The Hotels vs OTA Paid Search War – Get Your Defensive Strategy Right
Here’s another great guest post by the team at Mirai Espana, this time by Pablo Delgado and César López. This post examines how 3rd Party Retailers / OTAs capture business intended directly for hotels…and how to approach / fix the problem. Also evaluated is the value OTAs CAN add, i.e. via generic and destination level searches.
How Online Travel Agencies (OTA) or 3rd Party intermediaries get the customers that are searching for you on the web
PART 1: The problem
In Continental Europe, hotels with registered trademarks can prevent intermediaries from using their brand names in Google Adwords. Doing this means that more users end up on their own websites. In spite of the advantages, most independent hotels don’t take the necessary steps to benefit from it.
Did you think you were first in line? Others are cutting in front of you.
Your 1st place is barely visible
TripAdvisor Advertising – CPC Case Study and ROI
A great guest post by Piotr Majdan from Mirai Espana, that takes a deeper look at the performance of TripAdvisor PPC (not to be confused with Business LIstings) activity. Piotr had also published a case study on the ROI of TripAdvisor Business Listings as while back. These conclusions were derived by Mirai after investing €27,000 with 58 hotels:
Your direct rates, your hotel’s website rates, can now appear on Tripadvisor dealing face to face with intermediaries such as booking.com and expedia.com. Should you join this program? What can you expect regarding the required investments and the return you will obtain? Does this return affect your hotel’s position within your city’s ranking? After a comprehensive three-month study, we have got answers.
Tripadvisor’s CPC (Cost per Click) program will generate new bookings in most of the hotels’ websites, mainly for the best rated hotels, but it is not predictable when it comes to cost and can generally be expensive “commission wise”.
In any case, “high” commission is a relative concept and should always be compared with the margin you get through intermediary sites (IDS) or classical tour operators . It still might be worth it for many hotels. Here is how we got to this conclusion.
In May 2010, Mirai pioneered the testing of the Tripadvisor Business Listing. Once again, we are the first ones to explore the new opportunity given by Tripadvisor – their CPC program. The difference between them is that the former is based on a fixed fee and the cost of the latter is variable depending on the traffic.
Other companies on the market offer this service (sometimes with a set-up fee or monthly fixed payment) directly to their clients promising new bookings. Before doing so, we at Mirai, have conducted a test to check the return you can expect by participating in this program. We invested €27,000 in 58 of our clients and analysed the results.
So what is the CPC program and how does it differ from Business Listing?
Business Listing allows you to add a link to your website, as well as the contact information (Blue).
Future of Display Advertising – Is the Hotel Industry Ready?
Google recently presented their vision for how display advertising is likely to evolve by 2015…these seven predictions are something all marketers worth their salt absolutely MUST be informed and aware about.
To summarize, here are the broad predictions:
- 50% of ad campaigns will include video ads bought on a cost-per-view basis
- 50% of ads will be bought using this real-time bidding technology to tailor experiences for different viewers
- Smartphones / mobile is going be the number one screen for digital brands to engage users
- There will be at least five metrics that advertisers will regard as more important than the “click”
- 75% of web ads will be “social” in nature i.e. Ads will be shared, discussed, subscribed to and recommended
- Rich media formats enable great creativity and interaction – these will grow from 6% of display ad impressions to 50%, especially for brand building campaigns
- Digital display advertising is going to grow to a $50 billion industry
Hotel Internet Marketing by 2013 – Are we on Track?
I came across a piece I’d written about 17-18 months ago on the future of hotel internet marketing. The article talked about 5 broad tech trends that I thought would radically alter the way we approached digital / internet marketing for hotels back at the end of 2008. I thought it’d be fun to take a re-look at the article and see how far we’ve actually come in the last year or more and if those predictions still hold water… here goes:
1. Choice is king.
The clear winners of the online distribution race will be suppliers and 3rd parties that provide the most choice to the customer. “Experience building” will become key to the looking and booking process online. This will mean that successful suppliers (hotels) will have to break down elements of their inventory like rooms, dining, sports, spa and supporting services into individual units that can be booked and packaged both internally and externally. The more elements you provide to what I like to call the “Experience Engine”, the better the choice available to customers to personalize and tailor their experiences. This creation of experience units will also allow tourism industry suppliers to collaborate more effectively online, as well as spur the evolution of 3rd party providers who provide superior experience engines, taking destination marketing to a whole new level.
5 Future Internet trends that will change Hotel Internet Marketing
5 Future Developments that will revolutionize Online Hotel Marketing: “For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”, says a famous proverb…and what better fit to apply this than in the world of technology and marketing?
The breakneck speed of tech evolution is inspiring (and often scary) but the two keywords that will set winning developments apart from the ‘also ran’ are ‘love’ and ‘simplicity’. It doesn’t take a degree to understand that people adopt technologies that fuel their imagination & passions…and the rate of adoption is in close sync to the simplicity of its interface and operation. Great technology needs to adapt to the needs of the user and future breakthroughs will bear testament to this.
Future Hotel Trends – 8 Hotel Guest Demands that will shape hospitality
Back to the future: Meet the hotel guest of 2020
It is the year 2020. The past twelve years have been a flurry of development in the areas of design, nanotechnology, robotics, medicine, the internet, security and law. Contrary to popular opinion, the hotel industry has not been slow on the uptake. It’s been the decade of hospitality renaissance. A coming of age, an evolution of service as it should be…and a tribute to true personalization.
Here’s a look at the hotel guest experience in the year 2020 and how guests have helped the industry become truly magnificent:
Search Engine Marketing Basics for Hotel General Managers and Directors
In search of…simplification! An introduction to Search Engine Marketing for Hotel General Managers and Directors of Sales & Marketing
Search Engine Marketing has been a hot topic for quite a while now and there have been a plethora of articles written on the subject, ranging from the tediously academic to those hailing Search Engines to be the be-all and end-all when it comes to selling online. But there still seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the true value of Search Engines in the hotel industry, especially in the Middle East, and just what hoteliers can do to stay ahead of the curve. This article is an attempt to de-mystify and present the big ‘Search’ picture.
