My Airbnb page generates a $1,129 CPM | Hacker News Reader

My Airbnb page generates a $1,129 CPM

josephsofaer.tumblr.com

57 pointsjosephs30 comments

This might just be my conspiracy radar turned to 11, however, it seems very suspect that a blog with only 1 post ever, is using that post to rave about AirBnB right in the middle of their storm.

I want to supplement this by saying I really admire AirBnB and have no doubt that they will over come this security lapse with the killer product and marketplace they've built. However, this suspicious orphan blog post has my BS antennae throwing out sparks.

Definitely not conspiracy.

AirBnB is probably flailing around trying to figure out what is the best way to get to turn around this month long PR nightmare.

Orphan blog post probably sounded like a brilliant idea, until it hit hacker news and everyone sniffed it out.

I know Joseph Sofaer personally and can confirm the details in the blog post. But I agree, it would look shady if you didn't know him.

Yeah, I drafted the post a few weeks ago and was going to write a few more before I started the blog but figured I shouldn't wait.

To clarify, the poster is making $1,129 in rent per thousand views of his property page on Airbnb (as opposed to, say, craigslist). He is not trying to suggest that advertising (something besides his property) earns any revenue.

that's like saying that your car dealership website generates $20,000 CPM because they sold a car from their website.

CPM would be for AirBNB and they make a lot less than that.

It does points out how valuable and high quality their traffic is though

is it though? No way to tell with one data point. We'd need to at least compare that to 1000 page views on Craigslist.

Yes.

CPM is COST per impression. He's talking about revenue per impression (RPM) which is a completely different metric.

It feels good to read this kind of article after all taht storm. I'm pretty sure that guys at Airbnb are doing a great job.

It feels really nice when the community stands up and somehow defends/promotes the products they like, specially when that product is a result from hard work.

Just checked out my Airbnb stats, they're equally impressive.

All Page Views: 246 Money Earned: $1,249 Total Bookings: 2 So less than 1% conversion rate though.

Page views and site visitors are usually different metrics. I don't know how the Airbnb stats are calculated, but I'm guessing you've had fewer than 246 visitors—which means your conversion rate would be higher than 1%.

Are you sure you want to use your real name on this blog? You are advertising the fact that you are breaking the law in San Francisco (short term rental without a license) and violating your lease (subletting your apartment).

Not all apartments are rented. Not all short term rentals are illegal. And not all leases forbid subletting.

I'm not sure it translates. I've got a place, listed on AirBnB which is almost always available for rent. It's a vacation home. http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/59577

We've had 458 page views and made $262. Hardly astonishing. We do rent it locally through a property manager, they get much fewer page views, but have repeat clients and make us $5k to $10k per year. At least in South America, AirBnb might as well not exist at all. Nobody uses it to rent.

Are you saying you are generating revenue from something other than people renting out rooms?

No, it's just renting out the rooms. I know the "CPM" analogy doesn't really fit perfectly but the point is that the Airbnb service is so effective at driving traffic it makes me more than a dollar per pageview on avg. Of course it's their site but you can think of it sort of like an e-commerce platform where I can open a store and sell my extra space. It works super well.

Ok. Now it makes sense. I had the same question others had. I think you're saying if the money you earned from renting were divided by the visits to your listing, you'd end up with the number you posted.

Question, are you breaking even (rent - sublet earnings)?

The CPM term is misleading.

The title is so obnoxious that I flagged your post. Also, I'm pretty tolerant of linkbait. This just takes it to the extreme.

It's not the traffic that's earning the revenue, it's your property which allows you to charge for the rent. A more sane metric would be to compute your "profit", which is your income, the rent, minus your expenses in renting out the property:

  - amortized property deterioration
  - administrative time dealing with the tenants
  - opportunity costs (the interest/ROI that you could expect the principal to bring
    if it was not tied up in your house)

and then you can compare this profit and the fees AirBNB is charging for it against other channels (such as making your own page and driving traffic to it via Adwords).

Just because I'm selling $10'000 diamonds at 50% discount on a website which brings me 1 sale every 100 page-views doesn't mean that each pageview is worth $50.

Good job on the earnings but there's not a whole lot we can take away from the CPM figure. I'm not sure there is anything to compare it to besides other AirBnB listings and the only other data point we currently have is an order of magnitude better (246/$1129).

That's really impressive numbers! Great post.

wait, do you actually make that money?

yes

What's the point of this? Using terms like CPM makes no sense in this context. Come back to us when you're making $1129 with a million impressions, buddy.

This may be the biggest steaming pile of astroturf to ever hit Hacker News.

You'd be wise to pull it down until the new AirBnB insurance kicks in later this month.

Don't worry, we don't keep our Airbnb earnings under the mattress

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