Metasearch platforms can seamlessly provide online travel shoppers with real-time pricing and availability throughout key touchpoints in the travel planning journey. Metasearch is becoming more sophisticated and so should your hotel’s strategy around it. With recent updates such as the joining of Google Hotel Ads with Google Ads and the rollout of Bing Hotel Ads, hoteliers can now stack up against the OTAs by displaying their hotel logo and price among highly trafficked results.
What is it?
When a user performs a search query for a hotel, whether on a search engine such as Google or Bing or a platform like TripAdvisor, the results that appear are pulled in from many different sources including various OTAs and hotel websites. So not only is your hotel competing with other hotels on this platform, you are also competing with the OTAs for the booking. That’s where metasearch marketing comes in. In order to gain visibility to boost revenue and bookings, metasearch marketing becomes an important part of a hotel’s marketing strategy.
Why is it important?
Metasearch marketing can level the playing field with the OTAs by providing customers with a direct booking option based on real-time rates, availability, and inventory. It also provides multiple outlets for customers to be directed to the property’s website and booking engine which plays a crucial role throughout all phases of the travel planning journey.
NextGuest is capitalizing on the exciting search engine updates to boost metasearch marketing to the same levels of sophistication as search engine marketing. By combining real-time rates, availability and inventory (ARI) with the latest targeting and bid optimization strategies, NextGuest ensures hotels’ websites are competing for and winning the direct booking.
Some benefits of launching metasearch marketing include:
- Appearance in the Google Hotel Ads section in search results on Google Maps and on TripAdvisor property pages.
- Presence on the latest metasearch platform, Bing Hotel Ads, which displays in the search results and Bing Places
- Seamless integration into the hotel’s overall marketing mix.
- Real-time availability and pricing connectivity.
- Dynamic bid management.
How can I get started?
Setting up a metasearch campaign is easy and straightforward. Working with an agency that has the right strategy set in place is an important factor when considering incorporating metasearch into your marketing mix.
NextGuest combines a comprehensive suite of digital marketing services, experts, and key technical capabilities such as:
- Automated bidding
- Machine learning capabilities
- Parity surveillance
- Click attribution
How do I measure success?
While metasearch presence is important for the entire customer funnel, success should be measured in clicks, ROAS, bookings, and revenue. NextGuest Digital continuously optimizes your listing by implementing bidding strategies such as retargeting past website visitors and building lookalike audiences to bring even more success to campaigns. With metasearch ads taking the user directly to the booking engine, it makes it easy for travelers who have chosen your hotel to complete their booking.
Download our guide to keep this information on hand. If you want to learn more about metasearch, contact us at [email protected].