I take hotel internet marketing pretty seriously on this blog, covering the latest cutting-edge technology that will bring you profits.

But it’s fun to look back at advertising from the past, and today I’d like to look at a little hotel advertising history:

Vintage Hotel Ad Gallery – 50+ old ads from 1880-1980

Read more…

Microsoft and Yahoo recently announced a major partnership to develop their search technologies. This is an important development in the search industry, so I wanted to briefly share the facts with you.

What happened

Microsoft and Yahoo created a partnership where:

• Microsoft’s technology and Bing! algorithm will power Yahoo search
• Yahoo will become the exclusive sales force for both companies’ premium (large) advertisers
• Self-serve (smaller) advertisers will use Microsoft AdCenter for both platforms
• Each company will maintain their separate display advertising businesses

The agreement will last for 10 years. However, the deal must pass regulatory approval in 6 months, and will take at least 2 years after that to complete.

Why it’s important

Basically, this alliance was formed to make a stronger competitive alternative to Google. Since Google currently has around a 78% paid search market share, it was often not worthwhile to develop separate ad campaigns for the Yahoo and Microsoft platforms (especially for smaller properties).

Hotel advertising implications

Nothing will change immediately: this is a long-term deal. It will take many months (if not years) to fully realize. But it’s encouraging to see a serious competitor to Google in the search marketing space. The combined R&D capabilities of these two companies could drive innovation…which is always a good thing.

What’s your opinion on this development?

Occasionally a business outside the hospitality industry contacts me to optimize their pay per click campaign. A few weeks ago West Chester Vacation Rentals – an Anchorage, Alaska-based firm that rents furnished apartments on a short-term basis hired me to fix up their campaign.

Following the optimization, we were able to reduce their average cost per click from $4.47 to $1.55. My fee quickly paid for itself, and now the company has a much more efficient advertising system for bringing in new business.

I’d like to share the steps I used to accomplish this, so you can avoid paying more than you have to for pay-per-click visitors:

I performed extensive keyword research to find hundreds of 3-5 word “long tail” phrases that cost less than generic terms.

I added very specific keywords to only display ads to people likely to reserve an apartment.

I targeted ad positions 2-4 instead of trying to always be at the top of results. Research shows ads in the top position give less ROI.

I split the campaign into separate ad groups for more control and flexibility.

I achieved strong clickthrough rates (CTR) – by writing benefits-oriented ad copy and using dynamic keyword insertion (DKI). With some ads earning over 7% CTR (up from 0.09%), this improved our quality score and dropped the cost per click.

If you decide to use PPC as part of your marketing strategy, it’s important to optimize your campaign for best results. A few basic changes like the ones above can save you thousands each month.

For more information on pay per click marketing for hotels, see:

• Top 10 Reasons Hotels Should Invest in PPC Advertising
• How to setup your hotel AdWords account
• Geo-targeting for precision and profits
• Advanced Metrics for Hotel PPC Campaigns
• 23 Questions You Must Ask PPC Management Companies

To hire us for Adwords PPC campaign management, call 1 (800) 737-5817 ext. 2 or email josiah[at]gradigio.com.

Today at ad:tech Paris 2009 Chris Dobson of the BBC gave a keynote speech on how established companies can adapt to new media. Though this conference targets the broader advertising industry, many of the ideas have relevance in hospitality marketing. Here are a few notes from the speech:

• You don’t have to be new to be in new media. BBC is one of the oldest media companies, but is one of the world’s most advanced media companies. The brave new world favors the brave old one.
• There have been many new media changes over the years, so you must be adaptable. BBC started television broadcasting before World War 2, but the format only started gaining popularity after Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. Get your technology ready now, and you’ll be prepared with the growth surge comes.
• The multiple screen theory is no longer a theory. People are now using media on multiple devices more than ever.
• The brave new world requires great content. Content is needed to populate all media devices. User-generated content will always be important, but so will professionally produced content. Bigger companies have the resources to fund and produce top-quality information. Users need and appreciate that.
• New media still has less reach than old media, but is more personalized. As we move ahead, ‘high touch’ media will also become high reach. We’ll be in a world of high reach and a high degree of personalization.
• The future of new media adoption in western Europe, unless it changes significantly, is under pressure. Brazil, Russia, India, and China have many more young people as a percentage of their populations, so technology adoption is higher. The greatest new media opportunities lie there.

1. You can start small
It’s possible to start with just $50 (though raising this will accelerate testing and help you get a better feel of the market).

2. Success is instantly measurable
Within 48 hours of campaign launch, you should be able to determine if the campaign is a success. Either it works or it doesn’t. Conversion tracking is easy, so you can see how much you pay for each new booking. This rapid feedback is not possible for many other types of media.

3. Ad delivery is very targeted
Search engines provide a wide variety of distribution options for your ads, so you can appear to your target markets. Depending on the tactics you use, you can show ads for relevant keywords, on selected websites, or to a group with similar demographics.

4. You reach people actively searching for your product
By showing your ads to people as they search the web, you reach them at the decision making stage of the buying cycle and dramatically improve the quality of the impressions.

5. Message testing is easy
Using split testing, you can perform accurate market tests to see which headlines and ad copy pulls the best. After just a few days, you can take this knowledge, and apply it to other promotional material.

6. Instant changes are possible
Is something not working? Want to change the direction of your ad copy? This can be done with a couple clicks, and your campaign is instantly updated. There is not need to wait until the next issue or ad cycle.

7. International advertising is simplified
With a globalized world, your potential guests could be coming from 10,000 miles away. PPC makes it easier to reach people searching for hotels in your area.

8. Branding exposure is free
Even when people aren’t clicking on your ads, you still get brand exposure. And unlike traditional ad campaigns, these impressions don’t cost you a thing.

9. You only pay for results
By definition, you’re only paying for actual website visitors – but when you begin using conversion tracking, you can make sure your ad spend is actually tied to new guest reservations. This eliminates all the risk you face when considering other types of media.

10. High ROI is typical
The combination of all the reasons above usually results in highly profitable pay per click campaigns for hoteliers.

If you’re still wondering whether to try PPC marketing, I encourage you to give it a try. There’s not much you can lose.

“If your ads work, if you can measure them and they return more profit than they cost, why not keep buying them until they stop working?

And if they don’t work, why are you running them?” – Seth Godin

Either your advertising works or it doesn’t.  This is especially true online, where tracking performance is easier.

When is the last time you did an impartial audit of your campaign performance? It’s nice to do anytime, but especially important as we head into a new year.

Today, I encourage you to take a closer look at your marketing budget’s return on investment.  Ineffective advertising must be stopped immediately. For profitable campaigns, your budget should be unlimited.

Stop making advertising investments on blind faith or what you’ve done in the past.  Let numbers be your guide in 2009.

Many hotel owners I talk with are looking for ways to reduce expenses in 2009. Lean and mean to survive this economy, right?

While across-the-board budget cuts can hurt revenue, there usually are areas of waste that can be eliminated.  Marketing is no exception.  Here’s some basic ways smart hotel marketers are reducing their promotions budgets – while at the same time getting better results.

1) Track your marketing & advertising

What is measured gets improved.  New technology requires new metrics.  Create new, insightful measures of success.

2) Focus on what works, reduce (or eliminate) the rest

Expenditure must be tied to additional revenue.  Make sure your marketing budget isn’t going down the drain.

3) Invest in a top-quality SEO campaign

Search engine optimization allows you to get website visitors for free, and often starts a snowball effect.  For best results, go beyond a quick tuneup – aim to dominate your local search results.

4) Spend more on pay per click (PPC) ads

Perhaps the ultimate low-budget advertising method, PPC ensures you only pay for results.  You can develop a highly targeted campaign that only reaches regions you want.  [Free flowchart for hotel PPC campaigns]

5) Market to your existing best customers

Selling to your best guests is the best way to maximize profits.  Setup systems for recognizing and rewarding these people.

6) Expand your social media involvement

Building your presence in travel social networking sites improves your online visibility.  (Plus, people sort of expect it.)

7) Establish a PR campaign for new media

As more people use social media for trip planning, this can be a very cost effective way to increase your exposure.  Just make sure you pitch the top people correctly.

Take tech leadership for free press coverage

As we’ve seen, hotels that use innovative new technology attract a lot of free publicity.  Plus, it builds a better guest experience.  Often, the best upgrades are relatively inexpensive – and tie into a unique attribute of your hotel.

9) Outsource your marketing tasks

Hiring a marketing firm that specializes in the hospitality industry can be more cost-effective than using in-house staff.  Use insider questions to find the best agencies.

Let me ask you this: What changes do you plan to make in 2009?

Many hotel owners and marketing directors realize the benefits of pay per click advertising, and want to select an agency that can help them build and manage an effective campaign.  Yet with so many self-appointed PPC gurus out there, it can be hard to make a choice.

I’d like to provide you with some inside information that will help separate the pros from the amateurs.

Here are a compilation of questions I’m frequently asked, along with ones I think should be frequently asked. I hope they will help you in comparing agencies, and selecting a firm that will give the very best performance possible.

Part 1: Questions about the process

What is your workflow process?
What to look for: A clear path to project completion
Why it’s important: To understand the process they will use

What am I getting for my setup fee?
What to look for: Clear, specific deliverables
Why it’s important: Transparency is important when you’re comparing companies

Describe your keyword research process
What to look for: Careful selection of at least 100-500 highly-targeted phrases
Why it’s important: Keywords are the foundation of successful PPC campaigns

What keyword match types will you use?
What to look for: Appropriate use of broad, phrase, and exact matching
Why it’s important: Keyword match types can improve accuracy

Explain your approach to ad copy writing
What to look for: A proven formula for winning ads
Why it’s important: Your ad copy has a direct impact on your campaign success

How do you track sales conversions?
What to look for: Ad network tracking code, with cross-platform tracking software available
Why it’s important: Linking ad spend to new sales is essential for measuring ROI

How will you increase my sales conversions?
What to look for: Time-tested techniques for improving conversions in your industry
Why it’s important: Cost per sale is really the only relevant metric

What are your top five metrics for measuring success?
What to look for: Benchmarks with real impact on your sales numbers and return on investment
Why it’s important: If they don’t know what success looks like, they probably won’t reach it

Part 2: Questions about the partnership

How will I be involved?
What to look for: A consultancy that provides the level of involvement you want
Why it’s important: That’s your right as a client

Who will be doing the actual work?
What to look for: In-house specialists working on your account
Why it’s important: Agencies that outsource your account have less control over the results

Who owns the campaign?
What to look for: Full ownership by you of all keywords, ad copy, and campaign setup
Why it’s important: If things don’t work out, you should be able to move freely to another agency

How do you price your monthly management service?
What to look for: A fair pricing format that provides incentive for the agency to perform
Why it’s important: Many pricing models are based on the wrong criteria

What is the duration of your contract?
What to look for: Options, with flexibility for you to exit
Why it’s important: If a company isn’t providing satisfactory results, you need to fire them

Part 3: Questions about the agency

How much experience does your firm have?
What to look for: A history of proven results
Why it’s important: You can’t put your company’s success in the hands of amateurs

Are the people managing the campaign Google certified?
What to look for: Google certified specialists
Why it’s important: Google certification requires knowledge and experience minimums

What differentiates your company from the rest of the industry?
What to look for: Unique, significant differences
Why it’s important: You want to hire the best

Part 4: Advanced (bonus) questions

How specifically will you help me beat the industry competition?
What to look for: Guerrilla marketing tactics
Why it’s important: You’re playing to win

How do you plan to reduce excess ad spend?
What to look for: Ways to cut the “fat” from your campaign
Why it’s important: Extra spending in PPC doesn’t always mean more sales

What percentage of keywords and spend will be based on our brand?
What to look for: A small percentage of overall keywords and ad spend
Why it’s important: Your campaign should include, but not depend, on your brand

How do you use negative keywords?
What to look for: Smart use of negative keyword matching to eliminate unlikely buyers
Why it’s important: Negative keywords increase your campaign’s return on investment

What is your process for improving ad quality score?
What to look for: A proven process (with examples) of improving quality score
Why it’s important: Poor quality score artificially inflates your ad spend and reduces performance

What is your opinion on ad distribution on the content network?
What to look for: Industry-specific advice
Why it’s important: Content network distribution has the potential to make or break your budget

Describe your approach for international campaigns
What to look for: Experience building localized campaigns
Why it’s important: The best international campaigns are customized for each country

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Let me ask YOU this: What questions do you use to find the best pay-per-click advertising agencies?

Image via Wikipedia

50 years ago, it would have been impossible to launch a nation-wide advertising campaign with just $50. Now, you can not only do that, but also rigorously test your message for effectiveness – and only show ads to people actively looking for a hotel like yours.

The technology making this possible is pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.  The concept was pioneered by Jeffrey Brewer and Bill Gross of Goto.com in 1998, but only started gaining popularity in 2002, allowing advertisers to show ads inside search engine results pages.  The premise is powerful: people that view your ad are already searching for what you offer.

Because of this, pay-for-performance advertising brings several very strong advantages to your promotional toolkit:

1) You only pay for results. Your investment is directly tied to the number of visitors to your website. This greatly reduces the risk of running an expensive campaign and getting no results.

2) Your campaign goes live quickly (often with 15 minutes). You can open an AdWords account to quickly test an idea or concept in the market. By bypassing the traditional ad campaign development cycle, you can enjoy first-mover advantage.

3) It’s easy to test for results. Pay-per-click marketing is very analytical.  You can track and test a number of important benchmarks and see which message performs best.

4) You can start on a small scale. With $50 (or less), you can launch a pilot campaign to determine if the format works for you.

5) You can target specific demographics or regions.  AdWords and other PPC platforms make it easy to only show ads to a highly targeted group of people or places. This accuracy helps you deliver your message to the right people.

Pay-per-click marketing should be part of a two-part search marketing strategy that includes organic optimization.  For more information, take a moment to read the differences between the two tactics.

To make smart marketing decisions, you need solid information. Of course, this is true in any economic climate, but with a possible slowdown ahead in the travel industry, the stakes are even higher.  All marketing expenditures must be justified by results.

If you’ve been marketing for a while, you undoubtedly know some metrics that work for traditional marketing and advertising campaigns.  However, the rules of the game change once you begin marketing online and encounter a wide variety of new media options.

What metrics should you use to measure the effectiveness of your digital hotel marketing campaign?  Let’s start off by putting aside a couple web marketing metrics that have been used in the past, but aren’t really that helpful anymore.

• Number of ad views – in the early days of the web, it was common to purchase advertising based on the number of ad impressions or views.  Now, there are other more effective ways (such as pay-per-click).
• Website visitors – the number of people that visit your website might have little correlation to the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.

Should you track these?  Absolutely.  They just don’t provide enough insight.  So let’s move on to some more helpful metrics.

1. Conversion rate – what percentage of website visitors are booking a room?
2. Cost per booking – actually, you should be tracking a wide variety of “cost-per” actions for any advertising campaign. How much does each click, visitor, and lead cost? Spending must be tied to revenue gains.
3. Referral source type – knowing the type of websites that provide the most visitors can help you decide the direction of your marketing campaign
4. Search engine rank – How high do you rank in search results for each important keyword phrases?  Search is still the #1 way people find websites, so you need to list high for key phrases.
5. Social media mentions – How many bloggers and social travel networking websites are talking about your hotel?

Those are the core metrics that are important for anyone doing hospitality marketing.  Other metrics that could be useful in your situation include:

• Percentage of positive mentions in social media – this statistic is a little harder to generate, but the results are more insightful.  What is the overall consensus on your facility?
• Average time on site – how long do people stay on your site?
• Bounce rate – how many people leave your website without visiting any other pages (the lower this number, the better)
• Reservation abandonment rates – you need to know when and where potential guests are giving up in your booking system
• Top referral keywords – which phrases do people use to find your website?
• Number of inbound links – your goal should be to increase the quantity and quality of inbound links each month
• Google Pagerank – Google’s measure of website authority

Whatever combination of indicators you plan to use, the important thing is that you track and save this information.  You can only make efficient marketing decisions by looking at historical data, and then focusing your marketing resources on what works.

Let me ask you this: What metrics do you use for digital marketing?