Online travel agencies and metasearch engines are increasingly looking
to reduce their dependence on Google. Their new strategy? TV commercials.
TV advertising campaigns like TripAdvisor's “Don’t Just Visit” series
aren’t the only ones appearing in between sports games. Major travel brands
like Priceline, Booking.com, Trivago, Expedia, and Hotels.com have all
announced their plans to increase their 2015 spending in this marketing stream –
thus taking away from the money usually allocated for Google paid search.
As mobile trip-planning and booking becomes more and more prevalent,
online travel agencies’ are seeking methods to acquire more customers through
direct-to-URL traffic strategies. The ability for an OTA or metasearch site to
have traffic coming straight to the mobile application is important as it can
lead to a stickier user base. The customer sitting on their couch can be
inspired to book via the mobile app post exposure to TV advertising.
Though focusing on TV advertising will attract new customers, suppliers
such as hotels and airlines, may bring their best inventory elsewhere.
Suppliers value the data insights they receive from their booking partners;
this helps them analyze the right supply and identify their most loyal
customer. With the abundance of booking channels on the market, online travel
companies will need to ensure close integration with suppliers to win customer
loyalty which is increasingly based on status, loyalty, travel rewards and
check-ins being integrated into part of the search process.
Analyst Ken Sena of Evercore acknowledges Google’s progress in this
integration. “Google is moving down stack so in addition to search, we are
seeing more in the way of research, transaction, and a willingness to leverage
this transaction data into the travel experience itself, such as voice
notifications, calendar, maps, etc.,” Sena says.
On the other hand, Priceline sees a benefit to both as its estimated
$130 million spent on offline advertising this year is seeing good results to
date.
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