Challenge

As Airbnb grew and competition intensified, they needed to better understand hosts’ goals and intentions for hosting to serve them in more personal ways.

Airbnb needed to segment their 4M hosts in a way that would: (1) tag every host to a segment, (2) be actionable, where segments could be operationalized in their systems, and (3) enable them to learn proactively how + when host preferences change.

Solution

• Led a team of strategists, data scientists, and design researchers to build an actionable segmentation of Airbnb’s 4M+ hosts that tagged every host to a segment.

• Leveraged rigorous data analytic techniques like factor analysis, k-means, and hierarchical clustering to uncover actionable business segments.

• Co-created actionable steps that Airbnb could take to engage hosts in more personal ways based on their unique characteristics, including loyalty and education programs, pricing recommendations, marketing, and support activities.

Impact

• Airbnb got a bespoke and refreshable segmentation that allowed them to better understand their hosts’ goals and intentions.

• Segments enabled Airbnb to orient their business around hosts to create new categories, personalize interactions, prioritize investments, and measure impact.