results. It is a pleasure to work with him.”
“I was extremely pleased with both the work that John did for me and the results that it is bringing. He was very professional, knows his field inside and out, and was an excellent communicator and very patient with me (I am not so tech savvy).“

Signup for my free newsletter, where I give away a new marketing template each month:
https://johnreinesch.com/template-of-the-month/

If you are a self storage operator or small business owner, book a 30-minute growth strategy call with me here:
https://calendly.com/exponential-growth/30-minute-growth-strategy-call

John Reinesch

You don’t “optimize” self storage Google Ads by changing your budget.

That just confuses the algorithm, and you pay for it in lost move-ins.

This operator came to us after months of frustration wit hteir Google ads:
December: They cut ad spend by a small amount
January: Cut more ad spend
February: Paused everything

Why? Because their previous vendor’s only “strategy” was to change the budget.

Up one day, down the next.
No structure. No plan. No learning continuity.

They never tested new ad copy.
Never touched the keyword targeting.
No negative keywords.
Never adjusted campaign structure.

Just daily budget tweaks and crossed fingers. 

We took over in May.

No gimmicks.
Just a structured optimization system designed for long-term efficiency.

Here’s what changed:
-Predictable daily budget to support Google’s learning
-Testing done in the account with ad copy and bidding strategies
-Maximizing low impression share but high converting keywords
-Transparent reporting tied to actual move-ins, not just clicks

And the results?
1) Rentals increased month over month from May through October.
2) Ad spend stayed steady.
3) Cost per rental dropped dramatically.

And this doesn’t even include the phone calls we tracked on the backend.

If you want average results, keep playing with your ad budget each day.
If you want to outperform your competitors, use a world-class optimization system.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned the hard way running Google Ads for self storage?

I help self storage operators get more move-ins.

“It’s just Google’s algorithm.”

That’s what this storage operator kept hearing from their marketing agency as move-ins stalled earlier this year.

New build. Great location.
But the units weren’t filling.

They brought us in at the end of May, worried they were already falling behind lease-up projections.

Here’s what we found:
1) Completely automated SEO approach with only some citations completed in month 1.
2) Google ads were not being optimized; only daily budget changes were happening. No strategic adjustments at all.
3) Zero visibility into what was or wasn’t working, it was always Google Algorithm's fault.
4) And no plan to scale once things started working

In other words… no system.

We deployed our 4-phase marketing framework immediately:
1) Drive move-in volume
2) Lower customer acquisition cost
3) Analyze, track & improve
4) Create repeatable processes to scale results

Here’s what happened next
May: 4 move-ins
June: 6 move-ins
July: 15
August: 17
September: 18
October: 20
November: 20

They’re now outperforming the peak spring and summer seasons, heading into winter with momentum.

The truth?
Most lease-ups don’t fail because of the market or Google's algorithm.
They fail because there’s no system to drive volume, measure results, and improve over time.

If your marketing strategy feels like guesswork… it probably is.
Stop skipping steps. Start following a framework that works.

Let the results compound.

What part of your marketing right now feels more reactive than repeatable?

You’re probably wasting ad spend for your storage facility and your own data could fix it.

Most self storage operators running Google Ads use broad match keywords and just hope for the best.

But what if Google could learn from your actual renters and use that data to find more people just like them?

Here's what most operators don’t know:

If you sync your customer list to Google Ads, it doesn’t just help with remarketing.
Google uses it as a signal to improve how it matches your broad keywords to new potential renters.

We just ran this setup for a client, and here’s what happened in 3 months:

Conversions increased by 50%
→ 8 in September → 12 in November

Cost per conversion dropped by 44%
→ $126 → $71

No change in budget.
Just smarter targeting using their own customer data.

We built a tool that connects your FMS directly to Google Ads and keeps your customer list synced in real time, no manual uploads, no missed data.

Works with:
Cubby
SiteLink
Storable Edge
And more coming.

Want access? DM me, and I’ll send you details.

You’re self storage business is trying to milk a cow and raise an elephant. 

It’s not working. 

This is what happens when storage operators try to run a business for short-term profit and long-term value at the same time:

They pull every dollar of cash out today.
But still expect to grow like the largest operators.
And it never quite works.

Here’s an example of what this looks like:

Two restaurants make $100K per month in revenue.
Restaurant A pockets $70K.
Restaurant B reinvests $70K into a Michelin chef, branding, a better menu, ads, team training, and an unforgettable experience. 

Come back in 36 months. Who is winning? 
Not even close. 

Let's look at another example:
Two storage facilities. Same revenue.

Facility A pockets $70K.
Facility B reinvests $70K into: technology, customer experience, branding, systems, team, marketing

Come back in 18 months.

One controls the market and has created millions in value.
The other is scratching their head, asking, “How are they spending this much?”

The mistake?
Trying to be both a cash cow and an elephant at the same time.

Most operators don’t choose one.
They blend the two and end up with a strange cow-elephant hybrid.

It’s not lean enough to generate strong profit.
It’s not invested enough in growth to build real value.

It’s slow. Confused. Stuck in the middle.
And it doesn’t win either game.

You can run a lean, cash-flow-first business.
You can build a patient, high-value asset.

But you have to choose. 

Which one are you building?

The biggest storage operators are willing to lose money on customer acquisition in the short term. 

And that’s exactly why they win.

You’re only willing to spend $50 to get a $100/month tenant.
They’re spending $500. Sometimes more.

And they’re not worried.
Because they know that customer helps them:
-Push occupancy from 80% to 90%
-Raise rates across the board
-Increase NOI
-Add millions in long-term facility value

When you operate in a low-competition market, you can get away with optimizing for both move-in volume and low cost per move-in at the same time.

But when you're in the big leagues, you have to make a choice:
-Do you optimize for today's profit?
-Or do you invest for tomorrow’s enterprise value?

You can’t do both. Not at the same time. 

One of our clients understood this concept and committed to the long game:
-Monthly revenue grew from $240K → $317K
-$77K in added NOI
-At an 8 cap, that’s $7.92M in portfolio value added.

They were willing to spend more to acquire each customer, because they weren’t focused purely on short-term cash flow.
They were focused on enterprise value. 

They reinvested in:
-Increased occupancy
-Improve autopay + reduce delinquencies
-Fix online rentals & checkout flows
-Increase customer lifetime value
-Improve customer experience
-Operational systems
-Better revenue management
-Increase reviews + improve GBP rank

You can win playing for cash flow.
You can win playing for value.
But you won’t win trying to do both at once.

Which game are you playing?

Most self storage marketing agencies look amazing for the first 60 days.

The real test starts in month 3, and that is where most agencies fall apart. 

They fix obvious issues like GBP errors, on-page SEO, tracking problems, and weak facility pages.

And you think, "Finally, we found our team."

But then month 3 hits.
And everything stalls.

You hear excuses about "Google's algorithm changing" or "market fluctuations."

But here is the real reason facilities hit the month-3 plateau:
-The agency ran out of low-hanging fruit.
-And the retainer model rewards your marketing vendor for doing less over time, not more.

Because here is the part most storage operators never hear:

To stay profitable, the marketing agency has to reduce the amount of work they do for you after month 2.
That is the only way the math works for them.

Meanwhile, as your occupancy rises and competition tightens, you actually need more work, more optimization, more experimentation, and more attention, not less.

It is a completely broken incentive structure:
-Your marketing agency's profit margins increase when effort decreases.
-But your results only increase when their effort increases.

And you can see this misalignment in real life:
-Check your Google Ads change history. It is usually nothing but daily budget adjustments.
-Ask what is being done for SEO. You will get vague answers, recycled reports, and "we are working on it" with no specifics.

Most retainers quietly shift into maintenance mode right when your market becomes more competitive and harder to grow in.

This is exactly why months 3 to 6 are where performance flatlines.

So we rebuilt the agency model. Specifically for self storage marketing.

No open-ended retainers.
No vanishing effort after month 2.
No plateau baked into the business model.

The objective is simple:
1) Increase your occupancy and lower your marketing costs.
2) Build a growth engine where you rely less on us, not more.

And here is the part operators love most:
-Once we hit your growth targets, you pause our service entirely.

We hand off everything we built during the sprint and connect you to our new SEO and PPC software platform, which we created for storage operators that:
-Automates 60 to 70 percent of your ongoing marketing
-Cuts long-term marketing costs significantly
-Keeps your facility full without needing an agency
-Gives you full visibility into what is working every day

You grow, your costs drop, and you are not tied to an agency for life.

Aligned incentives.
No disappearing acts.
No month-3 plateau.

If you want a breakdown of how the Growth Sprint works, DM me, and I'll send details.

Most storage operators are stuck because they are playing two different games at the same time.

They say:
"I want maximum cash flow right now."
"And I want to build a $100M portfolio."

But you cannot fully optimize for both.

And here is the truth:
Either path is valid.
You just need to know which game you are playing.

The Cash-Flow Game:
-Minimize expenses
-Pocket profit early
-Keep operations lean

The Asset-Building Game:
-Boost tenant LTV, reviews, and retention
-Reinvest into marketing, ops, and training
-Accept lower short-term returns to grow long-term value

Most operators mistakenly try to do both at the same time.
And they end up stuck in the middle.

Growth slows.
Cost per rental stays high.
And bigger players start winning in your market.

Why?

Because the biggest storage brands are not optimizing for today's cash flow.
They are building tomorrow’s asset value.

That is why they can afford to spend $500 to $1,000 to acquire a single tenant.
If it fills a unit and those extra customers help push occupancy from 80 percent to 90 percent, they raise rates across the board, NOI jumps, and the facility value increases massively.

A small operator thinks:
"$800 to get a customer paying $100 per month? That’s insane."

But a large operator thinks:
"These extra customers help us raise occupancy, raise rates, and increase enterprise value. We will make millions of dollars in the future instead of a few dollars today."

It is a different game.
Different rules.
Different timeline.

One of our clients chose the long game.

Monthly revenue grew from $240K to $317K.
That is a $77K per month increase.
At an 8 cap, that added $7.92 million in portfolio value.

No tricks. No shortcuts.
Just focus, reinvestment, and clarity on the strategy.

There is no wrong path.
Just make sure you know which game you are playing.

Are you optimizing for short-term cash flow or long-term asset value?

How do you know if your lease-up is on pace or falling behind?

Our new free tool benchmarks your current performance and shows exactly how much faster you could stabilize, and what that would mean for NOI and facility value.

It takes your actual facility data, occupancy, revenue, move-ins, move-outs, CAC and builds three  scenarios:
1) Current pace
2) Better performance
3) Best case

You’ll instantly see:
-How long it will take to hit 90 percent occupancy
-What better performance looks like
-How much NOI and value you’re leaving on the table

One facility we analyzed was averaging 7 net move-ins per month.
The tool showed they could reasonably be hitting 11, with a best-case scenario of 15.6.

That difference could cut their lease-up timeline significantly.

The goal is to get this to the point where it helps identify opportunity, set performance goals, and help you make more informed decisions.

We’d love your feedback.

Send me a DM if you want to try the demo link. Would love your thoughts on how to make this even more helpful for operators.

taplio