Vacation rental email marketing: The secret to repeat business

TL;DR

• Own your audience: Email marketing allows you to build a direct line to your guests, reducing reliance on third-party platforms (OTAs).
• Maximize ROI: With an average return of $36 for every $1 spent, email remains one of the most cost-effective marketing channels available.
• Automate success: Tools like Guesty Lite and Guesty CRM make it easy to send personalized, timely messages without manual effort.
• Stay top-of-mind: Regular, value-packed newsletters keep your brand relevant long after checkout, driving loyalty and repeat bookings.

Email marketing is the most direct way to reach your audience — and it is a real art.

According to Statista, the number of email users worldwide is projected to climb to 4.73 billion by 2026. Furthermore, a 2024 report from Constant Contact reveals that 53% of small businesses rely on email marketing as a core strategy to retain customers.

If you are already doing email marketing, are you making the maximum impact? And if you are not, you should absolutely consider it.

Some of our favorite tools for email marketing include:

• HubSpot: Great for comprehensive inbound marketing.
• Mailchimp: User-friendly and integrates directly with Guesty via the Guesty Marketplace.
• Emma: Excellent for personalized, design-forward campaigns.
• Guesty Lite: Perfect for smaller portfolios, offering built-in communication tools to professionalize guest messaging without the complexity.

The value of email marketing

Email marketing is a fantastic way to keep customers connected to your brand and to stay in front of guests even when they aren’t physically at your property. It ensures they don’t forget about you.

Human memory is a funny thing. Even if travelers had the most excellent experience with your company — from their first visit to your amazing, professional Guesty Website all the way down to checkout — this feeling will fade with time.

When email marketing is done well, it increases your audience’s connection with your brand, helping them know, love, and value your service.

Do not spam

However, email marketing does not come without its risks. The key risk here is spamming your customers and potential customers, which can turn them off your brand completely. Spamming means either emailing them too much or emailing them irrelevant content.

You may be thinking that this sounds obvious, but companies often spam without even realizing it. You need to be strategic about the emails you send and when you send them.

Best practices for email frequency:

• Limit volume: Generally, do not send more than one to two emails per month.
• Use a calendar: Maintain an organized content calendar for your communications and promotions.
• Respect the inbox: Effectively interact with your database without overwhelming them.

On this note, it is important to always give your audience the option to unsubscribe. Not giving recipients this option, as well as sending emails to unwilling recipients, are both triggers for your emails landing in spam folders.

Common triggers for spam filters include:

• Using known spam trigger words (e.g., “Free money,” “Guarantee”).
• Weak or misleading subject lines.
• Including suspicious attachments.
• Incorrect spelling and grammar.

Pro-tip: Keep in mind that OTAs also use email marketing, and travelers may not differentiate between your emails and theirs. Make sure your unique brand and company name shine through in every message.

Monthly newsletters

Monthly newsletters are a good answer to the “no spam” rule. They give you the opportunity to send all the communications you want in one go, on a predictable monthly basis.

Content ideas for your newsletter:

• Local updates: Share news about new restaurants or attractions near your rentals.
• Property news: Highlight renovations or new listings.
• Special offers: Include birthday wishes with a birthday month offer (such as a small discount).
• Seasonal promotions: If you choose to run specific campaigns as part of your marketing strategy.

Suggested Alt Text: A laptop screen displaying a professionally designed vacation rental email newsletter with a “Book Now” button.

Customer relationships & upselling

The perfect time to send your first email is immediately after a traveler has made a booking.

This can be automated using Guesty’s automation tools, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be personalized. Include information about the property, activities in the area, local restaurants, and car rental or public transportation options.

Upsell opportunities to include:

• Early check-in or late check-out options.
• Mid-stay cleaning services.
• Airport transfers or car rentals.
• Welcome baskets or grocery stocking.

The “booking abandonment” method

You know when potential guests find a property they like on your site, get all the way to the “book now” page, but then leave without booking? That is what we call booking abandonment.

It happens for a number of reasons. Perhaps this is just the beginning of their research, or perhaps they want to compare the price on other channels. There is no way to know for sure, but the key is to stay relevant once they have left your site.

Luckily, you can still take advantage of how far they got in the process — even if they didn’t complete a booking — by leveraging their email address. If they entered their details before leaving, you have a golden opportunity.

Why retargeting abandoned bookings works:

• Stay relevant: Ensure you remain a top option as they continue their research on where to stay.
• Brand play: Connect with your potential customer and show them how much you value their business by showcasing your brand’s personality.

Time it right

Vast testing from many marketers over the years has shown that the optimal time to send marketing emails is often between 10 am and 1 pm.

Tools like HubSpot and Mailchimp allow you to schedule your emails in advance, as well as schedule them separately for users in different time zones, ensuring your message lands when it’s most likely to be seen.

Is your email marketing working?

Whether you are already using email marketing or want to start experimenting with it, you must ensure it is worth the time and effort by tracking performance.

Key email marketing metrics to track:

Metric	Definition	Benchmark Goal
Open rate	The percentage of emails that were opened by recipients.	Aim for 30-45% (Hospitality Industry Average, 2025).
Click-through rate (CTR)	The percentage of people who clicked a link out of everyone who opened the email.	Aim for 2-3%.
Click rate	The percentage of people who clicked a link out of everyone who received the email.	Aim for 1-2%.

How to improve your open rates:

• Strong subject lines: Create a sense of urgency while alluding to the value inside.
• Length: Keep subject lines between 30–50 characters to avoid being cut off on mobile devices.
• Reputation: A higher open rate signals to servers (like Gmail) that your emails are relevant, improving long-term deliverability.

A/B testing

This involves experimenting with different subject lines or content to see what resonates most with your audience. For example, you might test two different subject lines to see which one generates more opens. Monitoring these results gives you context on your audience and empowers you to improve your strategy with every send.

A few final words

In conclusion, email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses to strengthen their brand and enhance customer loyalty. With an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent (Litmus, 2024), it is a strategy you cannot afford to ignore. There are many tricks to get the best results, and plenty of testing and analysis you can do to truly understand what works best for your guests.

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