Following the 2010 acquisition of travel software company ITA Software, Google has been actively rolling out ‘experiments’ in the travel space such as Google Flight Search and Hotel Finder which are an attempt at providing “travel tools that provide faster, more flexible, and more useful results to online travel searches.”
Google’s latest experiment builds on the Hotel Finder tool and is known as a Google Hotel Comparison ad. Given the ad’s prominence within the premium ad space and the potential impact on Hotel advertisers, the Razorfish search team has pulled together a brief POV that should provide some deeper details on what a Hotel Comparison ad is as well as potential implications on the Hotel Industry.
Background
- Google Hotel Finder, the destination of Hotel Comparison ads is designed to maximize the travel consumers experience from discovery to booking
- Google Hotel Finder launched July 2011, an online hotel tool that lets users add Hotels to a short list, isolate desired neighborhoods, select travel dates, view user ratings & reviews, price compare and book through Hotel Price Ads (via reseller or suppliers)
- Hotel Comparison Ads were first introduced Fall 2011 and were eligible on <5% of queries-recently scaling to an unknown number of queries on Google.com
What is Google Hotel Comparison Ad?
- A “house ad” placement that does not participate in the auction, serves in “Top Promotional” spot above the white line within sponsored listings and drives to Hotel Finder
- Does not impact other ads ranking on the page
- Does not impact the number of eligible ads that can appear on the page ensuring all impressions and positions are available to advertisers
- Does occupy the most desirable real-estate within paid results indirectly impacting the value of the available positions (e.g. pushing down the paid listings)
- Hotel Comparison ad is only eligible for hotel-related queries, appears to be serving on unbranded and US only at this time
Implications:
- Google has no immediate plans to iterate to a reseller or supplier ad opportunity at this time
- Geared towards driving traffic to Hotel Finder and ultimately Hotel Price Ads
- With user traction Google has opportunity to emerge as one-stop research and booking platform
- Organic property link is displayed within Hotel Price Ads at point of the Booking, additional paid link opportunity exists through participation in Hotel Price Ads via API integration
- Pushes down paid real-estate available to advertisers through the auction
Additional Reading:
- http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-hotel-finder-as-comparison-ad-104661
- http://www.seroundtable.com/google-hotel-ads-14458.html
We would love to hear your thoughts on the potential impact of Google’s new experiment or even discover how this experiment has impacted your campaigns. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments below, on Facebook or on Twitter @searchshots.
Tags: AdWords, Google, hotel comparison ad, hotel finder, jessica mainelli, point of view, pov