How to measure the impact of AutoRank

So, you've just activated AutoRank on your Airbnb listings, awesome! But now, you’re probably wondering: how long will it take to see results? Which metrics should you be paying attention to? This blog will walk you through what to expect after activating AutoRank, the key performance indicators (KPIs) you should track, and how everything ties together to improve your visibility and bookings.

What AutoRank does for your listings

Let’s start by understanding what AutoRank actually does. When you activate the solution, it doesn’t just sit there; it gets to work by optimizing your listings. Here’s how:

• Localized keyword optimization: AutoRank adds high-performing, localized keywords to your descriptions, titles, and summaries every 48 hours, ensuring your listings are aligned with current guest search behavior and regional trends.
  
  
• Frequent content updates: Regular updates keep your listings fresh and relevant, ensuring they adapt to shifting guest preferences and trends. This shows Airbnb that your listings are active and valuable, helping boost your ranking.
  
  
• Events integration: AutoRank automatically incorporates local events, festivals, and attractions into your listings using data from Google Ticketmaster. This makes your listings more appealing to travelers seeking local experiences.
  
  
• Review Fusion (coming soon): Review Fusion automatically identifies what guests love most about your properties and ensures these highlights are emphasized in your listing. For constructive feedback, it suggests a clear and professional statement to help manage guest expectations and maintain a high Airbnb Accuracy rating. You can choose to include or adjust this suggestion as needed.This boosts listing accuracy and guest trust by reflecting real guest experiences.

What does this signal to Airbnb?

When AutoRank starts optimizing your listings, Airbnb notices that you are actively improving your content, which signals that your listings are more relevant to travelers. 

Airbnb's algorithm prioritizes relevance based on user behavior and engagement. Airbnb tracks which listings get the most clicks in a given area and identifies the common features, keywords, and amenities that attract guests. 

Listings that use those common keywords are indexed higher, improving their position search results.

How Airbnb recognizes your optimization efforts

Let’s consider an example: imagine you have a listing in Utah, but it hasn’t been updated in over a year. The result? A low ranking and minimal visibility. Due to this low visibility you are also not getting a lot of page views and therefore little bookings, in comparison to your competitors. 

Airbnb’s algorithm notices that guests in your area during March are most interested in properties close to skiing areas or those with fireplaces. 

By integrating these seasonal keywords, such as “skiing” and “fireplace”, and ensuring that your content is updated frequently, Airbnb will recognize your listing as more relevant, and has a higher chance of attracting travellers who want to book your stay on their website. This will boost your ranking in the search results. In turn this will lead to increased page views and, ultimately, more bookings.

Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs)

Before analyzing any KPIs to measure AutoRank’s performance, you have to understand the booking journey. 

Why your a high ranking is important for your Airbnb performance

Every Airbnb booking starts with visibility. If guests don’t see your listing, they won’t click, let alone book. That’s why first-page impressions (how often your listing appears in the search results) and page views (how many guests click on it) are crucial.

This follows the same logic as a traditional marketing funnel, where potential customers move through stages before purchasing. The Airbnb search funnel works like this:

1. Impressions – Your listing appears in search results. 
   
   1. First-page impressions (higher value)
   2. First-page search impression rate
   3. Average search-to-listing conversion
2. Page Views – A guest clicks and views your listing.
   
   1. Average listing-to-booking conversion
3. Bookings – The guest reserves your property.
   
   1. Occupancy
   2. Average overall conversion rate

At each step, guests drop off. Tracking the right metrics helps identify how well your listing is performing in every stage. 

AutoRank impacts the first 2 steps in this funnel, by improving the listing descriptions, titles and summaries, we boost impressions and page views. More visibility means more clicks, and more clicks indirectly leads to more bookings, however this third step depends on other factors like price, competition, weather and so on. 

Focus on absolute numbers

When analyzing performance, it's essential to focus on absolute numbers, like first-page search impressions and page views. These numbers reflect the total volume of visibility and traffic you're getting. Unlike percentages or rates, they show actual growth.

For example, even if your search-to-listing conversion rate stays exactly the same, an increase in impressions or views means you're reaching more people. And because you're reaching more people, the total number of conversions will also go up, even if the rate of conversion doesn’t change. 

Here are the key metrics you should track to measure AutoRank’s impact:

The first phase of the Airbnb funnel: Impressions

1. First-page search impressions

The first metrics that will increase is your first-page impressions. First-page impressions show how often your listing appears on the first page of Airbnb search results. As your listing rises in the rankings, you’ll see this number increase. It’s an excellent indicator of how visible your listing is to potential guests.

You can find this number on the ‘Views’ tab in the performance dashboard of Airbnb.

2. First-page search impressions rate

This metric shows the percentage of your total impressions that appear on the first page of Airbnb search results. It's a powerful indicator of how well your listing is performing in terms of visibility. A high first-page impression rate means your listing is consistently showing up where guests are most likely to see it, on the first page.

By improving your content, using relevant keywords and adapting to guest search behavior, AutoRank helps you boost this rate over time.

You can track this metric in the Airbnb performance dashboard under the “Conversions” tab.

3. Average search to listing conversion rate

The average search to listing conversion rate tells you what percentage of people who see your listing in search results actually click on it. It reflects how attractive your listing appears in the search snippet, including your cover photo, title, price, and reviews.

A strong conversion rate here suggests your listing stands out and compels users to click. By improving your title and summary, we can make your listing more attractive and improve this rate. 

You’ll find this data in the Airbnb performance dashboard under the “Conversions” section.

The second phase of the Airbnb funnel: Page views or clicks

4. Page Views

After finding you in the search results, people will start clicking on your listing to learn more about what your accommodation has to offer. Page views represent the number of times your listing is clicked on by a user. However, page views don’t appear in real-time, they are shown based on the stay dates guests enter. 

If people start clicking on your listing more frequently, but they’re searching for a stay on the 1st of March to check in 31 days later on the 1st of April, that will be reflected in the page views in April. You can find this data in the Airbnb performance dashboard under the "Views" tab.

For a detailed explanation of the Airbnb page views, go to this blog. 

5. Average listing to booking conversion

To measure how many people are being convinced in this stage to go to the next step, you look at the average listing-to-booking conversion. This metric represents the percentage of users who see your property in search results and then click to view your listing in more detail. It essentially measures how compelling your title, thumbnail photo, price, and review score are, all the elements that are visible in the search snippet before someone clicks.

A high search-to-listing conversion rate means your listing stands out and sparks interest, while a low rate may suggest that something in your preview isn't resonating with potential guests. Maybe your price point is too high compared to similar listings, or your cover photo doesn’t showcase your space’s best features.

You can find this metric in the performance dashboard of Airbnb under the conversions tab.

The third phase of the Airbnb funnel: Bookings

6. Occupancy rate

As your listing’s ranking improves and page views increase, you should see an increase in bookings and occupancy rate.

How long does it take to see results in occupancy?

The timing of your results will depend largely on the booking lead time, which is the amount of time between when a booking is made and when the guest actually checks in. Your lead time varies depending on your market and the season you are in. You can track your lead time by accessing the Airbnb performance dashboard. 

Here is how to find it: 

• Navigate to your performance dashboard.
• Go to insights via ‘Menu’
• Click on performance and navigate to ‘Conversions’
• There you will be able to see your average booking lead time

If your page views spike 30 days from the current date, you will most likely see a similar spike in occupancy around that timeframe. 

7. Average overall conversion rate

The average overall conversion rate gives you the big-picture view of your performance: what percentage of people who see your listing in search results end up booking it. It encompasses every stage of the funnel, from impressions to bookings.

This metric helps you understand how effective your listing is at converting attention into actual reservations. 

You can track this metric in the “Conversions” section of your Airbnb performance dashboard. Improving each stage of the funnel, even slightly, can lead to significant gains in total bookings over time.

8. Accuracy Score 

Finally in the last step, that takes place after the guests have booked, you will see an increase in accuracy. On Airbnb, accuracy is one of the categories guests can rate after their stay, and it refers to how well the listing description matches the reality of the space. It’s part of the overall star rating system, and accommodations are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. AutoRank will improve this score by updating your descriptions to reflect guest feedback. 

The upcoming Review Fusion feature will analyze guest reviews and automatically integrate recurring positive feedback into your listing, but also integrate ‘home truth’s’ to boost its accuracy. This feature ensures your listing is a true reflection of guest experiences, reducing negative reviews and boosting booking potential.

Your review score plays a big role in determining how you will rank in the search results. The most impactful category in this case is your Accuracy Score. So by improving your accuracy, you will in turn strengthen your position on Airbnb, and this way the loop continues. 

Case Study: How AutoRank boosted visibility

Let’s take a look at a real-world example:

A short-term rental property wanted to increase its performance on Airbnb. The property owner adopted AutoRank to automatically optimize the listing’s content. 

The results after 31 days

First-page search impressions increased significantly from 2,950 to 9,420, a growth of over 220%. This surge in visibility pushed the listing ahead of similar properties in the area, ensuring it was seen by a much larger pool of potential guests.

First-page search impression rate went up from 24% to 61%, indicating that the listing actually boosted its ranking in the search results, explaining the impressive growth in visibility.

Average search-to-listing conversion rate moved from 2.4% to 2.6%. While the percentage stayed nearly the same, the much larger impression volume meant the total number of clicks on the listing grew significantly.

Page views more than tripled, from 214 to 763 monthly views. This increase in absolute traffic reflects the higher visibility, even though the conversion rates stayed mostly flat.

Listing to booking conversion rate increased from 1.8% to 1.9%, showing consistency in how well the listing converts clicks to bookings. However, because the number of page views increased dramatically, total bookings still rose.

Occupancy rate improved from 48% to 66%, driven by the jump in page views and overall listing exposure.

Overall conversion rate grew from 0.43% to 0.46%, showing that while the percentage change was modest, the real impact came from a larger volume of users moving through the funnel.

This client understood that AutoRank’s impact would become clear around the 30th day after implementation, as their average guest books one month in advance. If they had checked the results after just one week, they might have been disappointed, canceled the subscription, and missed out on the success they're seeing now.

So, keep your booking lead time in mind when measuring AutoRank’s impact.

Conclusion

After activating AutoRank, you can expect to see a boost in visibility and bookings, but the timeline will vary based on the lead time in your market. By tracking KPIs like page views, first-page impressions, occupancy rate, and accuracy score, you can measure your listing’s performance. 

For more insights, subscribe to our newsletter.