Digital marketing for vacation rentals that beats the competition

So your vacation home is freshly cleaned, your keepsakes are stored away, and you’re ready to welcome guests. Your next goal is to turn that wide-open reservation calendar into a full one (and keep it that way).

Digital marketing is the key to keeping your vacation rental booked year-round, and Vacasa’s digital marketing strategy is one of the industry’s most successful. How exactly do we market your vacation rental property? We use two primary methods to put your home in front of millions of potential guests, motivate them to book, and drive more revenue for you—channel partnerships and direct marketing.

What is a vacation rental “channel partner”?

Channels are listing websites like Vrbo, Airbnb, and Booking.com that advertise vacation rentals from a variety of management companies and individual homeowners. Vacasa partners directly with the world’s top vacation rental booking channels. Instead of listing your home on one channel, we list it for you on dozens of them—giving your home maximum visibility across the web.

Channel partnerships allow us to cast a wide net and display your home to many different types of guests, capturing their attention wherever they prefer to search. (This is, of course, in addition to listing your home on Vacasa.com.)

The benefits of partnership

For many vacation rental listing websites (including Airbnb and Vrbo), Vacasa’s close partnership grants some unique advantages for your home. For instance, Vacasa listings are the first to get access to these sites’ newest features.

Our vacation rental channel marketing capabilities put even more power behind each of your listings. Unlike many companies in the vacation rental space, Vacasa-managed homes sync directly with these major channels. Anytime we edit your listing on our end, those changes are automatically reflected everywhere your home is featured—so it’s always up to date.

Exclusive opportunities for Vacasa homes

We're always looking for strategic ways to market to more qualified travelers. For instance, Vacasa partners with Wyndham Rewards and its network of 86 million members around the globe. Wyndham Rewards members can now redeem their points for stays at our entire portfolio of properties.

Some Vacasa homes are also available on Homes & Villas by Marriott International, an expertly curated, premium and luxury vacation rental offering. Homes & Villas by Marriott International only features homes from select property management companies, like Vacasa, to ensure that every home on their site meets high standards of quality, safety, design, and service. Even better? This platform reaches more than 153 million Marriott Bonvoy™ members worldwide, who can earn and redeem points when they book.

What’s included in direct marketing for vacation rentals?

In addition to strong performance on our channel partner sites, we have a powerful e-commerce platform on Vacasa.com. (It's the source of about one-third of all Vacasa bookings—and growing.) An in-house marketing team is dedicated to enticing guests to Vacasa.com, encouraging them to book a stay at your home, and ensuring that guests come back to Vacasa when they plan their next vacation.

Local keywords and online marketing strategy for every destination

Across all our marketing, the focus is 100% local. Every location gets individualized attention, and results are measured on the state, city, destination, and even neighborhood level.

Our search engine optimization (SEO) specialists use local knowledge to help Vacasa appear prominently in Google results. For instance, we tailor different pages on Vacasa.com to over 5,000 different keywords, from “Panama City Beach condos” to “Cape Cod cottages,” so our marketing reflects the popular lingo for vacation homes in your area. Matching what guests are searching for pushes Vacasa to the top of Google results—meaning more clicks to our website, and more bookings for you.

And have you noticed how some links at the very top of Google results say “Ad” next to them? We do those, too. Vacasa spends millions of dollars each year on search engine marketing (SEM) to purchase local paid search ads and draw visitors to our website.

Remarketing keeps all eyes on you

You might be wondering how your specific home is being marketed to guests. Remarketing is one of the many ways we do that—and one of the most effective.

Remarketing involves targeting a user with ads based on their browsing history. So if a guest has viewed your home on Vacasa.com, or other homes near it, we market your home back to them repeatedly across the internet and social media. Our remarketing ads get, on average, a 9 times higher rate of guest bookings compared to our other advertising efforts

Getting personal with email marketing

The key to getting you more bookings is to put your home in front of not just the most people, but the right people. That’s why we aim to be as targeted as possible with our guest marketing and build our own marketing tools to support these efforts.

Vacation rental email marketing is one major way we do this. We send over 1 million emails each week, all of which are local and personalized (with the help of our in-house automation tools). For instance, we can show guests vacation homes within driving distance of their address, or a last-minute weekend getaway idea that’s near where they’ve stayed before. Each guest receives content that’s unique—and more importantly relevant—to them.

Be everywhere, all the time

It’s undeniable: Digital marketing can be complicated and overwhelming. There are endless moving parts, marketing channels, and technologies to manage. Yet, it’s crucial for attracting as many guests as possible to your vacation rental.

At Vacasa, we make it effortless for you. When you trust us with your home, we’ll make sure it’s everywhere your guests are online. The result? A steady stream of reservations year-round.