If you are one of those who think that has cameras at the hall monitoring you and banners that chase you, don’t be afraid, actually it is an advertising technique through banners called retargeting.
A great number of hotels have already been using it for a while and the mechanics is quite simple, it consists basically on the famous browser cookies when you access a website, straightaway when the user visits another website that supports ads via retargeting it is shown your ad reminding him/her your offer and encouraging to come back to the former website. This is just a little reminder that smartest guys of the class can omit.
Many hotels are already using them; and as you and others, are not doing it yet, here there is a battery of advantages in order to convince more than one in the recatch of the undecided:
- Very concrete ads: Just the person that visited the website sees the ad, so we know that he/she was interested or had been interested, but did not booked for some reason.
- Brand promotion: When the ads appear on other websites the user visits and recognizes the brand in an appropriate moment to not feel it heavy, the brand strengthens in the consciousness and in the subconscious mind of the potential customer.
- High return on the investment: Since this action is directed to an audience that is in a purchase process, this action typology has great possibilities for conversion and the cost relation it supposes for the hotel.
- Easy implementation: This technology can be implemented through Google AdWords. The high number of websites associated to this system make it interesting being able to be visible on them associated to your target audience.
- Categorize by process phase: It can be promoted as many types of retargeting as possible situations that can show up in relation to the relationship between the customer and our website.
- Advertising on interest: This is a great way to start the graphic advertising of hotels, since you are working over the knowledge about your product and a detected need by the navigation on your own website.
- The rate parity is not a problem: Although this may be a little growth hacking, it is important to analyze the retargeting from a rate parity point of view. These offers can not be compared by any person, so there are not problems of parity over rates on other platforms.
Said this, I hope at least that you don’t put a look of surprise when you hear about this term and that you know a little more of some advantages about working the top-of-mind. Let’s go a step further and see what the actions we can develop to work retargeting in our hotel commercialization actions are:
- Payment of remarketing campaigns. Known paid advertising platforms as Google and Facebook offer the possibility of using retargeting, either by using cookies or e-mail verification. There are also known third party platforms such as Ad-roll that specialize in the re-focusing area through several platforms. The idea is to take advantage of the non-converted visits to re-commercialize them and use the knowledge of the customer we have at that point. Some sort of user’s “supervision” to get them to the “enclosure” that represents the booking funnel. Careful with the number of daily impressions, it is not convenient to exceed 3 per user.
- Play an “extra ball” with e-mail. Collecting a user’s e-mail address, in regard of the possibilities of send them an e-mail after the abandonment of the booking funnel can represent a very significant advantage. E-mail reorientation techniques can give back the conversion rates, being this quite surprising. All the information collected previously will be data that can be used to optimize the e-mail deliveries we make that adapt better to the customers’ needs.
- CTAs on screen. To face a user “escape” we can take actions on the web that seduces him/her with some services adapted and improved on the normal rate. The objective is to make the customer to keep navigating with random actions that foster the visit and the conversion in any of the variations we consider interesting, either on the leads catching or in the room booking.
- Chat with the user through live chat. Although this is not a purely retargeting action, it is a web traffic redirecting action to certain web zones and towards a quality stay that drives to conversion. Some months ago I talked about the live chat advantages and how this can maximize our hotel’s sales positively. Therefore, although including a “live chat” on the website implies an extra expense in personnel, it also represents an added value service to the customer.
- Comparative elements of information. For the most thrill seekers an interesting recommendation I give is, to bet for elements like pop-up windows or dynamic CTAs with comparative information in relation to opinions or rankings regarding competitors. Another option is to work on rates comparison on several platforms. This is a formula to inform the customer, to have a more relevant website and to work trust through our website’s dynamism.
After going over on retargeting and web traffic redirecting elements, all that’s left for me to do is to encourage you to go on with this improvement of the online commercialization strategy that well and carefully carried on can add value to the customer and generate great benefits for the hotel.
En Tecnohotel vía @andresturiweb
CEO y Responsable de Proyectos
