Airbnb Has Begun to Partly Break Out Its Spending on Brand Marketing

Airbnb executives have talked a lot about how they have reduced their spending on performance marketing (think: buying ads in Google search results) to focus on brand marketing (think: subway posters advertising the company's new "OMG" category of properties). So how much do they spend on brand and how much on performance?

The short answer is we don't know for sure. In its first year after going public in December 2020, the short-term rental giant didn't break out its brand marketing as a share of sales and marketing expenses in its financial results.

This year, though, it began to provide a touch more color, though not enough detail for a full picture.

The company doesn't disclose how much it spends on performance marketing. Yet it has begun disclosing its year-over-year increases in search engine marketing and advertising spending. In the first nine months of the year, its search engine marketing and advertising expenditure rose by $76.9 million y