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Managing short-term rentals across seven markets means GuestReady is always communicating with two very different audiences at once: guests who want to book the perfect stay in Porto or Paris, and property owners whose revenue depends on keeping those stays full. Staying relevant to both, at scale, across multiple languages and time zones, is not a small ask from a marketing team.
A year ago, GuestReady's email program wasn't keeping up with that ambition. The team was sending one manual blast a month to their full list. It was functional, not strategic. And as the list grew and the team expanded into new markets, it became clear that a basic email service provider (ESP) wasn't going to get them where they needed to go.
Moving from blasts to behavioral journeys
The move to Customer.io was deliberate. GuestReady knew they wanted behavioral logic, not just higher send volume. They needed a platform that could grow with them—handling a large and expanding list reliably while giving the team the tools to build real, data-driven guest journeys over time.
The first win came quickly: list health. By setting up a subscription preference center that lets guests opt into specific content types–travel inspiration, flash sales, or both–rather than forcing an all-or-nothing unsubscribe decision. GuestReady cut their unsubscribe rate by 64%, so now every behavioral flow they build from here is reaching an audience that actually wants to hear from them.
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We realized that giving guests more control over what they received didn't mean we'd hear from them less. It meant the people who stayed on the list were actually engaged. That was the foundation we needed to build everything else on.
Carla VidalMarketing Director
From there, the team built out the guest lifecycle: a new account creation flow with direct booking incentives, travel inspiration newsletters, flash sale sends, check-in communications, and post-stay follow-ups. The volume of communication increased significantly compared to the old one-blast-a-month model. The manual workload didn't.
The abandoned cart flow: Where the real personalization starts
In the travel industry, a reminder email that says "you left something behind" doesn’t cut it. A guest who was browsing properties in Lisbon isn't in the same headspace as another guest who was looking at London or Madrid. GuestReady built their V2 abandoned cart sequence with that in mind.
The flow triggers when a guest views a property but doesn't complete their booking. After a 24-hour window—enough time to confirm they haven't booked elsewhere–a three-email sequence kicks off.
The first email is tailored to the specific city the guest was exploring. The second highlights the exact property they were considering. The third offers alternatives in the same destination, for guests who might still be interested in the city but have moved on from the original listing. Across their priority markets, that adds up to 35 distinct variants running inside a single workflow, available in four languages.
The early results from V1 (the simpler version the team used to validate the approach) were a 58% open rate and a 2.5% conversion rate. V2, which launched in early 2026, is currently tracking at 52.8% open rate and 1.6% conversion. The team notes that V2 is still newer and running at higher personalization depth—and they expect the conversion rate to improve as the variants accumulate more data.
To put those numbers in context: this is travel. A guest isn't adding a $30 item to a cart. They're planning a trip, coordinating with other people, and making a real financial commitment. A 2.5% conversion rate on abandoned bookings in that context is meaningful.
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The visual workflow builder was key for managing something this complex. When you have 35 variants across multiple languages, being able to see the whole flow on a single canvas is what keeps it from becoming chaos.
Anna HirnerInbound Marketing Specialist
What's next
GuestReady sees email as the foundation, not the ceiling. The team is currently testing anonymous in-app messaging and targeted on-site campaigns, which would let them reach guests with personalized content based on browsing behavior even before they've identified themselves. It's an early experiment, but the data they're already collecting on guest behavior makes it a natural next step.
A/B testing is also on the near-term roadmap—something the team knows they haven't fully tapped yet. And as guests increasingly browse and book on mobile, push notifications and SMS are the logical channel expansion to follow.
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We chose Customer.io because we knew we'd eventually want to do things like this. We're just getting to the point where we can actually build them.
— Carla VidalMarketing Director
The story here isn't a finished one, and GuestReady would be the first to say so. What they've built in a little over a year is a robust lifecycle program that's already producing measurable results and is structured to get more sophisticated over time. And if the early results are any indication, the best stays—for GuestReady's guests and their bottom line—are still ahead.
