Hostaway is a unique Vacation Rental Property Management Software and Channel Manager which scales up with your success.
As a leading provider of vacation rental management software, Hostaway had a strong advertising and marketing foundation already in place in early 2023. But VP of Marketing Sukh Basra saw an opportunity to take results—and advertising’s impact on revenue—to the next level.
“I had a really clear objective when I brought in Outshine,” says Sukh. “As we built out our marketing team, I knew outside support could help us improve the performance of digital advertising, lower our cost per acquisition, and grow the program overall.”
Outshine took over all day-to-day management of Hostaway’s paid search and social ad platforms, prioritizing the best revenue and lead drivers. The challenge? Strategically combine aggressive volume growth with maintaining cost efficiencies and driving quality leads.
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Recognizing the complexity that comes with managing paid advertising campaigns in-house, Hostaway leveraged Outshine’s specialized expertise in the B2B SaaS space to streamline and optimize its advertising efforts.
“Outshine is a sweet spot for us—the right-sized partner with deep B2B SaaS experience,” says Sukh. “Their team is responsive and accountable, which I can’t say about every agency experience I’ve had.”
It was imperative early in the partnership for Outshine to understand not just Hostaway’s product and offering, but its audience as well. “Very quickly we went from multiple revisions of copy to almost none,” says Sukh. Today, Sukh can rely on the Outshine team to not just accurately reflect Hostaway’s ICP in copy, but also come up with audience targeting and segmentation that moves the needle.
The strategy focuses on identifying and targeting the most lucrative customer segments, optimizing ad placements for maximum impact and efficiency, and implementing quick wins on key channels. All with the objective of ensuring spend is leveraged to maximize its impact on revenue.
Alongside the in-platform campaign execution, Outshine has built out robust reporting that monitors and analyzes lead quality, and ensures we can powerfully synchronize advertising with Hostaway’s ICP to better market the brand.
The results of the partnership have been meaningful. We have increased volume while consistently addressing lead quality to improve Hostaway’s MQL to SQL conversion rates by 260%. As well, down-funnel metrics like cost per opportunity have continued to decrease, laying the groundwork for ongoing market expansion and leveraging new regions and audiences.
“By far, Outshine has the best reporting I’ve ever worked with,” says Sukh. “Their team understands the data, communicates the data and, most importantly, they put in the work. I’m not relying on myself or my team to connect the dots or build out datasets. Outshine comes to the table with a quantitative approach I appreciate.”
From the outset of the partnership, Outshine worked to create a combination of reporting tools for Hostaway’s team, including regular weekly reports to walk through collaboratively, as well as accurate, up-to-date self-serve dashboards where Sukh and his team can dig into the data when and how they wish.
The key to analytics success is ensuring every member of the Outshine team has an analyst mindset and can navigate data questions with ease. “I know I can go to anyone on the Outshine team with a request or ad hoc reporting need,” says Sukh.
A cohesive team that intimately knows the datasets and metrics means decisions can be made with confidence, clarity, and speed.
“I know it’s not a quantitative result, but it’s gratifying to hear peers tell me they’ve seen our program in the wild,” says Sukh. “It’s a small thing, but it tells me what we’re doing is working.”
Outshine is dedicated to continuous, incremental improvements in Hostaway’s advertising program, and solidifying its position in the competitive rental market software space. It’s this commitment to proving value month-over-month that keeps the partnership strong. “Our culture and values click,” says Sukh. “Outshine is accountable to their results and that makes a big difference when we’re working with an agency.”
“Outshine is accountable to their results and that makes a big difference when we’re working with an agency.”
