As the management guru Peter Drucker famously said, “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” Tracking your property management KPIs is the only way to fully know if your company is succeeding or failing.

However, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that you must track everything, which is a one-way ticket to burnout and overload, as well as causing you to lose sight of what is genuinely important.

Yes, tracking property management KPIs is critical, but it's equally necessary to pick the ones that make sense for you and master a few key measurements first.

That is why we will explain in this post:

• Why it is critical to track property management KPIs.
• The top eight property management KPIs to monitor.
• Our best tools for tracking property management KPIs more effectively and with less effort!

Why is it important to monitor property management KPIs?

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator, as you may know. As the name implies, these data points allow you to assess the success of your company (how it is performing).

KPIs, for example, can assist you to: Maintain profitability. Maintain your focus on your business objectives. Find the faults in your strategy. Adjust what isn't functioning. Make informed judgments based on real-world facts.

The most important Airbnb Hosting KPIs to track

We recommend tracking some of the following Airbnb KPIs to avoid being overwhelmed and keep laser-focused on the most important goals. Do you want to keep track of them all? Begin with a few key KPIs and work your way up as you grasp them.

1. ADR

ADR is an abbreviation for Average Daily Rate, and it represents the average amount each guest pays for a night over a specified time period. Divide the total amount by the number of nights sold to arrive at this figure. A high ADR may suggest that you make the most money during the high season or in-demand periods, but it may also mean that your occupancy falls outside of these times.

2. CAC

It's a widespread adage in business that it costs more to acquire a new client than it does to retain existing customers. This is due to CAC, or Customer Acquisition Cost.

Your CAC is the cost of acquiring a new customer for your company. It might vary depending on how much you spend on social media (including the value of your time or hiring someone to handle your socials), online advertising campaigns, and other fees like your channel manager or listing distribution link to your PMS.

Of course, acquiring new clients might be vital to your company's survival, but it's critical to keep your CAC low or your revenue and ROI (see below) will suffer. Set a target to lower it as much as possible while maintaining your other KPIs.

3. Direct Bookings

Tracking direct bookings is a crucial statistic for recurring business and may benefit your CAC.

By focusing on direct bookings, you are less dependent on OTAs and so do not have to pay their fees. Of course, being available on many OTAs is still critical for your business, but augmenting your channel distribution with direct bookings is becoming increasingly important.

Taking direct bookings will incur additional expenses, such as the creation of your own website and the hosting of a booking or payment platform on that website, but it will pay off in the long term.

Hostaway offers website solutions for businesses of all sizes, degrees of competence, and budgets. Consider using the free Hostaway booking engine or Wordpress Plugin for small and medium-sized enterprises. Consider using Hostaway Webhooks to design a fully configurable solution for medium-to-large operators, or InterCoastal Net Designs, a Hostaway partner, for web development.

Having a place to direct customers to make direct bookings may also boost your ROI (see below) in terms of advertising cost, as people may come straight to you from your post or advertisement, without any middlemen fees.

Tracking your direct reservations will help you fine-tune your strategy to retain happy customers (repeat business) and encourage new clients to book directly with you (direct bookings).

Consider how many direct bookings you receive as a percentage of the total number of bookings via OTAs, and set a goal to increase the direct booking percentage.

4. Listing Optimization

This measure may appear less "numerical" than some of the other KPIs, but it is still important to track because your listings are your shop windows to potential booking guests.

Listing optimization is making your listings as effective and appealing as possible in order to drive the most bookings and increase your other metrics (such as ROI, occupancy, and even ADR).

In order to stay on top of your game frequently ask yourself some questions:

1. Would you want to book your listings if you saw them?
2. When was the last time you updated your photos?
3. What are you doing to make your listings look as good as possible in order to increase bookings?
4. How do you stack up against your competitors?
5. Does your listing address the most frequently asked questions by guests, allowing them to book with confidence?
6. Do your listings highlight your homes' distinctiveness and help guests imagine themselves vacationing there?
7. Do your listings explain amenities, facilities, check-in and check-out procedures, and any other important practical details?
8. How frequently do you update your listings to keep them up to date and relevant?
9. Are your house rules and policies expressed simply and politely?
10. Do you have any outstanding photographs? Do they show everything a visitor might want to see, such as the scenery, amenities, and close-ups?
11. Do your listings appear good and work well on both desktop and mobile devices?

5. Occupancy Rate

The Occupancy Rate (OR) is expressed as a percentage. Divide the number of nights sold by the total number of nights in a particular time period to calculate it. This will show you how frequently guests stayed in your rentals in comparison to your overall availability.

A greater occupancy rate indicates that your calendar was more likely to be booked during a certain time period. However, depending on circumstances such as location or time of year, you may need to cut your nightly fee to drive this up. Lower ADR usually equates to increased occupancy and vice versa.

6. Owner Fee Structures

Your owner fee structure, as the name suggests, refers to the price structure you use in your firm from the perspective of the homeowner.

It's best to figure out whatever structure works best for you and to re-evaluate or change it if you believe it's not serving you as well as it might.

You could, for example, select between:

Guaranteed income: The owner is guaranteed a set monthly income. Fixed fee: A monthly fee for processing bookings and charges such as cleaning fees. Commissions: In exchange for your management, you receive a commission on each booking. This ranges from 25 to 50%. The average is roughly 27%.

7. RevPAR

RevPAR, or Revenue Per Available Rental, is a key indicator utilized by everyone from vacation rental property managers to worldwide hotel executives. To figure it out, multiply your average daily rate (ADR) by your occupancy rate (OR), or divide your total revenue by the number of occupied nights.

Because it incorporates other critical measures, RevPAR provides a full picture of how your property management business is doing. Your RevPAR will vary based on whether you prioritize selling each night at the best feasible rate or optimizing occupancy.

8. ROI

ROI, or Return On Investment, is one of the most well-known business KPIs. To calculate it, take your revenue and remove your costs (or investments), which include operating and marketing expenses (including CAC).

Finally, you want to improve your ROI by lowering your costs and increasing the amount of money you make.

Tools to help you track property management KPIs

Manually managing Airbnb KPIs can be time-consuming, tedious, and impractical. Fortunately, solutions are available that help automate the process, save time, and deliver more trustworthy, actionable data.

Hostaway’s Analytics and reporting

At Hostaway, we provide an all-in-one vacation rental software solution for property managers, with the versatility of the most advanced solutions while remaining simple to use. Reports and Analytics are two important elements. Hostway Analytics & Reporting provides property managers with useful business insights. You will benefit from comprehensive, personalized reports for your key performance metrics, as well as the industry's most advanced analytics and reporting tools, which are based on years of expertise and best practices from short-term rentals, vacation rentals, and hotels.

If you want to know how your gross margins or occupancy rates compare to industry norms, we have the team and resources to help you succeed!

WheelHouse

Wheelhouse is a complete platform that may help you manage your revenue in any situation, with dashboards covering data like minimum rates, seasonal adjustment suggestions, and weekend pricing guides.

It claims to be able to increase revenue by up to 40% in minutes by using automatically collected data over time.

Wheelhouse interacts with a number of property management systems and channel managers, including Hostaway

Pricelabs

PriceLabs is a dynamic pricing technology that works particularly well with OTAs like Airbnb and Vrbo, property managers with direct booking platforms, and PMSs like Hostaway.

The tool identifies trends across your monthly calendar and emphasizes important information such as local events that may affect demand and nightly prices.

Beyond

Formerly known as Beyond Pricing, Beyond excels in providing insights for your property portfolio, such as automatic pricing, revenue management advice, OTA syncing, and comprehensive performance statistics.

Its dynamic pricing system allows you to compare prices year over year and claims to "remove the uncertainty" from revenue.

Beyond works with a variety of vacation rental software suppliers, including Hostaway.

In Conclusion:

To conclude, the greatest property management KPIs to monitor are those that make the most sense for your company. Before going on to more sophisticated metrics, learn some key KPIs and change them one by one so you can perfect each and figure out what works (and what doesn't).

When analyzing company data, staying focused on essential KPIs such as RevPAR, ADR, Occupancy, CAC, and ROI is a good place to start.

Tracking KPIs may provide useful insights into key concerns such as how to organize your firm, which distribution channels are effective, which amenities are essential, and how to acquire those all-important direct reservations.