The Money You Spend On Being Found

You are paying for several ways to be found. Ask which of them brought last month's new guests and the honest answer is that nobody knows.

It is not a hard question. It is one that nobody asks the guests.

Why attribution feels impossible

People do not arrive from one thing. They saw a post, a friend mentioned it, they walked past. ⚠️ All true, and it does not make the question unanswerable — it makes precision unavailable, which is different.

The measurement lives with the platform. Impressions, reach, clicks. None of which is a person in your room.

The gap between click and door is unbridged. ⚠️ This is the actual problem, and it is closed by asking, not by better analytics.

The one question

At booking, or on arrival, for first-time guests:

"How did you hear about us?"

Ask it. Write the answer down. ⚠️ That is the entire method, and it beats every platform's own reporting because it measures people who arrived rather than people who scrolled.

It will not be complete. Some will not remember, some will say "the internet." Partial data on arrivals beats complete data on impressions.

What it produces after a month

A ranking that is usually a surprise. ⚠️ The largest source is frequently the one costing nothing — word of mouth, or the listing somebody set up years ago and forgot.

A line item that produces nobody. There is nearly always one, and it is being paid monthly.

A sense of what a new guest costs you. Rough is fine. It is the first time the number exists at all.

What to do with it

Stop the one producing nothing. ⚠️ After two months of data, not one — a quiet month is not evidence.

Put more into the one that works, if it can absorb it. Some cannot — a listing is a listing, and doubling the spend does nothing.

And protect the free one. ⚠️ If word of mouth is your largest source, the things that produce it are your marketing budget — the service, the recognition, the reason people mention you. They are rarely thought of that way.

The promoter question

Where somebody is paid per head or per night.

Ask whether those guests return. ⚠️ Count it at sixty days. A promoter who brings a full room of people who never come back is a room-filling service, not a marketing channel — both are legitimate purchases, and you should know which one you are making.

What not to measure

Reach, impressions, followers. ⚠️ None of these has ever bought a drink. They are useful to a platform selling you advertising and to nobody else.

If a number cannot be connected to somebody in your room, it is not a marketing measurement.

Three to hold

New guests by stated source, monthly. ⚠️ From asking, not from analytics.

Cost per new guest, by source. Rough division. It settles most arguments immediately.

Sources producing zero over two months. Cancel them. There is always at least one, and it has been running for years.

Where the record has to sit

The answer to "how did you hear about us" is worth nothing in a person's memory. It has to go on the guest record at the moment it is given, or it is a pleasant exchange that produces no information.

tasteck keeps guest records with the booking, so where someone came from can sit alongside whether they came back.

You are not wasting money. You are spending it without the one piece of information that would tell you where — and it costs one question at the door.