The Best Zapier Tools to Use for your Airbnb Business

Best Zapier Integrations to Automate your Airbnb vacation rental business

1. Zapier for Internal Communication | Slack
2. Zapier for Accounting | QuickBooks, Xero and Sage
3. Zapier for Document Signing | DocuSign
4. Zapier for Email Marketing | MailChimp
5. Zapier for Online Advertising | Google Ads & Facebook Conversions
6. Zapier for Project and Task Management | Asana and Trello
7. Zapier for Forms and Surveys | Google Forms and Typeform
8. Zapier for CRM | HubSpot, Keap, Pipedrive & Salesforce
9. Zapier for File Management | Google Drive & Dropbox

What is Zapier?

Zapier is an automation platform that allows for two different apps that are not integrated to connect and work together. At its foundation, through Zapier, when an action takes place in one app it can tell the other app to perform (do) another action. This allows repetitive tasks to be automated and without the use of any code.

How does Zapier Work?

Zapier automates tasks that would previously have required repetitive human intervention by connecting discrete apps and moving information between them based on rules set by the human user.

1. Choose the Apps

Choose the two apps you want to connect via Zapier. The apps need to be compatible with Zapier.

2. Choose the Trigger

Choose the trigger that sets off the automated process. For example, you receive a reservation.

3. Choose the Action

Choose the action that the trigger leads to in the second app. For example, receiving a confirmed reservation in your inbox sets off sending a notification to your vacation rental team on Slack.

4. You’ve got a Zap

A Zap is when your trigger causes the action you set.

5. Automate a Process

You can automate more than just one task through a Zap. In fact, a Zap can have up to 100 actions enabling you to automate an entire process. For example, from receiving a new lead to making a successful reservation and welcoming the guest to a clean home with the right key codes.

6. Zap Editor

The entire process takes place in the Zap editor.

What can you Automate with Zapier?

1. Frequent Tasks

Tasks that are required of you frequently such as populating a Google Sheet with guest information as soon as you receive a booking or messaging your cleaning service with instructions two days before a guest checks in.

2. Moving Information from One App to Another

Zapier can help automate the process of moving information from one app to another. For example, populating your email list with information from guest inquiries and reservations.

3. Low-Level Tasks

Tasks that don’t require much thinking such as copying the email addresses from a guest book to an email list.

Why Choose Zapier?

There are a multitude of reasons to choose Zapier for your automation needs:

Connects over 5,000 Apps

Zapier supports more apps than any other automation platform – over 5,000 – making it more than likely you can use Zapier to connect the apps and create the processes you want.

Zap Editor

The process of creating a Zap is easy for anyone to do and takes place in the Zap editor.

Zap History

Zapier maintains a history of all your Zaps, providing you with Zap receipts with which you can trace all your Zaps including which tasks were successful and not.

Zap Security

Zapier protects the data across your Zaps ensuring privacy.

Range of Prices

Zapier offers different pricing plans to suit different individuals needs. These include Free, Starter, and Professional and go up to $49 per month. Zapier also offers separate packages for corporations.

Pricing also determines how long Zapier takes to check the first app for the trigger event, from 15 minutes to updating every minute.

6. Suitable for Many

Zapier is suitable for individual entrepreneurs, small and medium sized enterprises, and large businesses.

How can Zapier Help your Airbnb Vacation Rental Business?

Automating frequent repetitive tasks and low-level tasks as well as the movement of data from one app to another can help streamline important processes such as guest communications and reservation management while saving loads of time for the property manager, time that can be better spent in growing the Airbnb business.

Because Zapier is compatible with leading property management systems like Hostaway, it allows Airbnb property managers to easily and seamlessly integrate their non-PMS compatible apps with their vacation rental software allowing for a more complex ecosystem without the hassle.

Ultimately, Zapier promotes scaling of the business while eliminating legacy and minor tasks that take up time and effort but don’t require high-level thinking.

What are the Best Zapier Integrations to Automate Your Airbnb Workflows?

There are multiple Zapier integrations that can be used to automate and streamline processes in running your Airbnb vacation rental. These are the best Zapier tools to use in your Airbnb business.

1. Zapier for Internal Communication | Slack

Slack is a popular tool for internal communication, used by small teams and large Airbnb businesses alike. It allows you to create different channels for different tasks or departments, is easily searchable, and also allows individuals to directly message each other. Because conversations can occur across threads, it removes confusion and lost information characteristic of many other communication tools.

You can create Zaps to alert you and your specific teams of new bookings on Slack as well as for emails that match filters you’ve identified. For example, instant booking or cancellation. If you use Hostaway, you can also populate the message with additional information such as booking dates, number of guests, listing, etc.

2. Zapier for Accounting | QuickBooks, Xero and Sage

QuickBooks is a widely-used cloud accounting tool that provides a full complement of features including expense management, budgeting, payroll, tax filing, tracking and reconciliation, etc. Because it has different versions with different sets of features and price ranges, it is a great tool for vacation rental businesses as they can choose according to their size and upgrade as they scale.

With Zapier, you can automate transfer of accounting data into QuickBooks as well as trigger actions such as invoice generation and payments, eliminating boring and time consuming but important tasks from your task list. And because the workflows are automated, it eliminates the risk of human error.

Xero is a cloud-based accounting software designed for small and medium-sized businesses and with Zapier you can directly integrate your listings through your PMS with Xero, reconciling bank feeds, generating bills and mapping your accounts to your listings. With Zapier, you can also automate data transfer fast and error-free.

Sage is a cloud-based accounting platform suited for small businesses with two pricing plans and providing essential bookkeeping and accounting, reporting, and inventory tracking. With Zapier, not only can you enable automatic transfer of essential data for accounting but also trigger a variety of related actions.

3. Zapier for Document Signing | DocuSign

Getting your guests to sign a rental agreement can be of great benefit to protecting your vacation rental business, from helping to keep away bad guests to making sure guests understand their responsibilities and potential liabilities. Don’t wait till your guests arrive to make them sign it as they can always refuse to do so and lead to you receiving a complaint. Send it out in advance instead.

DocuSign is the pioneer of e-signature technology and enables organizations to prepare, sign, act on, and manage agreements electronically.

With Zapier and DocuSign, you can trigger your vacation rental agreement being sent out once a reservation has been confirmed. You will be automatically notified once the document is signed or declined so you won’t be left in limbo.

4. Zapier for Email Marketing | MailChimp

Digital marketing is essential to ensure your Airbnb vacation rental keeps growing rates, occupancy, and revenue. Email marketing is a tried and tested component of digital marketing, leading to higher conversions, particularly if you are smart enough to also take in direct bookings.

MailChimp is the leading email marketing platform, enabling automation, optimization and segmented targeting. With Zapier you can configure a Zap to automatically add new booking information to your email list, so you act fast or don’t forget to do so.

5. Zapier for Online Advertising | Google Ads & Facebook Conversions

Whether you list on Airbnb, Vrbo, FlipKey, and/or other niche booking websites, your marketing and communication efforts take place online. So, if you want to get the word out and spread the message on just how great your vacation rental is, you will need to advertise online, at least from time to time. Zapier integrates with online advertising tools such as Google Ads, Facebook Conversions and Google Analytics allowing you to automate your online advertising workflow and alerts.

Google Ads is Google’s paid online advertising platform, where you pay for your advertisement to turn up on users’ search results based on the keyword typed in. For example, ‘vacation rental Tampa’. With Zapier you can automate the work as well as integrate your PMS to send data to Google Analytics.

With Zapier and Facebook Conversions, you can send information about events to Facebook directly from your customer information database, allowing you to create better ads that lead to higher conversions.

6. Zapier for Project and Task Management | Asana and Trello

Billing itself as a ‘work management’ platform, Asana helps teams organize, track, and manage their individual tasks and overall work. Trello is a web-based list-making application that allows users to create boards for each task and collaborate within each board accordingly.

With Zapier you can connect your PMS such as Hostaway to Asana and Trello, allowing you to create workflow templates triggered by new reservations, for example, that are assigned to specified team members. Users can mark tasks as completed as they go along.

7. Zapier for Forms and Surveys | Google Forms and Typeform

Obtain customer feedback, collect guest reviews, and conduct random surveys by integrating applications like Google Forms and Typeform to your PMS.

Typeform allows you to create beautiful and dynamic forms and surveys customized to your requirements. Google Forms is a free service offered as part of Google’s web-based services such as Google Docs that allows you to create custom questionnaires. With Zapier, you can trigger forms from either service to be sent automatically, such as when a new booking is made, a guest cancels, or a guest checks out.

8. Zapier for CRM | HubSpot, Keap, Pipedrive & Salesforce

With Zapier you can automate the process of extracting data from your inbox to populate your CRM of choice so news sales leads are created instantly. Choose the filters that create the action and you are all set. For example, each time you receive a booking inquiry or confirmed reservation, from both your OTA and direct booking website. You can also use Zapier to add information collected from the forms you send out, based on the filters you set.

With Zapier you can integrate and automate actions within CRM software such as HubSpot, Keap, Pipedrive, Salesforce, and more. HubSpot is an integrated platform that allows you to manage your marketing, sales, service, and operations. Keap offers customer management, customer relationship management, marketing, and e-commerce and is better suited for small businesses. Pipedrive is a sales and customer relationship management tool that is cloud based. Salesforce is best suited for large property management companies. It provides customer relationship management software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development.

9. Zapier for File Management | Google Drive & Dropbox

Google Drive is a free, cloud-based file storage, sharing, and synchronization service provided by Google. Storage is limited but can be upgraded for a fee. Dropbox is a file hosting service that offers document storage, synchronization and sending.

With Zapier, you can trigger the creation of new files and folders in specific locations within Google Drive and Dropbox, when new inquiries are made or reservations are created, for example. Other popular workflows are to save new form entries, back up your Google Drive/Dropbox files, backup notes, upload new files to YouTube and save new Instagram photos.

Conclusion

Whether you are a one-person Airbnb entreprenuer or have a vacation rental team to help manage your listings, Zapier can help you utilize the full potential of your vacation rental software. The integrations mentioned above are the most integral to operating vacation rentals in general. However, depending on the size of your team, different areas of focus, and specific goals, you may require different or additional integrations.