How to Cut $1M in Ad Spend with Influencers đź’¸
episode
The Accommodation Show - Hospitality Success Series!
33 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 24 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the “Set and Forget” ad trap and why does it cost STR owners millions?
Okay, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the accommodation shows. This week is an absolute cracker because I am joined by someone who is one of the most influential people in the short term rental industry, someone that's super innovative, very, very kind, um, and someone that uh I've been in touch with for a long time. Madison Rifkin, how are you?
I am good, thanks. It's good to be here.
It's a real pleasure. We've uh been connected for I think around about four years, talking about all things short-term rentals that you uh were uh were working in a company called Mount, um, that you uh founded when you were quite young and you built that up. And what's cool is now you've done a little bit of a switch. You're working at a different company. You guys kind of got uh merged. Quiet, absorbed. I don't know what the correct words are, but you're on to a new phase of your life and your career. And that's good for everybody listening because today we're going to be talking about influencers and how you can leverage influences in your short-term rental business. But also, Maddie, I'm going to throw a curveball for you.
We're also going to talk about hotels, motels, any kind of accommodation which is out there, because I pretty sure sure that a lot of this stuff is going to apply. Before we get going, how are you?
I am good. I love the curveball. That sounds good to me and excited to be chatting all things influencers. We've worked with a fair amount over the last year and I've learned a lot.
Well, I remember watching your LinkedIn posts. Uh last year probably and you're saying we're we're managing to get some posts going that are trending really well well on social media. Um and so you're it's some it's a space where I think a lot of Older people might might sympathize with me. Or em yeah, sympathize with me that uh we m we might not understand it so much or maybe we also don't care so much for really understanding Let's just like we just don't have time for it, to be honest. But it's a very powerful space to be in. Why is it powerful?
You know, I think it is misunderstood until you see the results yourself, right? Like you can hear about people talking about virality and like all that stuff. You're like, Yeah, yeah, whatever. It's not gonna happen to me. And then then it does and you're like, Whoa, I see the impact now and I want more of that. It's kind of, you know, a little addiction, if you will. You're like, I wanna go viral, I wanna keep going viral. Um Yeah, no, we saw it first hand. Basically, all of last year. what I was building to help build up my own company was something called the content army. So it was working with influencers, content creators, those words are used pretty interchangeably. Um, basically to have them promote
my company mount, the experiences, the properties, everything. Um, and we were seeing videos left and right start to go viral. One of our influencers went from I don't know, like three thousand followers to twenty five, thirty thousand followers in a month time frame just by posting some videos that we helped her put together and like storytell. So it's wild to see the impact that this has.
So Not only that though
There's a direct correlation between The success on social media and revenue.
Yeah, the a big, big correlation. I would say, like, not just with the company I was building, but you know, founder friends, short-term rental hosts, managers, really the things we were hearing was my video went viral on TikTok, Instagram, you know, interchangeable places. And I got 10x the amount of bookings that month, or, you know, I 10x my revenue, whatever the number was. Uh it's a little hard to track. back like a hundred percent, but you definitely see the effects and You know, to the tune of there was a company spending over a million dollars a year on ads. So like paid advertising, like Google search, uh, meta, that type of stuff. And then they built up their organic strategy. So they were creating videos, posting, not putting advertising dollars on top.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the “Set and Forget” ad trap and why does it cost STR owners millions?
0:12–4:38
2
How does the $1 Million Ad‑Spend Pivot replace paid ads with a Content Army?
4:38–8:52
3
What exactly is a “Content Army” and how can it generate free bookings?
8:52–12:52
4
Why are follower counts a vanity metric for short‑term rentals?
12:52–17:23
5
How should hosts negotiate for raw footage and reuse influencer content?
17:23–21:39
6
What is the “Market Expert” strategy and how does it boost direct bookings?
21:39–25:41
7
Should you focus on Instagram or TikTok for accommodation marketing in 2026?
25:41–29:05
8
How can small STR owners start a content army with zero budget?
29:05–33:32
Speakers
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