TRAVEL The travel marketer's guide to mastering display advertising Essential learnings from industry experts
Table of contents
The state of travel marketing .........................................................4 6 ways leading travel brands increase conversion .......6 Interview: how the Lonely Planet marketing team creates display advertising ...............................................13 The future of travel marketing: a final note .....................15
2
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
Welcome! The chances are, display advertising is a big part of your digital ad spend. Yet, there is also a high chance that you are experiencing challenges keeping up with competitors’ creative edge and speed. This is not unusual. We have put together this guide to advise, support, and inspire you to experiment with the opportunities presented in the travel industry by display advertising. You can expect research, best practice, and tips from leading travel brands to support you in getting the most from your campaigns.
3
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
The state of travel marketing
There are many challenges for the travel industry today. It’s not simply enough to provide exciting destinations at reasonable prices in order to catch the eye. It is clear that travel marketers need to have a full understanding of the challenges they are facing, as well as the solutions to these issues. Here are three considerations we have identified.
1. Transformation of consumer habits Consumers can browse over 7,000 touch points over a period of several months.* The internet is facilitating a revolution in the ways in which consumers, search, browse, and book their travel. The sales cycle is now significantly longer – with potential customers often browsing for months, and considering hundreds of offers before eventually deciding upon their dream holiday.
2. A lack of loyalty Only 9% of U.S travelers ‘always’ know which brand they want to book with prior to researching.* Previously, travel companies could count on certain customers returning year on year. Now, today’s oversaturated market is more dependent on who offers the most visible and attractive offer at the right time, in the right place.
*Learn more about consumer habits with ThinkWithGoogle.
4
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
3. Programmatic spend is on the rise In 2018 81.5% of total ad spend was allocated to digital formats 3.5% more than the year before. The pressure on marketing teams to deliver results is steadily increasing in line with bigger investment in digital formats. To seize the opportunity presented by the boost, marketing teams will need to upskill and armour themselves with the latest tech solutions and digital advertising strategies to get ahead of the competition. Read the full report from AppNexus here.
5
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
6 ways leading travel brands increase conversion Creating digital advertising that converts isn’t always simple. There are barriers in the way, and it’s not always easy to pinpoint exactly where your advertising is going wrong. Here are 6 methods used by leading travel brands who have succeeded in overcoming common issues in creating display advertising with great results.
6
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
1
Pain: Keeping branding consistent across campaigns For many teams, having control over brand identity is a key consideration for marketers. Something as simple as centralising your own logotypes, colour codes, font libraries, or imagery can be barriers to creativity in display advertising. What’s more, with inefficient production processes, small issues often take too long to correct; ultimately restricting creativity and effectiveness of your campaigns.
Solution: How Lonely Planet took ownership of its brand For the Client Services team at Lonely Planet maintaining their brand identity is key. To manage brand identity effectively, the team took ad production in-house and used the latest technology to their advantage. Without the need to code and individually position each brand element within their display advertising campaigns, they freed up time for their designers to be creative. The ability to create visually stunning display ads with ease means the Lonely Planet ads attract the eye, and in turn increase conversion.
How could this work for my brand? If you’re working in-house – or have an open dialogue with your production agency – you should question how you have been producing your ads up to this point. Technology such as creative management platforms (CMP) allow you to centralise brand assets, reduce repetitive design tasks, and automate how you scale ads with assisting algorithms - ultimately increasing production speed and creativity of your campaigns.
7
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
2
Pain: Getting results from dynamic content Truly effective and engaging dynamic content is the holy grail of the travel industry. If done right, it gives you the capability to serve the right ad, to the right person, at the right time - increasing ad relevance and ROI. Yet an understanding of what it is and how best to use it is a challenge. This means many brands avoid using dynamic ads and end up using nonpersonalised, generic ads instead. Ultimately, ads that are less effective!
Solution: How Korean Air used dynamic pricing for targeted offers Airlines have been at the forefront of dynamic advertising. They leverage data and target relevant audiences to produce personalised ads. Korean Air uses audience targeting to know when to reach viewers at key times during the buyer journey. Particularly when they need more information or are ready to purchase. Relevant offers and dynamic pricing are then used in dynamic display ads which will show the best prices to consumers. This type of automation works particularly well for airlines. With display advertising you can target consumers based on flight history and loyalty programmes for example. Read more about how Korean Air uses audience targeting here.
How could this work for my brand? Dynamic content is not as complicated as it first appears when you have the right support. These days, the solutions are out there that enable dynamic pricing, imagery, and text with ease. If your production team - whether external or internal - argue that it is impossible without complicated coding and an army of designers, challenge them.
8
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
3
Pain: Finding the time for localised content Without the power of dynamic content, brands find it difficult and time consuming to both differentiate and localise content. Adjusted copy, creative, and language dependent on the location of your ads is now an expectation for consumers, not a luxury.
Solution: How Iberia speak to their audience, in their language For Iberia Airlines, targeting users with static banners was not driving results. Dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) on the other hand, opened a new door of opportunities. Running a short campaign in Spain, it used DCO to target and serve ads to specific viewers who had already been recommended by existing customers on an email campaign. Using data feeds, it presented an appropriate destination, the name, call to action, and translated copy for the individual targeted. DCO offers both localisation and personalisation. As you may already know, being able to use customer data in an appropriate way is key for any successful DCO powered campaign. Learn about how DCO works for Iberia here.
How could this work for my brand? According to Phocuswright, nearly 57% of U.S travelers prefer personalised advertising based on their preferences or past behaviours. Use this data wisely and consider how you can lift your ads to tailor to your consumers. Using customer journey data, your brand can also build hypertargeted ads. An image with a destination they have previously expressed interest in is a simple personalisation addition – DCO doesn’t have to be complicated!
9
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
4
Pain: Getting a clear picture of media spend and return Understanding campaign performance is at the centre of proving success or failure. Getting an accurate understanding of exactly where and how your media budget is spent can be complex, but it doesn’t need to be. By taking media buying in-house – or working collaboratively with an agency – marketers gain the ability to control and optimise their media-buying processes.
Solution: Kayak has moved to in-house media buying Kayak’s in-house marketing team uses programmatic technologies to buy media for display and social. But where it succeeds is in its application of search and first party data. Kayak uses the data to create highly-granular campaigns, which enables them to measure the return on investment across every single publisher that it’s bidding on. Dream transparency! Discover in-house media buying with Kayak here.
How could this work for my brand? Of course, you can onboard tech that gives you visualisation of the media buying process. But to gain a true understanding, we recommend hiring an inhouse expert who isn’t afraid of getting their hands dirty to manage your media buying strategy. Plus, use a solution that allows for a clear and real-time view of your campaign performance. With integrated analytics every member of your team can see results across devices, browsers, domains, locations, and more.
10
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
5
Pain: Being creative with new formats is hard to manage Limitations on production of creative, speed to make amendments, and the ability to be creative makes using other ad formats such as dynamic content or video unattainable for many travel brands. Without the right technology set up, many brands are finding themselves limited to a simple static banner with an offer and call-to-action in place.
Solution: Expedia uses a range of video ads across channels Expedia’s first hand research proves the importance of digital video – with many consumers genuinely interested in the format. Indeed, Expedia found that 62% of leisure travelers and 74% of business travelers want to see a video before making a final booking decision. By having the right ad tech and internal skill sets to manage it, there is huge possibility for brands – like Expedia – to experiment with a range of video ads across a variety of targeted channels: from in-banner, to outstream, and social media. Read more about video display advertising with Expedia here.
How could this work for my brand? In-banner video is an engaging and simple addition to any ad, whether used as a background or as part of the banner animation. Our own customer data from the past year showed clearly that CTR rates for video jumped by 18.4% compared to static banners – so what are you waiting for?
11
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
6
Pain: Strict design templates which are hard to change There is a basic formula for all display advertising that equals: engaging visuals, an enticing offer, and a call to action (CTA). Yet this arrangement is everything that is wrong with display advertising today. Display advertising can mean so much more. With the right technology, your creative team can make banners more exciting – with hyper-relevant offers, animated features, and interactive elements which will inspire consumers to dig deeper.
Solution: How GetYourGuide experimented with ‘search’ in their ads When GetYourGuide added the HTML5 widget to their banner ads, they saw the conversion rate lift for searches (website searches/ clicks to site) from 0.21% to just over 4%. Thanks to HTML5, they have the possibilities to experiment further. Producing static ads might be the easy option but it isn’t going to drive traffic like an engaging display ad will. See how Bannerflow can help you with smart in-banner widgets here.
How could this work for my brand? For your designers to individually code each element and scale these ads into different sizes, it would take weeks. At which point you can forget the creative elements that would inspire a customer to click on your ads. Adding rich media is proven to improve banner performance and doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, each animated element you create can be easily duplicated via a creative management platform– so you can catch the viewer’s eye without prolonging design time.
12
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
INTERVIEW
How the Lonely Planet marketing team creates display advertising Zach Keller Lead UX/UI Designer & Client Solutions
Ever since its founding in the 1970s Lonely Planet has adapted to an ever changing travel industry landscape. As an online publisher they work with both internal and external clients to produce engaging and attractive display advertising.
We talked to the Client Services team at Lonely Planet to find out how their marketing team works with display advertising and whether they have any practical tips for smooth display production.
What aspects of display ad design are critical for travel advertising? Strong imagery and a decisive CTA text are a must. The goal is to grab the viewer with the imagery and then appeal to their emotions. We love gorgeous photography at Lonely Planet, and our favorite clients are the ones who provide us with jaw dropping location photos. After you’ve got the user interested with a great photo, it’s important not to overwhelm them with too much text. We like it when a CTA is short and sweet; and hopefully one that helps put the viewer’s mind into the location the ad is selling. What practices have you implemented since using a creative management platform? File sizes are a huge concern when building HTML5 rich media ads. It’s our job as advertisers to make sure our ads load quickly, and without using up too much mobile data.
13
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
We always try to use HTML5 type instead of an image file whenever possible. Plus, we always optimise our image sizes via Bannerflow. How has the shift to mobile impacted your ad designs? Like everyone we have to be mobile first. This can be difficult when displaying rich media ads. In Lonely Planet’s case, we often show videos of travel destinations and experiences too. Guaranteeing a mobile video view is a tough thing, so we have learned to keep up-to-date on popular browsers and their autoplay policies. As well as ensure our video file sizes are small enough that a mobile user doesn’t accrue too much data per view. Any particular campaigns you are proud of that you have produced in-house? We’ve done some really cool ads lately in partnership with Adobe Stock and Nikon. These type of ads are a joy for us, because the client provides us with fantastic creative assets that we get to put our own spin on. What have you learnt from working in house? Like most agency settings as well as in-house settings, timelines are always shifting. Proper budgeting and estimation are key to making sure you stay profitable – while at the same time, keeping your co-workers happy and productive. Working in-house is a huge benefit because we get to make sure that the LP brand stays true to its roots. This way we also protect against anything that would be out of line for what our readers and users expect out of us, and our policy of journalistic impartiality. How do you see travel display advertising evolving? We can definitely see travel display advertising using existing APIs more. Being able to tap into Google’s Assistant API, for example, would allow a user to set a reminder across all their devices to “look into booking that trip to Greece, etc”, right from the ad. In this case, the advertiser would get one ad view and click, as well as a virtual ad display later when the user is reminded of what they saw earlier in the day. Integrations are powerful tools that businesses in the travel industry could leverage dynamically within their CMP built rich media ads.
14
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
The future of travel marketing: a final note
Antonia Lindmark Head of Insights Bannerflow
So far we have focused on digital practices in travel marketing for 2019. Yet, we would like to sign off with a look to the future. Antonia Lindmark (Head of Insights at Bannerflow), speculates as to what could be on the horizon for travel marketing. We asked Antonia how changes in consumer behaviour might impact the travel marketing of the future...
How could changes to consumer behaviour impact the travel marketing of the future? The existing sales cycle for travel bookings is inefficient; with 87% of consumers browsing on mobile but many are still using their desktop to complete a transaction. In the future, I see brands closing this gap. In fact, in a recent study by eMarketer there was steady climb in mobile bookings as app performance improved. Something that can only increase with time, hopefully! Behaviour on social media is constantly changing. And with every new year comes a new update that’s set to alter how travel marketers do business. However, what I don’t see changing anytime soon is the move towards short, highly consumable video content. With Instagram TV and stories there are unique opportunities for travel brands to engage effectively. And this doesn’t have to be limited to social – 2019 should see video in-banner become far more common... How consumers want to travel has a direct impact on travel marketing itself. More and more people are looking to travel to places that they know and love, rather than to explore new destinations. This presents greater potential for remarketing and re-engagement for a brand’s digital marketing as well. To be continued...
15
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
Next steps
If you would like to know more about the latest trends in display advertising then please check out our blog and subscribe to our monthly newsletter. If there is anything more specific that you would like to contact us about, do not hesitate to get in touch with us directly. Thanks for reading!
16
The travel marketer’s guide to mastering display advertising - Bannerflow
www.bannerflow.com
