Smoobu can email your guests for you: a confirmation when they book, check-in details a few days before arrival, a review request after departure. You write a message template once, choose when it should go out, and Smoobu sends it for every matching booking.
Before you start
Have this in place before you create your first template:
- Your @host.smoobu.com sender address is set up, so guest replies come back into Smoobu and invoices can be attached. See .
Create an automated message
- In Smoobu, go to Experience > Communication.
- Under My message templates, click Create.
- A Fill from template window opens. Pick a ready-made starter and click Use selected template, or close the window to write your own from scratch.
- Enter a Subject. This becomes the subject line of the email your guest receives.
- Write the message text. Use placeholders from the list in the editor to include booking details that fill in automatically for each guest, for example
[firstGuestName],[apartment],[arrivalDate], and[onlineCheckInLink]. - Under Accommodations and Channels, choose whether the template applies to all your properties and channels or only to specific ones.
- Choose the Recipient: Guest is the default; Mail to account owner's address sends it to you instead; Individual Recipient sends it to any address you type, for example your cleaner. With Cc/Bcc you receive a copy of every message at an extra address.
- Tick Send automatically?. Three timing fields appear: Time to send message (from 10 days before to 10 days after the trigger), Trigger (Booking notification, Arrival, Departure, Booking cancellation, or Online check-in completion), and Time, the hour of day to send in. With the Booking notification trigger the hour selector is greyed out: that message goes out as soon as the booking arrives.
- For the Arrival, Departure, and Online check-in completion triggers, a Send email even if trigger is in the past option appears below the timing fields. Tick it so guests who book last minute still receive the message. It isn't shown for the Booking notification trigger, which always fires the moment the booking arrives.
- Click Save.
Check it worked
The template appears in the My message templates table with its trigger and send time, and in the Template dropdown when you message a guest from a booking. For a full test, enter a booking with your own email address as the guest () and check that the email arrives. To switch a message off again later, or to stop a single send for one booking, see .
Start from a ready-made template
The Fill from template window offers starter texts for the most common messages: Booking Confirmation, Online Check-In, Day before arrival, One Day After Arrival, Departure info / Check-out / Review, Thank you note, Guest App Access, Discount code, and Quotation for Stay, most of them available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. The starters are not active by default: none of them sends anything, and none appears in your template dropdowns, until you pick one, adjust it, and save it as your own template.
Send the message in your guest's language
A template without a language tag is your universal version: it goes to every guest. To add translations, open the template, click Add language, and pick the language. The booking's Language field decides which version a guest receives: if it matches one of your language versions, that one is sent; otherwise the untagged version is sent. Channel bookings usually arrive with the language already filled in from the channel; for direct bookings, set the Language field yourself when you enter or edit the booking. Keep the untagged base version in your property's local language and add languages as you need them.
Format your emails
The editor has an HTML editor switch for formatted messages: headings, bold text, and links. Formatting does not always survive the trip to the guest. For guests who booked through Airbnb or Booking.com, send plain text instead of formatted messages. Those channels do not display HTML formatting reliably, so a formatted message can reach the guest looking wrong; plain text is the safer choice for them. Formatted emails can also arrive with uneven fonts or lost line spacing, and messages delivered through Booking.com can lose their line breaks. Keep the formatting simple, and see for what each channel delivers.
Send a payment reminder for the balance due
To remind guests of an open balance, write a template that uses the [rest] placeholder: it fills in the total price minus the prepayment, so the guest sees exactly what is still due. Add [stripePaymentLink] to include a payment link for that amount; how the link works is covered in . Tick Payment collection reminder to mark the template as a payment reminder. Smoobu then sends it only when the booking still has an unpaid balance at the scheduled send time; if the balance is already paid, that guest is skipped silently and no reminder goes out. If you also tick Add invoice, the booking's invoice is attached, provided the invoice already exists and your @host.smoobu.com sender address is set up.
Common problems
A last-minute guest didn't get your message
If the booking arrived after the message's sending moment had already passed (a "3 days before arrival" message, booked 1 day before arrival), Smoobu skips the send unless Send email even if trigger is in the past is ticked on the template. Tick it on every message a guest must always receive.
You created a new template, but existing bookings didn't get it
Smoobu schedules forward only. A booking whose trigger moment had already passed when you saved the template does not receive it; future bookings fire normally. Ticking Send email even if trigger is in the past makes the message go out anyway.
Your template doesn't show in the booking's Template dropdown
Only templates you have saved appear there. The ready-made starters are not pre-installed, so a fresh account's dropdown shows only Empty Mail. Create and save the template in Experience > Communication first, then it appears in the dropdown.
The invoice wasn't attached
Add invoice only works when the booking's invoice was created in advance and your @host.smoobu.com sender address is set up. Without the sender address, the email goes out without the invoice. See .
A door code or check-in link came through empty
Door-code placeholders are often still empty at booking time because the lock partner hasn't generated the code yet; sending the message closer to arrival usually fixes it. See Door codes aren't showing up in your messages. If the online check-in link is missing from your messages, see The check-in link is missing from your messages.
Related articles
Still stuck?
If these steps didn't fix it, contact the Smoobu team: open the Help menu to open a ticket or book a call slot, or use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner. To get the fastest answer, please include:
- Your Smoobu User ID (in the profile-icon menu, top right).
- The property name or ID, if it's about one property.
- The Booking ID, if it's about one booking (Bookings, then View more).
- The channel name, if it's about channel sync (Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, and so on).
- A short step-by-step: what you did, what you expected, and what happened.
- Screenshots or a short screen recording of the problem.
- Your browser and operating system, if something looks wrong on screen.
Comments
9 comments
Hello... I already set automatic messaging system. I am unsure if it works or how it works. Guests who booked thru airbnb will see such messages on airbnb messaging system or elsewehere? How can I test to make sure it works fine?
Hi Ahmet,
Yes, your Airbnb guests will receive your automated messages on their Airbnb apps. You will basically use it as a chat.
You could make a dummy direct booking in Smoobu and enter your own email address to check how your automated message looks like.
Drop us an email if you have any other questions! info@smoobu.com
When I reply to messages through Smoobu, it is not appearing the the guests Airbnb App.
Same happened to me previously and was because my message was too long. You think that may be the cause?
Sorry about the late reply.
Yes, that could be a possible cause. In these cases, please present the case to our Support Team so they can check it.
Hi, regarding the message for the Booking Confirmation - in "Portals" what is the difference between "Website" and "Direct Bookings"?
Hi Ina Fumarola
Website bookings refer to reservations booked by guests while navigating your website; while Direct bookings are the ones entered by yourself in your Smoobu account.
It would be good if website was treated as a proper channel, so that markup (price adjustment) can be applied to it.
Do the placeholders need to include the precise capitalised letters as written on Smuboo?
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