Preparing for the travel rebound: Airbnb goes full funnel

Airbnb is revising its marketing strategy after discovering that cutting most of its marketing spend when the pandemic struck had little effect on the number of visitors to its site. 

Performance marketing will be cut back

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, the vacation rental marketplace pulled back all marketing as business dropped 80% in eight weeks. But subsequently, CEO Brian Chesky told an earnings call, “our traffic levels came back to 95% of the traffic levels of 2019 without any marketing spend … in Q4, more than 90% of our traffic was direct or unpaid”. 

Accordingly, performance marketing spend in 2021 will be substantially less than in 2019, will be more targeted and will come with expectations of a higher rate of return than before. 

PR is key 

Chesky believes the traffic revelation demonstrates the inherent strength of the brand and future strategy will therefore be focused on a full-funnel marketing approach with PR at the top. 

“Last year, we had as much share of voice as most of the other major travel companies combined,” he pointed out. “We don’t intend to ever again spend the amount of money as a percentage of revenue on marketing … as we did in 2019.”

Brand marketing investment is up

While the Airbnb brand is mainstream, the idea of hosting is not yet and increased brand marketing efforts are focused on this and on increasing awareness for Airbnb in the brand’s emerging markets.