Conrad O'Connell

Heads In Beds Show

Business EN ↓ 197 episodes

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.

Author

Conrad O'Connell

Episodes

What is the "right" AI travel planning interface? 08.07.2026 31:54

In this episode, Conrad and Paul discuss Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky's bold perspective on AI, why traditional chatbots fall short, why Airbnb isn't rushing into AI, and what the future of travel planning might actually look like. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101...

Making The Real Case For Focusing On Direct Bookings 01.07.2026 34:43

In this episode Conrad and Paul dive into the ACTUAL costs of being OTA-focused and compare that to your direct booking marketing costs and expenses. They get real... Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us...

Here's The Things That AI CAN'T Do To Help Your Marketing (Yet) 24.06.2026 29:05

In this episode Conrad and Paul dive into some things that AI cannot do (yet) and explain how and when to use your AI tooling to get better marketing results. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 About...

News And Notes Mid-Year 2026 Show Update 17.06.2026 26:44

In this episode Conrad and Paul give a mid-year update on the show, marketing news and notes and trends impacting the year so far 2026. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 About BuildUp Bookings Buil...

When To Hit The PANIC Button When Looking At Your Google Analytics Data 10.06.2026 40:42

In this episode Conrad and Paul break down when to panic when looking at your Google Analytics data. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 About BuildUp Bookings BuildUp Bookings is a team of creative,...

Google Marketing Live Recap: How Will These 2026 Changes Impact Your Vacation Rental Business? 03.06.2026 29:03

In this episode Conrad and Paul break down the 2026 Google Marketing Live show and put the "Vacation Rental" slant on it: how will these changes impact your business going forward? Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 Google Marketing Live 2026 🔗 Connect With Bui...

Local Is Your Vacation Rental Marketing Advantage - Are You Using It? 27.05.2026 37:38

In this episode Conrad and Paul break apart how "being local" actually looks in a marketing strategy across search, social, email and digital marketing channels. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 A...

What Actually Drives Direct Bookings in 2026? (Webinar Recording) 20.05.2026 1:04:10

In this webinar, Conrad O'Connell spends time with StayFi, Mountain Mama Cabins and Pricelabs to talk all things direct bookings and how they are trending for most vacation rental managers in 2026. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes YouTube Recording Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect...

Run Your Vacation Rental Business Like A Poker Player 13.05.2026 36:12

In this episode Conrad and Paul try on a fun new idea for size: what if you ran your vacation rental business like a poker player? EV, bets, investment, bankroll, the whole nine yards? Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website B...

Should Your Direct Bookings Actually Be More Expensive Than The OTA Price? 06.05.2026 28:56

In this episode Conrad and Paul bring up an idea: what if you charged *more* on your direct booking website compared to what you charged on the OTAs? It sounds counter-intuitive, but there's an argument to me made. Tune in, will ya? Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketin...

Using AI Search To Plan Travel Won't Hurt Direct Bookings 29.04.2026 33:25

In this episode Conrad and Paul dive into the world of AI search / LLM tools and ask a key question: are these going to kill direct bookings. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 About BuildUp Booking...

Winning With Google Ads In 2026 For Your Vacation Rental Business 22.04.2026 36:59

In this episode Conrad and Paul give an update on the ever-changing landscape of Google Ads and how we set them up (both homeowner and guest) into 2026 to get excellent results. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Ca...

The 60-Day Booking Window Is Dead - Here's What To Do About It 15.04.2026 35:28

In this episode Conrad and Paul talk all about the death of the standard 60 day or 90 day booking windows and instead tell you what you need to work on inside of your vacation rental business to drive more demand and appropriately market your properties for maximum revenue and occupancy. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marke...

Events Are Huge Vacation Rental Marketing Opportunities - Do You Take Advantage? 08.04.2026 33:22

In this episode Conrad and Paul break down building marketing opportunities with events. The duo specifically focuses on how to leverage landing pages, search volume trends, and other signals in your local community to take advantage of people traveling for these events. Drive more bookings with these tips. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Va...

Are You Making Real or Fake Progress With AI? 01.04.2026 41:01

In this episode Conrad and Paul talk about the realities of AI slop, how you know if you’re making real progress or fake progress, being fooled by hallucinations in AI data, and a lot more! Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Webs...

What Is The Future Of Direct Bookings (With Arthur Colker) 25.03.2026 51:23

Welcome to our second-ever guest episode! We're joined by Arthur Colker to chat all things direct bookings, OTAs vs direct booking "sourcing", what percent of Airbnb listings are direct bookable and a LOT more topics. A special thanks to Arthur for reaching out and joining us. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad'...

Here's The Problems With Vacation Rental Marketing Attribution 18.03.2026 37:29

In this episode Conrad and Paul talk "All About Attribution" including how ads platforms track "bookings made", limits of pixels, how to proceed when you get conflicting data, Meta vs Google and a LOT more... Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With Bu...

How To Run A GEO/LLM Search Audit On Your Vacation Rental Website 11.03.2026 34:30

In this episode Conrad and Paul take a crack at defining what a LLM / GEO / AEO whatever ya wanna call it audit should look like. Want a copy of the audit? Email conrad@buildupbookings.com with subject line "LLM Audit doc" and you'll get it! Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Renta...

Every Section You Need On Your Landing Page To Get More Homeowner Leads 04.03.2026 44:05

In this episode Conrad and Paul break down ALL of the sections you need to build a killer, lead-generating machine of a homeowner landing page. From the episode: 1. Hero The first thing a homeowner sees. A bold, benefit-driven headline, a subheadline with your USP, a compelling property photo, and a CTA (form or button). The entire job of this section is to get them to keep scrolling — or fill out...

Here's Why Hotels Can Be Better Than Vacation Rentals 25.02.2026 41:08

In this episode Conrad and Paul flip the script and break down WHY a hotel often is a better stay than a vacation rental. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 About BuildUp Bookings BuildUp Bookings i...

Your Vacation Rental Website Traffic Is Up, But Your Bookings Are Down - Why? 18.02.2026 37:53

In this episode Conrad and Paul dive into a 2026 trend: your website traffic is up, but your bookings are down - why? Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 About BuildUp Bookings BuildUp Bookings is a...

AI Update: Q1 of 2026: OpenClaw, "Prompt Tracking" Useless?, Current AI Tools We're Using 11.02.2026 52:20

In this episode Conrad and Paul give their regular update on AI: what tools they're using, what's changing, and how you can use it to grow and scale your vacation rental business. They talk ClawdBot (aka OpenClaw), traffic from LLMs going down month over month, prompt tracking value (it's useless?!), and what tools they're using MORE and LESS of... Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey C...

Looking Back On Marketing Changes From 2020 to 2025... 04.02.2026 38:24

In this episode Conrad and Paul take a (not too far back) look into memory lane and see what's changed from 2020 to 2025 in marketing, brand, the Covid boom and bust and a LOT more. A casual chat! Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookin...

Direct Bookings Aren't Free... Here's How To Understand Your Marketing Costs 28.01.2026 40:05

In this episode Conrad and Paul talk all about how much it actually costs to get direct bookings and scale your bookings with paid ads. Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect With BuildUp Bookings Website Book A Call With Us 🚀 About BuildUp Bookings Buil...

Expanding Into NEW Vacation Rental Marketing Channels In 2026? Here's How To Make It Work... 21.01.2026 37:13

In this episode Conrad and Paul talk about when and how to consider expanding your marketing and advertising into new channels you may not have used before like TikTok, Pinterest, native, Digital TV ads and more... Enjoy! ⭐️ Links & Show Notes Paul Manzey Conrad O'Connell Conrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing Conrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101 🔗 Connect Wi...