If the words “marketing metrics” make you want to switch off immediately, I get it. Numbers and spreadsheets weren’t what drew most of us into hospitality. But this episode might just change how you feel about them — because the hosts who track the right things are the ones who stop making decisions based on panic and start making them based on evidence.

In this solo episode, I’m walking you through the marketing metrics that I think every short-term rental host should have an eye on. Not vanity metrics. Not “look how many followers I’ve got” metrics. The ones that tell you whether your marketing is ACTUALLY working.

We start with your website and why your conversion rate can reveal far more about your marketing effectiveness than your occupancy rate ever will. I explain why lots of traffic with low bookings isn’t always a traffic problem, and what it might actually be telling you instead.

Then we move into email marketing, an area I will always champion because unlike social media, your email list is an asset you actually own. I cover the numbers you should be watching, why a high open rate with no clicks is a red flag, and the single biggest mistake hosts make with their email marketing.

Finally, we get into booking behaviour — booking windows, average length of stay, repeat guest percentage and direct booking ratio. These are the numbers that help you spot trends before they become problems and shape your marketing campaigns with intention rather than pure guesswork.

One quiet week in February does not mean your business is failing. But patterns matter. This episode shows you exactly what to look out for.

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Key Takeaways:

• Your website conversion rate is more revealing than your occupancy rate — it tells you whether your marketing is convincing the right people to book, not just visit.
• Lots of traffic with few bookings isn’t always a traffic problem. It could be a messaging, pricing, usability or trust issue — and you won’t know until you look at the numbers.
• Your email list is one of the most valuable marketing assets in your business. Social media reach can disappear overnight; your email database is yours.
• Don’t just email when you’re desperate for bookings — guests can feel that energy. Build a consistent relationship and the bookings follow, often weeks or months later.
• Booking window trends tell you a huge amount about consumer confidence. Shorter booking windows don’t mean demand has gone; they often mean people are delaying commitment.
• Marketing becomes far less stressful when you stop relying on gut feeling. Track consistently, spot patterns early, and market with intention instead of desperation.

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Is your marketing actually working? Find out with a Marketing MOT with Sarah

This intensive 2.5-hour Zoom session is a full audit of your current marketing capability and KPI performance. We discuss your goals, and I advise on immediate improvements to get you there quicker. You receive a video recording of the call and an Action Plan with next steps to keep you on track.

Find out more and book your Marketing MOT here

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Do you have a marketing roadmap for your business?

No more winging it and feeling like you are in constant marketing chaos! Create your easy-to-follow marketing roadmap for the year ahead. My Direct Bookings Bootcamp is now available ON DEMAND! Let’s make this the best year yet for direct bookings! Head to my website for more info.

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What would you do with an extra £20k+ in your holiday business?

I've saved £100k in commission in 5 years by taking 100% direct bookings and now I show Airbnb hosts, holiday cottage and glampsite owners how to do the same.

It is easier than you think to move to 70%+ direct bookings.

If you currently rely on Airbnb or another online agent (OTA), take Sarah's FREE quiz here - it's time to give them the boot!

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You're listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard. Are you ready to master your marketing so you can ditch your reliance on the online agents and grow your direct bookings?

I'll be sharing with you exactly what it takes to grow your direct bookings and the simple marketing steps to get more profit in your pocket. Hi and welcome back.

And thank you for joining me for another episode of the Get Fully Booked podcast, the show where I help holiday cottage and Glampsite owners, Airbnb hosts, and boutique hospitality businesses get more bookings, better guests, and build businesses that actually feel sustainable and fun to run. Now, today's topic sounds a little dry on paper. I'm going to talk about marketing metrics. I know riveting stuff.

It's going to make you all want to go to sleep. You're probably thinking, sarah, I didn't get into hospitality because I love spreadsheets. But stick with me because this episode is super important.

Because so many hosts are making marketing decisions based on vibes or what some other host told them in a Facebook group. They're throwing posts on Instagram, boosting random Facebook posts, panicking when bookings dip, or celebrating when a reel gets 2,000 views.

But they're not actually measuring the things that matter. And the problem with that is that you can't improve what you don't monitor.

The hosts who stay calm during the quieter periods, the ones who grow sustainably. They're usually looking at numbers consistently. Not obsessively, but strategically. They know their numbers.

So today I'm breaking down the key marketing metrics I think every short term rental owner should be paying attention to, not vanity metrics. Check out episode 24 where I talk about that. Not look at me, I went viral Metrics actually useful marketing metrics.

We're going to cover which numbers matter most, what those numbers are actually telling you, and how to avoid making emotional business decisions based on one quiet week in February. So grab a coffee, walk the dog, do a changeover and clean that hot tub, whatever you're doing while listening. Let's get into it.

But before we dive in, I thought I'd share an interesting thought for you. Most hospitality business owners know their occupancy rate, but very few that I talk to actually know their website conversion rate.

And yet your website conversion rate can often tell you more about your marketing effectiveness than occupancy alone. So if you're just constantly studying that occupancy percentage, this is an episode for you.

Because occupancy can be influenced by seasonality, pricing, weather, the mad economy and geopolitical stuff that's going on at the moment. School holidays, Coldplay, concerts.

Honestly, anything but your conversion rate that tells you whether your marketing and website are actually convincing people to book. And I think that's such a much more important mindset shift than just looking at occupancy.

Because good marketing isn't just getting seen, it's getting the right people to take action. So let's start with my first point about your website.

Because if you have your own direct booking website, which I highly recommend, then your website is basically your digital salesperson. It is your digital shop front, like having a bricks and mortar store.

And like any salesperson or a shop, if you had a retail shop on a high street, you want to know how many people are coming through the door, where they came from, and whether they actually bought anything. So the first metric I want you to monitor is your website traffic. How many people are visiting your website every month?

Now, this on its own doesn't mean much because, you know, 10,000 random visitors who never book are less valuable than say, a thousand or five hundred highly targeted visitors that are ready to travel. So we can all grow our traffic through. We could have a social post that goes viral, we could do a competition.

We can buy traffic by doing things like ads. But ultimately we've got to make sure we get the right people to come to the website.

So I don't want you to get hung up on massive numbers, but instead ask yourself, is that traffic level growing? And I'll talk a little bit more about traffic and, and why it's important for conversion as well.

But you need to understand, like, where your traffic's coming from and which sources, which channels are working for you because ultimately that shows you what marketing's working.

So, for example, organic search traffic, so people who are searching on Google, is it coming from Instagram, email marketing, Pinterest, referral traffic from those advertising listings that you've paid handsomely for? Did you get some PR features that are still driving traffic to your website now? And maybe they featured some months ago. You're writing blogs.

Are the blogs actually getting picked up and driving traffic? This tells you where your efforts, your marketing efforts are paying off. And that is vital.

Then there's a really important metric to look at alongside your website traffic, which is your conversion rate. So this is the percentage of people who visit your site and actually make an inquiry or a booking. And honestly, this metric is the gold standard.

This is what we're really interested in. Because if loads of people visit but nobody books.

You don't necessarily have a traffic problem, although that often is a huge issue for most business owners. I help, and I'm going to do a separate podcast episode on that. But you may have a messaging problem, so you're not connecting.

So the people that are coming to your site, they might be the wrong guests that you're attracting through your marketing activity, whether that's on social or your listings.

But you may also then have a messaging problem when they actually reach the website that you're not connecting with them, and they're then bouncing back to wherever they've come from because they don't like the look of it. It's not creating that connection. You may have a pricing problem. Your website may be an absolute nightmare to use, so you've got a usability problem.

Your photography might be switching people off. Your navigation might be making it difficult for people, particularly when you look at it on a mobile.

And it's amazing how many hosts do not look at their websites on a mobile. And then when you actually try and navigate it on a mobile, it's a nightmare. So it's no wonder that nobody books.

Or you could just have really poor trust signals. So people, when they come to the site, they're not feeling confident to book.

And maybe they bounce back and go and book via Airbnb or booking.com or VRBO, because someone like Canopy and Stars, because they just didn't get the right vibe in terms of trusting you and feeling like you look legitimate, so they're going to try and find you somewhere else to make sure that, you know their booking is safe. Maybe your site is, you know, absolutely stunning, but, as I said, is impossible to use on a mobile.

Maybe your availability calendar is clunky, it's so hard to actually book with it that nobody bothers.

Maybe your copy talks endlessly about how fully equipped the kitchen is and the Egyptian cotton thread count and the sheets, instead of the actual emotional outcome that people want, which actually, you know, what are people looking for? Like, we finally switched off for the first time in months. That's how it makes them feel.

They're not necessarily interested in all of the amenities and everything being listed out. The actual emotion is what sells a healthy website. Conversion rate for hospitality varies massively, but it is typically around only 1%.

So you always need traffic first to convert, and I'm going to talk about that more in episode 56. But even improving your conversion rate slightly can make a huge financial difference over the year, and that's why the tracking matters.

Because you need to understand where you're at currently. Because without numbers you are simply guessing. My second point, I want to talk about lead generation and email marketing.

So I think this is the second area that most hosts massively underestimate and email marketing. I am, you know, I will literally die on my sword for how important email marketing is.

And yet so few short term rental business owners actually consistently do it. But your email list is one of the most valuable assets in your business and for me it's the second most important one after your website.

Always without a shadow of a doubt. Social media followers you don't own those algorithms can change overnight.

My club members were talking to me today about, you know, how difficult it is on Instagram right now. That's not going to change anytime soon. Your reach can disappear overnight, but your email database, that's your audience.

So here are the metrics I'd watch closely. You want to look at how quickly your email list is growing. Are you consistently growing your database? It doesn't have to be rapid, just slow.

Steady progress wins the race. So if you're getting sort of 50 to 100 subscribers every month across the year, that adds up. And every new subscriber is a potential future guest.

If your list has been stuck at the same number for about 18 months, there's work for you to do. You should constantly be thinking, how can I capture more email addresses?

So maybe through a first stay incentive for sign up, maybe you'll do a winner stay or a gift voucher. Monthly or annual draw. Having a pop up definitely boosts your conversions. You can try things like gated WI fi signups.

Obviously you've got your guest welcome guide. You could put a QR code on the wall. You could put links in some of your blog content. That's getting lots of traffic.

I talked about lots of ideas on this in episode four, so do go and check that one out. But once you've looked at your email list growth, you then also need to monitor if you're actually doing the email campaigns themselves.

And don't call them newsletters. You're doing your campaigns. You need to actually look at your open rate. So are people actually opening your emails?

Because if they, your subject lines probably need a bit of attention. Maybe you're emailing too often or not often enough. You know, sending an email every six months is not going to cut the mustard.

Hospitality emails should feel exciting, inspiring and should communicate to the reader what's in it for them to give you an idea. A typical open rate in our sector is around 25 to sort of 30%. So have a look at your numbers and see how you're stacking up.

The next thing on your email marketing you need to consider is your click through rates, sometimes called the CTR are people clicking through to your website because this tells you whether your content is compelling enough to actually make them take action.

So a high open rate with no clicks usually means that you had an interesting headline that got their attention and made them open it, but the content was somewhat underwhelming once they got in there. Or possibly you have not sort of given them clear calls to action in terms of what you wanted them to do.

Or maybe you even put too much information in there and you overwhelmed them and they didn't read it. So the one thing I always tell hosts is don't just email.

When you're desperate for bookings, people can feel that energy, build a relationship and keep that consistency. You need to make people want to stay emotionally connected to your brand.

And even if they're not ready to book a stay at that point, you want them to feel like in interested to open your emails and sort of know that when they do, they're going to read something that actually, even if they're not ready to stay, actually interests them and doesn't bore them to tears. Because often the bookings happen weeks or months later. It's not just immediately on sending that one campaign.

People always get very just my members sometimes say to me they get very disappointed. They'll send a campaign and say, but I didn't get any bookings. Someone might not open that email for two weeks.

And it's also consistent action over time that actually results in the bookings coming in. Okay, my last point is understanding what's going on in the market. So booking trends, customer behavior, that's really, really important.

And it's where it gets really interesting because this is where you can stop reacting emotionally to every little fluctuation in bookings. You need to monitor the trends, not isolated moments in your business. You know, one quiet week does not mean your business is failing.

But booking patterns do matter. And here are a few key metrics I'd monitor. So I'd look at the booking window. So how far in advance are guests booking?

Because this tells you so much about consumer confidence and behavior and boy, is it wobbly right now in the UK and many countries around the globe. And it's not surprising when you look at what's going on in the world.

So if your midweek demand is looking weak, maybe you promote remote working stays.

You target people who actually can take time out, maybe they're retired and they can take time out during the week to travel or do some promotional activity like four nights for the price of three. Better to get that three night booking than nothing at all. If couples dominate your audience, lean into the romance, relaxation, escapism.

Your data should influence your marketing activity. Also look at your repeat guest percentage, because for me this one is huge. How many guests return?

Because repeat bookings are always cheaper to acquire than brand new customers. And honestly, a strong repeat guest rate often signals a great guest experience, strong brand identity.

You've created that emotional connection and you're being effective in your follow up marketing. If nobody returns, that's worth investigating too.

But interestingly, we find at the Hideout, our treehouse, that we have a very low repeat guest stay rate. I'd say it's less than 10% because actually we tend to lead. Our stays are all about special occasion led.

And if someone comes to us for their honeymoon, they maybe aren't necessarily planning to come back like next year for exactly the same stay. They may come back if it's a birthday stay, but we tend to get people coming for milestone birthdays and therefore they do tend to come back.

You know, they come for that one birthday, whether it's their 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th they're not necessarily going to come back every year. And finally, I would look at your direct booking ratio. So how many bookings are coming direct versus the OTAs?

Because over time you want your direct booking percentage to increase. And you know me, it's not because the OTAs are evil. They can be great for getting you visibility, but they absolutely control your business.

And you want to have the direct bookings to give you better margins, more customer ownership, more control and better long term resilience. You're less reliant on them if things change and your marketing should ultimately support that goal.

So just to recap, the key metrics I've talked about that I think every short term rental host should monitor our website traffic and conversion rates, email marketing and your audience growth and booking behavior and customer trends. And the big takeaway here is this that metrics are not there to make you panic. They're here to help you make better, smarter decisions.

Because marketing becomes far less stressful when you stop relying on just your gut feeling alone or posting like emergency messages in Facebook groups and asking other hosts for their advice.

You start spotting patterns earlier and you become more proactive to do marketing that meets your commercial business needs, not just for the sake of it. You're doing this because you have a business need. You market your business with intention instead of a knee jerk reaction or desperation.

And honestly, that shift changes everything.

If you want more support with understanding your marketing metrics because this is all gobbledygook to you and you want to see how your business can improve, do take a look at my marketing MOT option.

I can do an in depth business and marketing health check for you so we can start pulling things around quicker and I can show you exactly what you need to focus on to improve your business performance. Thank you for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, you know what to do.

I'd love it if you could leave me a review because you know how much us hosts love those five star reviews.

Next week I'm back with a wonderful guest in an episode where we look at the decision to buy a holiday cottage business when you have never done it before. Nikki Cooper from Tredarup Farm Holiday Cottages will be sharing her steep learning curve in the first three months of ownership.

It's a really great conversation with I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

If you want to see if you are ready to ditch the likes of Airbnb and grow your direct bookings, put your business to the test with my free direct booking Roadmap quiz. Head to my website, get fully booked.com quiz and let's get you more direct bookings and more profit in your pocket.