Overview
Apartment List is an AI-powered rental search platform that matches renters with homes they’ll love. By personalizing the apartment search experience, the company helps people find the right fit faster while enabling multifamily partners to attract and retain residents. Founded in 2011, Apartment List features over 7 million rental units and has helped millions find their next home.
Scaling renter guidance in LLM-focused search
Apartment List’s competitive edge comes from their deep understanding of renter intent and tailored rental matches. For years, strong SEO connected their platform to renters researching affordability, neighborhoods, and moving logistics on Google. But as discovery began shifting to AI platforms, their team recognized the need to extend that expertise into the answer engines.
“People were asking questions like ‘What are the safest neighborhoods in Boston?’ or ‘What’s the average move-in cost in Irving?’ directly in LLMs,” explains Megann Sept, Director of Marketing, Brand, and Innovation. Apartment List provided expert answers across their site and content. But sharing that guidance where renters increasingly made decisions required a data-backed AEO strategy.
Based on years of SEO performance data, Megann and her team hypothesized that local, high-intent renter queries would dominate AI-driven discovery. To validate that theory, the team needed visibility into trending renter queries, AI citation patterns, and Apartment List’s competitive positioning.
The team began searching for a dedicated solution that would provide accessible AI visibility data through a user-friendly interface. Because AI Search platforms evolve quickly, the ideal partner would need to provide both analytics and ongoing strategic guidance.
To find the right solution, Apartment List piloted two AEO platforms concurrently. After strong due diligence, Profound stood out as the clear winner for its powerful analytics, ease of use, and supportive team of experts.
AEO Intelligence that validates hypotheses and increases AI visibility
Using Profound’s AEO analytics platform, Apartment List built a structured framework to measure AI visibility and guide weekly content optimizations. This AI performance intelligence empowers the team to execute its AEO strategy at scale.
Identify areas of opportunity
Profound ran a custom analysis of how renters use LLMs in apartment searches and related conversations, providing Apartment List with directional insight into emerging renter questions. Megann and her team then used those findings to inform content strategy and focus areas.
For example, if the data shows that content about affordability and neighborhoods surfaces often, the team creates targeted guides to address these questions.
Understand what answer engines cite
To fine-tune their content mix, Megann and her team use Profound’s Answer Engine Insights tool to pinpoint the sources AI engines cite most frequently. And once the content is live, Profound’s dashboard powers an ongoing feedback loop, accelerating iteration cycles and channeling Apartment List’s understanding of renter behavior into precise optimizations.
Maximize discovery with technical optimization
Leveraging server-side tracking through Profound’s Agent Analytics feature, the team gets a real-time view of which website pages AI Search indexes and how often they surface in AI-generated answers. With that visibility, they refine content schemas and technical site elements to boost discovery and maximize inclusion.
Stay ahead of the competition
Profound also maps Apartment List’s visibility relative to competitors, giving Megann a clear view of market-wide movement. As a result, her team prioritizes actions with high potential to grow Apartment List’s AI presence.
Through it all, Profound’s team offers a trusted perspective through strategy sessions and day-to-day Slack support. Megann gets the guidance to adapt her AEO strategy and build impactful experiments, ensuring renters continue to receive trusted advice wherever they search.
Apartment List doubles AI citations with Profound
Apartment List is now at the forefront of the new search reality. By partnering with Profound, Megann and her team have a data-driven AEO strategy that brings years of renter guidance directly where renters make housing decisions.
- 2x increase in AI citations
- 2 weeks to see initial results
- Comprehensive AEO strategy developed in 3 months
Looking ahead
Looking ahead, Apartment List will continue to expand its AEO toolkit to include Profound’s Workflows feature. The team is eager to leverage it to streamline content optimization by zeroing in on the most impactful topics and scaling wins over time.
