Heads In Beds Show

Conrad O'Connell

212 episodes listed below

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Vacation rental marketing, tested against reality.

The gist

Heads In Beds Show tracks the messy business of getting vacation rental guests and homeowners to convert. Conrad and Paul work through booking windows, event demand, AI search, landing pages, and attribution with a bias toward evidence over habit.

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About Heads In Beds Show

Heads In Beds Show is a vacation rental marketing podcast with a practical, operator-minded center. Conrad and Paul talk like people who spend their weeks looking at bookings, client accounts, search behavior, and website performance. The show is narrow by design. It is about the work behind occupancy, revenue per property, homeowner leads, and direct bookings. Episodes usually move from casual opening banter into a specific business question that has real consequences for property managers. The 60-day booking window becomes a debate about buyer journeys, price comparison, and how fast a traveler may actually decide. Event marketing becomes a case for building pages around timely demand that standard keyword tools may miss. AI is treated with caution and curiosity. Generating a thousand thin articles is framed as fake progress, while using tools to audit a large website, find broken links, or fix small errors is treated as genuinely useful work. Attribution receives the same grounded scrutiny. The hosts are less interested in a perfect source breakdown than in seeing paths, touch points, and the timing between a first visit and a booking. Landing pages, SEO, LLM search audits, email nurture, pricing signals, booking engines all recur as parts of the same system. The show also makes room for industry conversations, including Arthur Colker on the future of direct bookings and agentic travel. Its best moments come when a familiar assumption gets slowed down and tested against actual behavior. The tone is conversational but not loose. Sports, weather, and small personal detours appear often, then the conversation snaps back to the marketing problem. That rhythm gives the show a lived-in quality without losing its tactical purpose. It is not trying to make vacation rental marketing sound glamorous. It is trying to make the work clearer, more measurable, and more defensible.

Made for: For vacation rental property managers, accommodation marketers, and agency operators who care about direct bookings, search visibility, lead capture, and better measurement. It best suits listeners who already understand the industry basics and want sharper tactical judgment.

What sets it apart: The show stands out by pressure-testing common vacation rental marketing habits against booking behavior, search data, and client-facing examples. It is less polished lecture than practical operator conversation, with enough caveats to be useful.

In their own words

The Heads In Beds Show is your vacation rental & accommodations marketing podcast co-hosted by Conrad O'Connell and Paul Manzey. Learn how to double your direct bookings with search, social & email marketing strategies and tactics.

As heard by us

Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026

It makes vacation-rental growth decisions clearer by connecting direct bookings, attribution, search strategy, and practical AI use.

Heads In Beds Show turns vacation-rental marketing into a working session between Conrad O'Connell and Paul Manzey. Their conversations stay close to commercial decisions: earning direct bookings, tracing the path to conversion, responding to shorter booking windows, and…

Read our full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Last-click credit looks awfully tidy when your guest visited six times.

Press play if you want

to trade a pile of AI-written SEO pages for useful site fixes
to spot local event searches that keyword tools might miss

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

direct booking strategyvacation rental SEOAI and LLM search auditsbooking windowsevent-based marketingmarketing attributionhomeowner lead landing pagespricing and value comparison

Talks about

Business & Finance Real Estate

Best episodes of Heads In Beds Show

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

The 60-Day Booking Window Is Dead - Here's What To Do About ItApr 15, 2026

A shorter booking window changes how pricing and marketing should be timed.

This episode frames the booking window as the main point: guests are often making decisions inside a three- to five-day span, not over weeks or months.

Events Are Huge Vacation Rental Marketing Opportunities - Do You Take Advantage?Apr 8, 2026

Timely event pages can work fast when search demand is narrow, competitors are absent, and the site has enough authority.

This is a practical conversation for vacation-rental operators and marketers who need to turn timely events into bookings. It is at its best when it moves from broad ideas into the mechanics of search volume, long-tail keywords, competitor coverage, and why a site with some…

Are You Making Real or Fake Progress With AI?Apr 1, 2026

A clear look at whether AI is actually saving work or just adding more of it.

It treats AI as something that should earn its keep, not just decorate a pitch. The discussion is at its best when it moves from broad claims to specific work: crawling a large site, checking for typos, finding broken links, and pushing fixes through the backend.

What Is The Future Of Direct Bookings (With Arthur Colker)Mar 25, 2026

A grounded look at agentic travel, matching, and the unresolved trust gap.

Arthur joins Conrad and Paul in a discussion of agentic travel that treats search overload and end-to-end booking with clear skepticism. It keeps returning to one durable point: matching can help people narrow the field, but travelers still want to see the property and feel sure…

Here's The Problems With Vacation Rental Marketing AttributionMar 18, 2026

A blunt look at attribution's gaps, plus the tactics that still make it useful.

This conversation zeroes in on the messy reality of marketing attribution in vacation rental marketing. It stays with booking windows, touch points, reporting gaps, and the limited lessons that still come from imperfect reports.

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Short-term rental lessons from the operator side.

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About Heads In Beds Show

In their own words

As heard by us

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of Heads In Beds Show

Podcasts like Heads In Beds Show

Episodes

Where Are We In The Innovation Adoption Curve For AI And Vacation Rentals?

Airbnb's New ＂Direct Booking＂ Link Isn't Direct Booking (plus What Actually Drives Airbnb Bookings)

Meta Ads vs Google Ads: When To Use Both For Your Vacation Rental Business

Lifecycle Of Homeowner Marketing That Works

Your Cheapest Homeowner Lead Is Your Most Expensive Mistake

Google's Ch-Ch-Changes Across Vacation Rental Search, Agents & More!

The Direct Booking Ceiling: When Ranking #1 Isn't Enough

Beyond E-commerce: How BuildUp Bookings Uses Mailchimp To Drive Direct Bookings

Build Your Growth Engines For Homeowner And Guest Marketing Success

Seeing Through the Marketing BS

76% Of Your Traffic Is Mobile. Your Website Was Designed On A 27-Inch Monitor.

Your Google Analytics Funnel Has Changed A Lot: Here's Why

The State Of The Union With AI Travel Planning

The Only Way To Actually Get Your Homeowner Marketing To Work

Rethinking Your Outbound Marketing Messaging

What Is the "Right" AI Travel Planning Interface?

Making The Real Case For Focusing On Direct Bookings

Here's The Things That AI CAN'T Do To Help Your Marketing (Yet)

News And Notes Mid-Year 2026 Show Update

When To Hit The PANIC Button When Looking At Your Google Analytics Data

Google Marketing Live Recap: How Will These 2026 Changes Impact Your Vacation Rental Business?

Local Is Your Vacation Rental Marketing Advantage - Are You Using It?

What Actually Drives Direct Bookings in 2026? (Webinar Recording)

Run Your Vacation Rental Business Like A Poker Player

Should Your Direct Bookings Actually Be More Expensive Than The OTA Price?

Using AI Search To Plan Travel Won't Hurt Direct Bookings

Winning With Google Ads In 2026 For Your Vacation Rental Business

The 60-Day Booking Window Is Dead - Here's What To Do About It

Events Are Huge Vacation Rental Marketing Opportunities - Do You Take Advantage?

Are You Making Real or Fake Progress With AI?

What Is The Future Of Direct Bookings (With Arthur Colker)

Here's The Problems With Vacation Rental Marketing Attribution

How To Run A GEO/LLM Search Audit On Your Vacation Rental Website

Every Section You Need On Your Landing Page To Get More Homeowner Leads

Here's Why Hotels Can Be Better Than Vacation Rentals

Your Vacation Rental Website Traffic Is Up, But Your Bookings Are Down - Why?

AI Update: Q1 of 2026: OpenClaw, "Prompt Tracking" Useless?, Current AI Tools We're Using

Looking Back On Marketing Changes From 2020 to 2025...

Direct Bookings Aren't Free... Here's How To Understand Your Marketing Costs

Expanding Into NEW Vacation Rental Marketing Channels In 2026? Here's How To Make It Work...

How To Spend: $3k, $5k or $10k In Marketing Budget For Your Vacation Rental Company (Part 2)

How To Spend: $3k, $5k or $10k In Marketing Budget For Your Vacation Rental Company (Part 1)

ALL The Ways You Can Run Promotions For Your Vacation Rental Business

Multiple Vacation Rental Markets? It's Super Hard: And Here's Why....

Mobile vs Desktop Traffic Trends For 2026: Here's What To Work On

Here's How To Level Up Your Marketing With JUST 4 Hours Per Week

Compelling Vacation Rental Marketing Messages Have Common Traits

What To Consider When Building A New Vacation Rental Website

The Four Part Process To Build A Guest Marketing Plan

Is This The KEY To Getting More Bookings?

VRMA 2025 Recap: The Hot Seat Session, Industry Trends & More!

The Four Part Process To Build A Homeowner Marketing Plan

The "Do's" and "Don'ts" Of Using AI With Your Vacation Rental Marketing

Replay: The Vacation Rental Marketing Fundamentals You Need To Have In Place

10 Things You Can Do To Sign More Vacation Rental Properties This Fall

Revisiting Meta Ads vs Google Ads

Can You Really Compete With Airbnb? Nope...

How Are Direct Bookings Trending According To Industry Research Experts?

Here's What Trust Building Is Needed In The Vacation Rental Industry

Here's What To Look For When Selling Your Vacation Rental Business

The MOST Important Question To Ask Before Investing In Growth (Part II)

The MOST Important Question To Ask Before Investing In Growth (Part I)

Is Creating Content Even Worth It Anymore? A Debate

Breaking Down The Reasons WHY Guest Choose Vacation Rentals vs Hotels

How To Launch New Vacation Rental Listings And Get Them BOOKED

Build The Demand Formula For Your Vacation Rental Marketing

SEO, AEO, GEO, Oh My! What's The New Search Trend In Vacation Rental Marketing?

Here's ALL You Need To Know About Hiring A Marketing Team For Your Vacation Rental Business

The Success Framework: How To KNOW A Vacation Rental Will Work Well

Recapping Google Marketing Live 2025 For Vacation Rental Managers

Last Minute Marketing Tips To Boost Summer Occupancy