In today’s digital landscape, a successful hotel revenue strategy is more than filling rooms. It’s about targeting the right traveler and tapping into data-backed industry trends to stay competitive.

If your strategies to increase hotel revenue don’t account for supply and demand, you could pay for ads when you don’t need them or miss advertising opportunities completely. When demand is high, you might price room rates too low if you’re not tracking what travelers are willing to pay. These are a few reasons why it’s cost-effective to have a hotel advertising strategy that flexes based on supply and demand.

Why you need a revenue marketing strategy

Utilizing the right resources to make informed decisions gives your business an edge. Plus, having an effective revenue strategy can:

  • Protect your business during slow seasons and changes in the market.
  • Get your property in front of the right traveler at the right time and on the right channels.
  • Improve your bottom line.

Ways to increase hotel revenue with TravelAds Sponsored Listings

Savvy hotel revenue managers will use the tools at their disposal to their fullest potential. Media Solution’s proven, pay-per-click TravelAds are a powerful way to put your strategy to work for you. Here are seven ways TravelAds can help you increase bookings and revenue:

1. Tap into traveler insights to reach your target audience.

A successful strategy puts your hotel in front of the right traveler, at the right time, and on the right platform. It isn’t a guessing game.

Targeting is one of the best strategies to increase hotel revenue because it connects you with millions of travelers across our portfolio of 200+ travel websites and apps. Use deep audience targeting with TravelAds and bid enhancers to better connect with your ideal audience. You can filter by travelers’ behavior, interests, travel intent, and more. You can also fill high-need dates by targeting travelers based on length of stay to book more rooms.

A success story: Sonder, an innovative hospitality company, used TravelAds to increase brand visibility and bookings. The company saw a return on ad spend (ROAS) of nearly 16:1, and with bid enhancers, Sonder’s bookings outperformed their campaign expectations. “TravelAds makes every dollar work harder,” Patrick Mitchell, VP, brand and ecommerce at Sonder said.

2. Scale your ads up — or down — based on supply and demand.

Picture this: Your hotel has a lot of rooms available during a specific time. You spend time and money advertising until the rooms are booked. Once demand increases and the rooms are filled, you’ll want to ease up on your advertising spend. Changing your daily ad spend to suit your current needs is easy with TravelAds, and you can ramp up any time you need. Because of this flexibility, this is one advertising option that works with any budget.

Another way to manage your spend is with automated billing options. With Post Bill, there’s no upfront commitment; instead, Post Bill features a predetermined credit line that resets every month, which reduces the guesswork of prefunding. This allows those hotels to maintain consistent visibility without having to fund their efforts upfront and without going over budget.

3. Monitor your campaign in real time.

There’s no need to wait to see if your advertising campaign is succeeding — you can measure its performance with the TravelAds reporting dashboard. You’ll see your current ad performance, travel windows, room nights booked, and other key metrics. Having this data lets you tailor your advertising strategy to maximize your hotel revenue.

A success story: Fairmont Monte Carlo, a luxury resort, used real-time reports to evaluate their campaigns and inform their marketing strategy. Doing this allowed the property to track market demand and make adjustments to ensure they were hitting their goals throughout the year. The end result? The hotel saw a 95:1 ROA on TravelAds for the year.

4. Understand your total room revenue.

When you’re analyzing your hotel’s performance, it’s tempting to rely on the revenue per available room (RevPAR) to see how well you’re filling rooms at an average rate. Your RevPAR is a popular formula in the hotel industry for monitoring success by dividing the total room revenue by the number of rooms available.

Being aware of how supply and demand can improve your RevPAR, and monitoring additional TravelAds room metrics can take it to the next level. Plus, you can use your report to inform your pricing and distribution strategies. You can also see how travelers interact with your sponsored listings. Your report can tell you about:

  • Bid strength
    Knowing the strength of your bid relative to your competitors lets you see if you’re a market participant, contender, or leader. This provides a realistic picture of where you stand in the bidding marketplace. You’ll see if one or multiple aspects of your strategy should change. 
  • Room nights clicked
    Demonstrate a clear ROI by knowing how many room nights have been booked because a traveler clicked on your sponsored listing. 
  • Room nights booked
    Understand the impact of your sponsored listings by knowing how many room nights have been booked because travelerssawyour sponsored listin

Having these metrics in combination with your RevPAR can help you track how your hotel’s revenue changes over time.

5. Stand out by customizing your listings.

One of the most powerful strategies to increase hotel revenue is to highlight your unique offerings, which is why we empower you to customize your ads.

We analyzed the most successful TravelAds campaigns and found they have:

  • High-quality photos
    This is your chance to grab travelers’ attention. Think about your target audience and how you can reach them with the right images. Targeting families? Trying using photos that highlight family-friendly amenities. The adage that a picture tells a thousand words holds true here, and the right photos can help you connect with your target audience. 
  • Engaging copy
    With the right words, travel shoppers can imagine themselves in your hotel. Focus on what makes staying at your hotel special and appeal to their interests. For example, Blinkup manages campaigns for a group of hotels in Italy called Place of Charme. Blinkup used custom ad copy to highlight each hotel’s unique offerings in the countryside or city. To reach more travelers, they also incorporated a mix of location and device bid enhancers. As a result, Place of Charme saw a year-over-year increase in room night bookings of nearly 600%. 
  • Information about extra amenities
    Let travelers know about your hotel’s unique amenities like spas or golf courses to increase their interest in having an unforgettable experience. 
  • Offers and promotions
    Highlight cost savings or special events in your ads to help shift room browsers to room bookers.

6. Re-engage travelers to convert.

Customer acquisition can be expensive, making reactivation a more cost-effective hotel revenue management strategy, especially since TravelAds appear alongside hotel search results, meaning you’re already getting in front of ready-to-book travel shoppers. A variety of TravelAds features can be used for reactivation, like segmentation to reach your target audience, personalized messaging to engage travelers at the right point of their purchasing journeys, and even reporting to evaluate your efforts.

7. Improve visibility with automated bidding.

The automated bidding feature in TravelAds plays a crucial role in maximizing hotel revenue. Here’s how it helps:

  • Dynamic bidding
    Automated bidding dynamically adjusts your bids throughout the day based on market conditions and fluctuations. Make sure your ads can respond to market changes based on supply and demand for you to remain competitive.
  • Optimize your ad performance
    Optimize your ad performance: Automated bidding ensures your ads appear prominently, attracting potential customers and driving hotel revenue. 
  • Save time
    Save time: By automating bid adjustments, you reclaim valuable time that would otherwise have been spent manually managing bids.

Get started with Automated bidding

In the fast-paced hotel industry, it can feel complicated to ensure your ideal traveler can find your property and choose to book with you. A smart hotel revenue management strategy can help you reach your goals and give you the tools you need to increase your hotel revenue. Connect with us today to learn how your hotel can get the most out of TravelAds Sponsored Listings.

About Expedia Group Media Solutions

Expedia Group Media Solutions is the world's leading travel media network. We connect advertisers with hundreds of millions of travelers across the globe. Our exclusive first-party data on traveler trends, search behavior, and booking data provides travel marketers with unique insights to inform their strategies. We offer a full-funnel suite of solutions to help you convert travelers, and our digital experts can help you create advertising campaigns that deliver.

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