Best practices: customizing your automated messages

While you're creating or editing an automated message, you can personalize your message automations by customizing certain fields within your automated messages.

Our guide below will cover how to utilize attachments, customizable conditions, and variables for your automated messages based on your needs.

About messaging automations and automated messages

A messaging automation allows you to structure a series of automated actions throughout a reservation. For each messaging automation, you'll set conditions to determine which type of reservation will initiate it, as well as create the reservation timeline by adding actions to it — such as automated messages.
An automated message is a type of message that you can create for specific times during a reservation's lifecycle and will be automatically sent based on the conditions you sent.

You can also customize your automated message by adding variables, images/videos, and hyperlinks/URL links, and track all of the updates/changes made to your automated message and automated messages via the activity log.

You can easily search for any messaging automation you created in the search bar on the "Message automation" page.

Reducing manual work while updating automated messages or adding new listings

You can reduce manual work by setting as many automated messages templates as possible to apply to all of your listings.
When a new listing is added to Guesty, the template will automatically apply to it.

When creating automated messages templates that apply to some or all of your listings, add placeholders (default variables and custom fields) to customize the messages to make them less general, and more relevant.

Best practices for sending conditions

Sending conditions are filters that are added to automated messages templates in order to specify what, when, and how the messages are sent.
You can add conditions while you create or edit your messages.

Sending condition example

Below are a few examples of some of the conditions and our suggested use cases:

• Host total payout
  Create different messages for reservations with higher payouts, and offer extra services or VIP treatment.
  This helps ensure that guests are less likely to cancel and have a great experience.
• Number of nights
  Send messages to guests with longer stays (e.g., more than seven days) to offer mid-stay cleaning services.
• The guest provided an ETA
  
  • Remind guests to provide their ETA with an automated message before check-in
    This can help you schedule any maintenance or cleaning services needed to prepare the property before they arrive.
  • Send different check-in instructions to guests with a late check-in time

Adding variables and attachments

You can also customize your automated messages by adding variables, images/videos, and hyperlinks (URL links).

Using variables

Variables act as a placeholder that is populated/replaced with the information from the reservation in question when the message is sent.
For example, you can add a variable that will automatically fill in the guest's full name based on the full name on the reservation.

Using attachments

To enable and add attachments to your automated messages (like images or hyperlinks), you must change the "How should the message be sent?" field to Email.

Using custom fields to personalize your messages

Custom fields can be used as an additional layer of information you can add to your automated messages.

These fields will contain information that can help you distinguish between different listings, and also between different reservations for the same listing.
For example, you can use custom fields for your automated message's sending conditions.

Learn more with our custom fields best practices.

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