Do you know how much you are spending on your marketing? If you are on several listing sites are you keeping track of which is delivering the most enquiries, and more importantly, how many of them are converting to bookings? How is your own web site doing at bringing in the traffic?

You should know the answers to these questions because if you don't, you'll have little idea of what works for you and what doesn't.


Set a budget

Your marketing budget could be anything between 3% and 8% of your rental income, so let's say your target is $30K for the year, your overall spend on marketing will be between $900 and $2400. When starting out expect to spend the most as you will be setting up a web site as well as listing on a few vacation rental directories. Once that is in place, the cost of your own site will be limited to hosting and occasional maintenance (if you are not doing it yourself), so the spend will reduce. 3% is sufficient to buy into a couple of major sites and one or two smaller ones, create some print literature, and host your own site. If you plan on a Google Ad programme or buying into some search engine marketing, then you could move up to 5% or so.

Track listing site performance

Create a spreadsheet that lists all the sites you list with, and record the enquiries you get from each one. You'll then be able to see where your conversions come from. Make note of the income generated from each listing each month. You could find that one listing generates more enquiries for low season periods, while another delivers a lot of enquiries but few conversions. You may be surprised at the results of this statistical analysis.

Measure the Return on Investment (ROI)

When you have your annual (or even monthly) figures you can simply work out the return on your investment by dividing the income gained by the amount spent on the listing.

Use a tracking programme on your own site

Install an analytics programme on your own site so you can see how each page is performing; which attract the most interest and which pages seem to drive people away from the site. Setting up goals allows you to collect information on how visitors move through your site and whether they heed a call to action such as a Book Now button, or a sign up form for a newsletter or blog. Google Analytics is very powerful and can deliver a lot of rich information. You could also check out Clicky which gives real time information on site visitors and easily tracks the keywords people are using to find your site.

Make it a mission to keep a handle on your marketing. It's all too easy to let it run away with you and your precious vacation rental income!




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