How about better analytics? You can't optimize what you can't measure!

Batul0
Level 4
Berkeley, CA

How about better analytics? You can't optimize what you can't measure!

Hello everyone,

I'm a new host on Airbnb after having been a guest for several years.  It's been a few weeks now and I'm enjoying going through the community forums (thanks for all your advice/recommendations!) and playing with Airbnb's platform.

Here's my #1 gripe though: The current "analytics" data that Airbnb shares with hosts.  Apart from the # of views, there's practically nothing else.

If your home is located in a remote area (practically on the edge of the universe like mine is!) or in a highly competitive area (San Francisco, New York, London etc), you probably have considered/are considering paid advertising to drive people to your listing.  The problem is that there's currently no way to measure "success." Since we, as hosts, can't place tracking pixels on our listing pages, we have zero insight into the anonymized audience makeup that's visiting and converting (booking) with us.  We're basically flying blind.

Additionally, this article https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/994/how-does-online-advertising-affect-bookings also raised a few alarm bells for me.  If hosts are running paid campaigns that are driving visitors to their listing and Airbnb "retargets" your paid visitors and gets them to "convert/book", does your host fee go up as a result of Airbnb's "successful advertising?" My background is in programmatic media, hence these little details.  

Would love your thoughts/feedback and any info. from Airbnb on how they attribute these conversions 🙂 I'm free, let's talk 🙂

Thanks,
Batul

4 Replies 4
Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

I would say a tiny percentage of hosts consider paid advertising and if they do  quite a few will use it to drive traffic to their own website or social media.

 

We pay our fee to Airbnb to see their huge global brand and marketing traffic to drive traffic to our page, so we don't have to.

@Helen3 Thanks for your response! I agree with you somewhat on your first point because it makes sense when hosts homes are in popular, desirable destinations.  I'm sure Airbnb does spend a lot on marketing on key areas.

What I'm curious about and I'd love actual data on this is how Airbnb markets the "smaller" markets, the more "niche" areas as opposed to markets like London, San Francisco etc?  I'd also love any data on how many Airbnb hosts actually use paid campaigns vs just letting Airbnb do its thing. 

To your point even if a tiny fraction of hosts are driving traffic to their social media accounts, there's no way of tracking if they actually "book" on Airbnb unless you ask the guests directly.  It depends on your definition of success for your ad campaign, though.  Driving traffic is great because it increases awareness but getting bookings, aah, that's even sweeter 🙂

Reem6
Level 2
Cambridge, MA

Ok

Sounds great if they could also add up price updates on the mobile phones along with the analytics that woud be a plus point.