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1Creative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedExecutive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaThe Paid Search Landscape:TravelHow competition and new ad formatsare disrupting consumer purchase journeys.The Ultimate Search Intelligence Solution2Executive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaCreative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedContents Page1. Executive Summary1.1 AI technology: An Opportunity?1.2 Partner management and brand protection1.3 Takeaways for travel brands2. Google Hotel and Flight Ads2.1 What is driving growth for Google Hotel and Flight ads?2.2 The impact on organic search2.3 How influential are Google Hotel and Flight Ads?2.4 Greater advertiser diversity2.5 Fight or flight?2.6 Key Takeaways3. Category segmentation within travel3.1 Challenges of scale3.2 Subcategory benchmarks3.3 Key Takeaway4. Mapping the Competitive Landscape4.1 Diversity, competition, and complexity in travel search4.2 Competitive complexity4.3 How does competition impact brands?4.4 Key Challenges4.5 Key Takeaways5. Seeing the Bigger Picture5.1 How can competitive intelligence benefit brands in travel?5.2 Seeing the complete picture with the Whole Market View345566889910111113141515171718192020233Creative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedExecutive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaSearch advertising in travel is changing. New ad formats, such as Google Hotel and Flight ads, are redefining ad space in the sector disrupting markets and ad spend. This report covers how brands operating in travel search are contending with new challenges and competitive market conditions, while also defending existing digital brand equity.1. Executive Summary4Executive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaCreative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedSince their introduction in 2015, Google Hotel and Flight sponsored ad units, which surface competitive price aggregation directly in Google searches, have greatly increased the diversity of advertisers that compete for visibility on a first page search result.Offering “twice the conversion rate on mobile” according to the Google Hotel ads portal1, advertisers have been eager to seek validation of the platforms offerings. In the Luxury Travel category, our research found that 29.84% of advertisers campaign keywords are now linked to Google Hotel ads.In the most popular categories, up to 30% of results pages now result in a Hotel or Flight ads comparison box. It paints a strong picture of the scale and influence that Hotel and Flight ads are having on the travel landscape.Ashley Fletcher, VP of Marketing, AdthenaAnd there is a recent precedent for such changes. The introduction of Google Shopping campaigns, or Product Listing Ads, also introduced a greater depth of available ad units and rich-media ad extensions, into sector-specific search engine results pages. The influence of PLAs has had a huge impact on online retail, and a recent Adthena study, The Rise of Google Shopping, identified that Google Shopping Campaigns now drive 76.4% of US retail search ad spend.As brands direct spend into newer ad formats, Hotel and Flight ads have created a scenario in which Google is, to an extent, disrupting the long-established Adwords (recently re-branded as Google Ads) model to promote Hotel and Flight ads as major drivers of travel industry ad spend.1.1 AI technology: An Opportunity?A parallel challenge for travel brands, and a much more enduring one, is to leverage the large amounts of data now available - especially in a period when adoption of new formats may be generating market share movement.New client-centric AI solutions look to solve these problems with technology that helps advertisers get straight to actionable insights from data, and brands have the opportunity to benefit from this in order to build a comprehensive understanding of the multi-touchpoint user journeys that define consumer travel purchases.1. Google Hotel Ads, 20185Creative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedExecutive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaThe ability to segment competitive search data into subcategories in travel, such as flights, hotels, or destinations, has traditionally been a challenge due to the scale of these sets in travel, however this is now being addressed by new AI-powered categorization techniques.1.2 Partner management and brand protectionA common pain point for travel brands is the protection of digital brand equity. Larger brands in the sector often work with affiliate or partner networks, with agreements to manage compliance on restricted search terms.Managing brand bidding and trademark infringements remains a challenge, and many brands require frequent and consistent monitoring of the SERP, in order to address the scale of competitive infringements they are experiencing.1.3 Takeaways for travel brandsThe challenges for travel brands advertising in search are unique and varied. However, brands do have an opportunity to leverage quality data in a period of change and the growing influence of new ad formats. For brands who invest in the sector, Adthena recommends a few key takeaways to improve digital ROI:Investigate the value of new Google ad formats with strategies informed by data and search intelligence, and transition ad spend where appropriate to enable more sophisticated targeting and tactical allocation of budgets.Leverage AI Categorization technology, to address the enduring challenges around scaling strategies and tactics in digital travel campaigns. Quickly benchmark, drill down into specific segments of the market for detailed and actionable insights.Investigate partner management and brand protection solutions, as a means of managing the complex partnerships, agreements, and infringements, that are common in travel search.6Executive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaCreative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights Reserved2. Google Hotel and Flight AdsA threat to organic search?2.1 What is driving growth for GoogleHotel and Flight ads?That Google now serves aggregated hotel and flight prices directly within search engine results will not have escaped the attention of travel advertisers. Since first being made available in late 2015, it has become evident that the sponsored Hotel and Flight ads have been growing in popularity and prevalence.7Creative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedExecutive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaThe introduction of the new formats is interesting as there is an argument that it will further dilute search click share. Increasing click-share won by Hotel and Flight ads will likely be at the expense of organic search, and to an extent text ads. However, Googles belief in the new ad formats is likely driven by the fact that they enable a much greater diversity of advertisers within a first page SERP.The Google Hotel ads often appear below the top four paid search listings, and offers a diverse range of of advertisers ad visibility dependent on user-driven filters.Sitting just below the top paid search ads on the first search engine result page, the highly localized, and content-rich listings feature image and review extensions, enable greater personalization via custom filters, and opportunity for a more diverse range of advertisers to gain first page search visibility. A clear consequence however, has been the pushing down of organic results to well below the fold.By offering users the ability to set travel dates, and filter results by price, rooms, and accomodation preferences, Google position themselves as a gatekeeper of increasingly personalized search engine results pages (SERPS).And while this is good news for the health of Google ad platforms, the inevitable disruption presents challenges for established travel brands. On mobile especially, where Hotel ad click-throughs have doubled2, advertisers who are reliant upon organic search may experience a loss of traffic as ad spend in Hotel and Flight ads grows.Advertisers may also notice a decline in text ad conversions if consumers are lured in by the Hotel and Flight ad offerings. This may be especially true for advertisers who rely upon prominent text ad visibility, which remain the most popular ad units on a search result page. The lack of filtering options and localized maps or ad extensions, offer less personalized results than the new formats.2. Google Hotel Ads, 20188Executive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaCreative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights Reserved2.2 The impact on organic searchWith the organic search listings now further down in the SERP, it may be the channel most at threat from the influence of Hotel and Flight ads. Hotel and Flight ads have streamlined consumer ad experiences, reducing the number of clicks needed to get to an answer or result. For advertisers, they have resulted in an attributable uplift in conversion rates - in some cases “twice what is seen on regular mobile traffic”3. However, these clicks are likely to be at the expense of organic search clicks, where the newer units are outranking organic search results. On mobile especially, consumers are more likely to convert via Hotel or Flight ads, having to make several gestures before they reach an organic search listing.Google have recently announced that the new Google Ads platform will further integrate Hotel and Flight ads with their main advertising platform, Google Ads. The restructuring further affirmed Googles commitment to promote the Hotel and Flight ads as mainstream units - with the Google Hotel and Flights ad platform, which is currently separate, to be fully integrated with Google Ads4 (Jul 18).2.3 How influential are Google Hotel and Flight Ads?One way of measuring the influence of Google Hotel and Flight ads is to assess the proportion of search queries in travel that result in a Google Hotel or Flights box. Adthena were able to measure this on both mobile and desktop.3. Google Hotel Ads, 20184. “Google brings Hotel Ads into the Google Ads platform, updates feed management hub”, searchengineland5. “How micro-moments are reshaping the travel customer journey”, Think with Googledesktop searches in luxury travel29.84%mobile searches in luxury travel29.72%Result in Google Hotel or Flights adsOur results revealed that Google Hotel and Flights ads are slightly more prevalent on mobile devices (where approximately +0.5% more searches result in a Google Hotel or Flights ad box). This suggests that the ads may be more influential during consumer research phases (or i-want-to-get away5) moments where users may be more inclined to use mobile devices.9Creative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedExecutive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: Traveladthena2.4 Greater advertiser diversityThe growth in popularity of Hotel and Flight ad listings may encourage further diversity of competition within first page search results. Adthenas Paid Search Benchmark 2018, revealed that the travel sector has an above average count of competitors competing for first page text ad positions. Of all the major sectors of online search advertising, only finance has more competitors competing for a first page ad position.For Google, there will be growing incentive to ensure Hotel and Flight ads are a success, as they enable them to surface an even greater number of paid advertisers in the aggregated price listings - beyond the eight text ad units that are available on any first page SERP.2.5 Fight or flight?It will be difficult to ignore the power and influence of Hotel and Flight ads. Price aggregation directly in the SERP empowers user experiences in a way which will improve Google click-throughs, and the biggest threat may be to established travel aggregators and price comparison operators.A possible endgame may see Googles Hotel and Flight ads become the dominant, and most influential ad unit for advertisers in travel. This would further Googles strategy of promoting specialized sector-specific ads that enable a greater diversity of advertisers to win first page ad placements.10Executive Report, AdthenaThe Paid Search Landscape: TraveladthenaCreative Commons 2018 Adthena. Some Rights ReservedRetail-specific units, which are driven by Google Shopping Campaigns, now drive 76.4% of retail paid search ad spend6, as reported in Adthenas The Rise of Google Shopping Report. It is a testament to how disruptive Google can be in their own sponsored ad space.If Google Hotel and Flight ads do truly take off, travel aggregators especially will have to decide whether they wish to jump on board, or double down on strategies independent of hotel or flight aggregation products.2.6 Key TakeawaysThe growing influence of Google Hotel and Flight sponsored units, represents a disruptive threat to many travel brands. Googles recent integration of sponsored Hotel and Flight ad products into the new Google Ads platform, suggests that their intent is for the technology to achieve widespread and mainstream adoption, among brands and businesses of all sizes.A concern for brands in the sector will be to what extent aggregated price results have on their own click through rates and conversions, on both organic listings and text ad campaigns. Aggregators will be concerned about Google price comparison as a direct threat, whereas brand operators will be concerned about disrupting searchers looking to make a brand purchase.As a result it will be important for advertisers to closely monitor results from ad spend investment into Google Hotel or Flight ads, and to manage tactical allocation of budgets with data driven insights.In the next sectionHow AI driven insights, and deep segmentation of the search landscape can reveal specific insights for competitors in the landscape.6. The Rise of Google Shopping, adthena
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