June 10, 2019
Primus Hotel Sydney and Sydney Hotel CBD are both independent hotels that are centrally located in Sydney, Australia. Like all hotels around the world, they both have busy seasons and off-peak periods. But they attract different types of travelers and their marketing goals and booking goals were quite different: Sydney Hotel CBD wanted to rise above the noise in a market with more than 2500 accommodation providers; they knew that they could compete on both price point and location—especially with cost-conscious families and couples—but they were suffering from low visibility in the destination search results. Primus Hotel Sydney, on the other hand, wanted to increase bookings when there was a decline in group business in the area; they wanted to target non-business travelers to help them fill their rooms.
Another thing both Primus Hotel Sydney and Sydney Hotel CBD have in common: they both decided to use TravelAds Sponsored Listings to achieve their marketing and bookings goals.
Primus Hotel Sydney strategically used scheduled ads (a popular feature of TravelAds) to target their key need periods. They also carefully crafted their ad copy and picture with a seasonally relevant message showing their key selling points: pool, bar, large, contemporary rooms and location.
Sydney Hotel CBD focused their TravelAds campaign message on their fantastic location and competitive pricing. Prior to this campaign going live, Sydney Hotel CBD struggled with capturing enough demand to reach their visibility and booking goals. Once the campaign was live, they experienced an immediate increase in demand. Not only did their pageviews exceed the fair share benchmark, they also surpassed the pageviews of their competitors. In addition, the organic rank of their listing on the Search Results page improved due to the increased room night production. Overall, their visibility has improved nearly 50% year-over-year which has resulted in a significant increase in bookings.
By using the bid boosters within the TravelAds tool and crafting the right message, Sydney Hotel CBD was able to appear in the search results of their ideal audiences and thereby capture more valuable, longer-stay travelers.
Primus Hotel Sydney also saw positive results. In the month prior to activating TravelAds, Primus Hotel Sydney received approximately 4,000 property views (i.e. clicks). Upon activating TravelAds, they drew in nearly 30,000 property views in a single month. These numbers amount to an increase of property views of more than 7X. Subsequently, they received hundreds of incremental bookings during this first campaign – achieving both their revenue and bookings goals.
But don’t take my word for it. Natalia Widdicombe, Director of Sales and Revenue at Primus Hotel Sydney had this to say: “TravelAds provides our property a cost effective way to reach our target audience without sacrificing on room revenue. Expert advice ensures investment is utilized at its best, with weekly calls to review and adjust campaign.”
One of the biggest opportunities that we see both marketing managers and revenue managers missing is the ‘always on’ strategy. We see users turning their TravelAds on and off seasonally or only using TravelAds when demand is low. My TravelAds colleague and expert, Celine Wickerhoff, advises that TravelAds advertisers default to leaving their ads ‘on’ rather than toggling them on and off. “What we want our partners to understand,” she explains, “is that their ads won’t show if they don’t have inventory. Moreover, targeting your need periods proactively and aiming to get your business on the books earlier, will extend your booking window and allow hotels to yield their rates up. So, they should let them run and they will see great results throughout the year, because travel shoppers sometimes search in unpredictable ways. We should not waste that demand. Hotel partners sometimes get trapped in the mindset of TravelAds being a ‘quick twitch’ tool but it’s so much more than that.”
The video, Getting Started with TravelAds can help you learn more about how to use TravelAds to achieve your booking and marketing goals.
