How We Helped Premium Vacation Rentals Reduce Cost Per Acquisition

Olala Homes, a fast-growing Airbnb competitor offering premium vacation rentals across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, faced a critical challenge: unsustainable customer acquisition costs across their primary digital marketing channels. 

Founded in Barcelona in 2014, Olala Homes had successfully positioned itself as "The Smart Way of Staying," disrupting the hospitality industry through digitized, contactless experiences and next-generation property management. However, as their portfolio expanded to premium locations in 15+ cities including Barcelona, Lisbon, Athens, Madrid, Valencia, Porto, New Taipei, and Seychelles, their customer acquisition strategy was not keeping pace with their growth ambitions.

The company was spending heavily across Google Ads, Facebook/Meta advertising, and Pinterest to drive bookings, but rising ad costs and increased competition from larger platforms were eroding profitability. CodeDesign was engaged to conduct a comprehensive audit and optimization strategy focused on reducing cost per acquisition (CPA) across all three primary channels while maintaining or improving conversion quality. The engagement spanned 18 months and required a complete strategic overhaul of how Olala Homes approached digital customer acquisition.

The company was operating with a fragmented, siloed approach to paid advertising. Google Ads campaigns were managed separately from Meta campaigns, which in turn operated independently from Pinterest. There was minimal coordination between channels, no unified conversion tracking, and no systematic testing framework to optimize performance. Additionally, the team was under-utilizing sophisticated targeting capabilities available on each platform, and the landing page experience for incoming traffic was not optimized for conversion.

Result: Over 18 months, we reduced Olala Homes' average CPA by 42%, improved return on ad spend (ROAS) and increased overall booking volume while maintaining customer lifetime value metrics and improving overall customer quality through more precise targeting and better messaging alignment.

Industry Context & Competitive Landscape

The vacation rental market has become increasingly competitive since 2014. Airbnb dominates with approximately 7 million listings globally and an estimated $100+ billion valuation. Booking.com, which owns Vrbo, controls another significant market share. Emerging platforms like Vistaprint's HomeAway and regional competitors have intensified competition, particularly in premium segments.

Olala Homes differentiated itself by focusing exclusively on premium properties in desirable destinations, emphasizing technology and guest experience quality over volume. Rather than competing on volume against Airbnb, Olala Homes targets affluent travelers seeking curated, high-quality experiences. This positioning is both a strength and a challenge: the addressable market is smaller, but the customer lifetime value is higher and guests are more likely to book directly for return stays.

In 2023-2024, paid customer acquisition costs across the vacation rental industry increased 30-40% due to platform competition and iOS privacy changes affecting Meta's ability to target and measure conversions accurately. Olala Homes was not immune to these headwinds. Additionally, the company lacked the brand awareness and marketing budget of Airbnb, meaning they had to rely almost entirely on paid channels rather than organic discovery.

The Challenge

When we began our engagement with Olala Homes in Q2 2024, the company was at an inflection point. Their core product—premium vacation rentals with smart home technology, seamless digital check-in, and 24/7 guest support—was resonating strongly with affluent travelers seeking alternatives to traditional hotels. The property portfolio had grown to 500+ premium properties across their target markets. However, the marketing strategy was inefficient and unsustainable.

The company was spending approximately $2.2M annually on paid advertising across Google, Meta, and Pinterest, but the return on that investment was deteriorating. Marketing leaders reported frustration with rising costs and declining conversion rates. Sales and customer acquisition teams were struggling to scale profitably. The CEO had set an ambitious growth target of 200% increase in bookings over the next 18 months, but the current acquisition strategy would require an unsustainable increase in marketing budget.

Specific Pain Points Identified:

Rising Cost Per Acquisition: Average CPA across channels had increased 37% year-over-year, driven by increased competition from Airbnb, Booking.com, and emerging local platforms. Google CPA stood at $85, Meta at $72, and Pinterest at $68 per conversion. This trend was unsustainable given the company's profitability margins.

Inefficient Targeting and Segmentation: The ad campaigns were not effectively segmenting by property type, geographic market, or seasonal demand patterns. Premium apartments in Barcelona received the same bid strategies as remote mountain properties, resulting in significant wasted spend. During peak seasons (summer, holiday periods), the campaigns didn't automatically increase budgets for high-demand periods.

Fragmented Account Architecture: Google Ads had 87 campaigns with overlapping keywords creating internal competition and bid inflation. Meta had 12 separate ad account structures. Pinterest was barely organized. There was no unified conversion tracking across platforms, making it impossible to understand true ROAS or compare performance fairly.

Underutilized Landing Pages: Traffic from ads was directed to generic category pages rather than high-converting property-specific or city-specific landing pages. A/B testing revealed bounce rates exceeded 55% on all three channels. Users would arrive on a generic "Barcelona Apartments" page and need to search further to find specific properties, causing significant drop-off.

Poor Retargeting Strategy: Less than 12% of website visitors were being retargeted, and retargeting campaigns lacked creative variation and personalization, resulting in low conversion rates (0.8%) and high frequency-related banner blindness. Visitors who viewed specific properties but didn't book were not being effectively re-engaged.

Limited A/B Testing Culture: The marketing team was running primarily intuition-driven campaigns without systematic testing frameworks. Ad creative, copy, CTAs, and bid strategies were rarely optimized based on performance data. There was no process for testing landing page variations or measurement of what actually drove conversions.

iOS Privacy Changes Impact: Meta's tracking capabilities had been significantly limited by iOS privacy updates, making audience targeting and conversion measurement more difficult. The team had not adapted their strategy to work within these new constraints, leading to inefficient spending and poor optimization.

The Solution: A Strategic Rebuild of the Digital Ecosystem

To address these systemic inefficiencies, we implemented a four-pillar transformation strategy focused on data integrity, account consolidation, and hyper-personalized guest journeys. Our goal was to shift Olala Homes from a "spend-first" mentality to a "performance-first" engine.

1. Architectural Consolidation & "The Power of One"

We overhauled the fragmented account structures to leverage machine learning more effectively.

• Google Ads: We collapsed the 87 overlapping campaigns into a streamlined Hagakure-inspired structure. By grouping properties by "destination clusters" rather than individual keywords, we pooled data to allow Google’s Smart Bidding (tROAS) to optimize faster.

• Meta & Pinterest: We consolidated the 12 ad accounts into a single global structure using Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. This eliminated internal bid competition and allowed the algorithm to find high-value "affluent traveler" segments across the entire portfolio.

2. High-Intent Landing Page Optimization

To combat the 55% bounce rate, we moved away from generic category pages.

• Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI): We developed custom landing pages that mirrored the user's search intent. If a user searched for "luxury terrace apartment in Madrid," they landed on a curated gallery of properties with terraces, not a general city list.

• Frictionless Booking: We implemented a "Quick-Book" overlay and clear, 24/7 support badges, emphasizing Olala’s unique value proposition (UVP) of smart-home tech and premium service.

3. Precision Retargeting & Creative Refresh

We replaced the generic "one-size-fits-all" banners with a Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) strategy.

• Sequential Storytelling: Visitors who viewed specific properties were retargeted with ads featuring those exact rooms, followed by "Social Proof" ads (guest reviews) and finally a "Direct Booking" incentive.

• Creative Diversification: We moved away from static images, testing short-form "walkthrough" videos that showcased the seamless digital check-in process, directly addressing the "premium experience" Olala promised.

4. Navigating the Privacy Gap

To solve the iOS tracking issues, we implemented Server-Side Tracking and the Meta Conversions API (CAPI). This bypassed browser-based limitations, giving the marketing team a 25% increase in visible conversion data and allowing for more accurate attribution of the $2.2M spend.

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The Results: Scaling Profitably

Within 12 months of the engagement, Olala Homes transitioned from an inefficient spender to a market leader in the premium rental segment.

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