As we embark on a new year and the search for the latest and greatest trend is in overdrive, we want to highlight one trend that you should incorporate into your hotel marketing mix. Agencies are quite familiar with programmatic advertising but 2016 will drive this buzzword into the mainstream and hopefully into your marketing budget. According to eMarketer, the travel industry spent $1 billion on programmatic advertising in 2015. Is your hotel participating in programmatic advertising? Or, are you still wondering what programmatic advertising is at this point?
Basic Understanding of Programmatic Advertising
Programmatic advertising is the purchase of ads in a sophisticated automated system, through real-time auctions. A potential customer visits a website with a spot for an ad (impression), while the page is loading the website sends a request to an ad exchange to fill this ad spot, the ad exchange instantly alerts bidders with basic user and site details, the bidders respond with their ad creative and bids based on the value of the ad exposure, the exchange then selects the highest bidder and displays the winning bid’s advertisement to the website viewer. This is all done instantly, without the delay of a human, while the page is loading.
How Can Your Hotel Target Higher Spending Customers With Programmatic Advertising?
A business traveler who enjoys first class flights and luxury rental cars visits a website, you want this person to see your ad so they can purchase a suite. Your bid skews higher as the profile fits your demographic perfectly and your VIP advertisement is on hand to be shown- i.e. luxurious suite, Platinum level perks, etc.
These exchanges and webpages know so much about the website visitors through Tracking Cookies. Browsing activity is tracked and stored in huge data warehouses (not with your exact information) that advertisers can buy and pair with additional data from multiple sites to create profiles to target searchers with better advertising- giving advertisers a higher ROI.
2016 Programmatic Advertising Trends
- Programmatic advertising spend will increase, according to eMarketer 2015 saw a spend over $15 billion and 2016 can grow to $20 billion, especially in the mobile arena
- The dominance of static banner ads will naturally lead to dynamic banners, these banner ads that allow different messaging and colors to be tested out to select the best ad for viewers.
- Videos will begin to be heavily implemented in programmatic ads, an extension of the massive video trend.
- More and more shows are being streamed online, Hulu currently allows programmatic advertising, and 2016 may be the year the big networks jump aboard
- Targeting and tracking is only going to improve with cross device targeting
Milestone currently utilizes Rocketfuel and hospitality specific companies, Adara and Sojern, for programmatic advertising. If you still have any doubts in your mind about not having a human purchasing your ads in bulk, the hotel marketing results below from a client testing Sojern may have you seeing green. Contact Milestone today for further information.
Contributed by:
Michelle Murphy, Paid Search Team Lead
Sara Linton, Product Marketing Specialist
