Google Analytics 4 vs. The Cookieless World

SHARE:
+
July 30, 2021 by

Cookies or Cookieless. There’s been a lot of buzz among marketers about the timing of the Google Analytics 4 roll out. A few weeks back, Google made the announcement they were prolonging the timeline for their privacy sandbox push as publishers, browsers, advertisers and other 3rd parties were clamoring to roll out the approved version of tracking in the cookieless world.  

This announcement doesn’t apply to Google Analytics and their rollout of GA4. Google knows that while 3rd parties begin to develop cookieless technologies, its analytics platform must be the foundation for measurement.  

Their push for Google Analytics 4 adoption is obvious. With nearly half of all the websites across the web running analytics, Google is pushing GA4 right inside their account creation. Here is a screenshot of the set-up process which highlights Google’s emphasis on GA4. (You’ll see “Google Analytics 4” highlighted.)

Screenshot of Google Analytics 4 implementation screen

If you’re a current Google Analytics user, it’s important to upgrade to the latest version. GCommerce has been running both GA3/GUA alongside GA4 to understand the difference in data and measurement. For the month of June, we saw significant decreases in revenue within our GA3 profiles. 

Table showing revenue data coming from Google Analytics

Our tests have shown that Google UA underreports Organic by 33%, Paid Search by 26%, and Referral by as much as 51% when compared to the attribution of GA4. This could be for a couple reasons:

  • Legacy cookie tracking (GA3/GUA) is starting to deprecate as the cookieless world grows closer, creating data gaps for major revenue channels
  • Advanced attribution models based on the new “engaged users” provides more transparency through the booking funnel

You want to have the latest analytics technology available for measurement, and that means upgrading to Google Analytics 4. GA4 will work with legacy cookie technologies along with new best practices as we move towards the cookieless world. There’s no reason to wait. Contact the experts at GCommerce today.

Connect

What Hotels Should Know About Cookieless Tracking & Google Analytics 4

SHARE:
+
June 14, 2021 by

We’ve recently written about Google’s latest iteration of Analytics and important things hotel’s should know about Google Analytics 4 (GA4). In this post, we will go into a bit more detail on how the change to cookieless tracking might impact your hotel’s digital marketing efforts.

What are Cookies and Why Do They Matter?

Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your computer by the web browser. What they aren’t isn’t so important as to what they are used for, which is to track individual users. By dropping a unique cookie or pixel onto your browser, a website can then track behavior outside of your website.

Are Cookies An Invasion of Privacy?

This is the big debate currently being waged and many people would say yes. Legislations like Europe’s GDPR, California Consumer Privacy Act, recent updates to Apple’s IOS to block more 3rd party tracking are all efforts to protect user’s individual privacy by making it harder to identify those individuals. At the heart of this debate is cookieless tracking. While cookies are not banned nor illegal, a lot of browsers, plug-ins and software help to block cookies and there is evidence the cookies are becoming a less viable way to track users.

What does this mean for Google’s Universal Analytics?

Google’s current and most popular iteration of Analytics, Universal Analytics, uses first-party cookies to determine a number of variables within their tracking. Already, digital marketers are reporting gaps in data based on people that are actively blocking cookies and tracking. Within our own data, we have noticed certain instances where traffic from California has decreased, while traffic from locations not tracked has increased. This change is very likely indicative that California’s privacy laws are having an impact on our ability to track.

Why is Google Analytics 4 A Solution To A Cookiless World?

Despite what the name suggests, GA4 isn’t actually more robust tracking, it is actually less tracking on individual users. This is because GA4 is not tracking every pageview. Rather than rely on cookies and javascript variables to track every pageview, GA4 is tracking based on specific events that are built and established. Google then applies advanced models to fill out data for traffic and behavior. What Google Analytics 4 lacks in individual tracking it makes up for with the robust tools of their machine learning algorithms. The need for something like GA4 comes from the new privacy laws and public awareness around data collection.

What Should Your Hotel Do About Google Analytics 4?

As we discussed above, changes to the way users view their privacy will make Universal Analytics less and less reliable as time goes on. The earlier that your hotel starts to utilize GA4, get familiar with it and start to utilize data from it, the further ahead of the curve your hotel will be when Universal Analytics comes to a point it is no longer recommended to utilize. Also, your historical data will not automatically carry over from Universal Analytics. Your historical data will only go as far back as the 1st day that you start using GA4.

How To Get Started With Google Analytics 4?

After my father got a debilitating injury trying to build a retention wall in our backyard at the ripe-young age of 56, he decided it might be better to trust the experts. In this situation, we would also recommend utilizing an expert to help install GA4 for your hotel’s website. The truth is, GA4 is a completely novel way of tracking that does not rely exclusively on individual user data. Instead, it relies on event signals that are built and established based on the functionality and goals of your website.

Google Analytics 4 Tracking From GCommerce

If you’re interested in having the experts at GCommerce help establish GA4 tracking and reporting for your hotel website, contact us today!

Connect

How To Avoid Costly Website Performance Issues Within Google Tag Manager

SHARE:
+
April 15, 2021 by

What Is Google Tag Manager?

Tag managers have become increasingly commonplace on modern websites for many reasons. They provide ease of access for placing scripts and light applications onto websites, without having to lean heavily on a developer and allow these additions to be placed without interrupting the website’s base functionality.  As time has passed however, some concerns have arisen about using tag managers, such as Google Tag Manager, one of which is overcrowding.

Website Performance Contributors

Your website is set up with a number of assets (Pictures, Videos, Graphics, Apps etc) that all contribute to the load time and overall site performance.  Other factors might include your site host service, outdated code/low functioning coding, or the number of people accessing your site at the same time without adequate scaling.  Most of these issues are within your control to manage and can be handled by your development team.

Tag Managers Effect on Website Performance

Typically, a tag manager such as Google Tag Manager will not affect site performance that much.  With well regulated use, a typical tag manager will serve a limited number of marketing and analytics tags and some of these tags can be loaded after the website pages have already loaded completely. A well regulated Google tag management container should have a minimal to unnoticeable effect on website performance.  When a tag manager is mismanaged it can present a number of problems that will have a varying degree of impact on the websites performance and the operation of the tag management container itself.

When Tag Managers Are the Problem

Too Many Tags

How many tags is too many tags to have within your Google tag manager?  If a tag manager has ten to twenty basic marketing tags, that amount of additional script will indeed add an additional load to the website’s performance.  If all ten to twenty tags are loading inline with the rest of the website, it might see a difference of a few hundred nanoseconds, so unless the website sees a few hundred thousand users per hour or each of these tags has a thousand lines of code, the website’s speed is in no danger of being reduced to a crawl. However if a tag manager container has been accumulating tags over the years, maybe from trying out different publishers or asset integrations and now has 300 or more tags inside, it’s very possible that your tag management container is impeding your website performance to a more noticeable level.

There are very few reasons why any tag management container would need to have tags numbering in the multiple hundreds on any individual site or even multiple websites sharing the same tag manager container.  In addition to flirting with website performance issues, letting a container fill up to the point where there are that many tags, will make it somewhat difficult to manage.  Think of it like acculating items in your office over the span of multiple years of service.  Eventually figuring out what does what and goes where becomes a sizable task in itself and that’s before you consider what you want to remove. A better way to handle your tag management container, and avoid costly website performance issues, is to progressively update and evaluate your tag manager container’s status in regular intervals.

Multiple Tag Manager Containers Running On One Website

Implementing a tag management container, such as Google tag manager, is a relatively easy process in most cases. That ease of implementation can spawn another issue with multiple tag manager containers being placed on a website adversely.  Running multiple tag management containers is not always a bad thing. Leveraging two or more containers where both are monitored and their use is openly discussed can work with great efficiency.  On the other hand, it’s very possible to lose sight of multiple tag manager container operations as well.  A prime example of this is one tag manager container is used for years but the administrator in charge of said tag manager container is the sole owner and has now separated from the organization.  Now nobody knows what is inside of the tag management container or how to get inside of it. Without support from the tag manager container product developer, that container is now essentially a ghost ship ‘dead’ on the site. 

All too often, the website owner will simply install a new tag manager and continue to  operate with two containers installed, not giving it a second thought. A potential nightmare scenario has now been created. The website now potentially has multiple scripts running on that can no longer be verified, and there is an unsecure access point to the site where someone might be able to make major modifications to it or potentially add some form of malware. It may be a little bit of a process, but whatever can be done to recreate the useful instruments from the ‘dead’ tag manager container in the newly created container, and then the ‘dead’ container should be removed as soon as possible.

Conclusion 

Tag Management container ownership at first glance is a relatively simple concept, but it has lasting implications and consequences to website operations.  Maintaining a well organized and well run tag manager container overtime should be a process similar to housekeeping. Too many tags accumulating and running unchecked in a container without proper oversight, can be a hindrance to website performance and leveraging the container with proficiency.  Similarly, operating more than one tag management container on a site, where full utilization transparency does not exist, can present as many if not more problems as a single unkempt container.  It is in the best interest of website owners/administrators who have opted to use tagging containers to adopt or create rules and policy around their placement and long term use. 

Have questions about how to use Google tag manager properly to avoid website performance issues? Reach out to the tag management experts at GCommerce today.

Connect

Better Understand Booking Patterns Through Your Hotel Website

SHARE:
+
November 10, 2020 by

Most hotel booking engines have parameters within the URL that include the check-in and check-out dates that are being viewed by the user:

booking URL

But how can we use this information to help provide deeper insights for hotel’s and their Revenue Managers? Using custom parameters, we can isolate those dates from the hotel’s booking engine in order to see how many times people are viewing those dates, how many times they are being viewed uniquely, the number of reservations and the revenue generated.

Booking window dates

We can also combine other variables from the hotel’s booking engine, such as which dates are being viewed where rooms are not available:

Table showing no rooms available

Dates being viewed within the hotel’s booking engine between weekdays and weekends:

Visual showing searches for weekdays
Visual showing searches for weekends

Insights on which geographic areas people are connecting from to view dates within the booking engine can also be provided.

Visual showing weekend bookings by metro

Within Google Analytics, we can isolate this audience by date ranges to view specific demographic data and we can retarget specific advertisements to those individual users through Google Ads:

Google analytics report

By utilizing this data, GCommerce Solutions clients have gained valuable insight into which dates are being viewed more or less, especially during times of fluctuating demand. Knowing which dates are showing potentially more or less demand and who that demand is being shown to you can help guide direction for room rates, marketing initiatives, packages or promotions and capacity planning.

Contact GCommerce Solutions today to add look-to-book tracking or other customs insights on to your hotel booking engine website.

Connect

COVID-19 | How To Use Data To Relaunch Your Marketing Campaigns

SHARE:
+
May 28, 2020 by

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed us all into uncertain times and with it paused media campaigns leaving unspent marketing dollars. Now that we’re beginning to see a light at the end of a long and dark tunnel, it’s time to start prepping your hotel’s marketing campaigns with a returning strategy. 

If the thought of relaunching your hotel’s marketing campaigns scares you or has you reeling on where to even start, don’t worry, you’re absolutely not alone! As experts in the digital marketing space, we’re here to guide you through this new phase and how to use data to create the best re-launch plan for your property.

Use Data to Drive Your Hotel's Marketing Decisions

At GCommerce, it’s no secret that we love data and use it as the backbone of all our marketing strategies. Whether it’s determining a monthly budget or deciding which audiences to target, your data should drive all marketing decisions. In fact, this could not be more important in the current climate given that many properties will be starting out with limited budgets, which means you’ll want your campaigns to provide as much value as possible. The big question is...where do you even start when it comes to analyzing your data?

A great place to begin is by looking at your on-site data using Analytics or other direct marketing platforms. For our clients that use The Hotels Network, we’re able to monitor real-time user searches on their website and determine current user behavior. For example, we can see if users are interacting with the onsite products (pop-ups, price checks, etc.), the searcher conversion rate of your hotel versus global benchmarks, where these direct bookers are coming from, which check-in dates they are looking at, conversion rates based on lead time, and your property’s rate parity health. 

Based on the available data through The Hotels Network we have a much clearer picture of how audiences are interacting with your website and if they are even ready to convert. For example, we monitor the status of one of our clients on a weekly basis. Two weeks ago we were seeing that the majority of guests were looking to travel 30-59 days out and converting at a rate of 3.10%. When we looked at data for this past week we saw a dramatic shift in that the majority of searchers were looking to book 8-14 days out with a conversion rate of 7.34% and 30-59 days out with a conversion rate of 5.70%. Even more interesting was that the next big search period was for 7 days or less and converting at a rate of 5.54%!

Using this data we could easily recommend marketing campaigns aimed at traveling and booking now and in the next month, whether it was a paid search campaign with a limited time offer or a Facebook ad welcoming guests back to the resort. We could also set up a nudge on The Hotels Network urging users looking at the selected lead times to book with special offers or risk-free reservations.

However, what if you don’t utilize The Hotels Network? Much of this data can still be found by using Google Analytics and searching through your site traffic pages, e-commerce goals, and product performance. Another great resource is the Adara Travel Trends Tracker which is updated daily. Adara is providing valuable data on flights, hotels, and other travel trends that include booking windows and travel types. These charts are a great indicator of travel as a whole.

Creating Your First Marketing Campaigns During COVID

Once you have gathered a good chunk of information, you need to figure out what types of marketing campaigns should launch first. For those limited by budget, we suggest a tiered approach to campaign creation.

1. Staycations / Local Audience

When launching your first campaign in this COVID-19 driven climate, we recommend starting local. Target your drive market with staycation offers or romantic weekends away. If you are able to open your pool or other outdoor amenities, call this out and offer your locals the chance to enjoy summer vacation even if they aren’t far from home. Even if your property isn’t hindered by travel restrictions at the moment, most people still aren’t willing to travel long distances to get away.

2. Loyal Guests/Passholders

After taking care of your local market, create campaigns targeting your loyal guests. This could be people that participate in your loyalty programs, pass holders, email subscribers, past guests, etc. This is a great audience to re-engage quickly because you know they are already familiar with your property and more willing to stay with you over other hotels or properties. On top of that, this audience is also more likely to share your brand with their friends, families, and followers.

3. Regional Guests

When travel restrictions start to fizzle out and more states begin opening up it’ll be time to start bringing in that regional audience. These are the people who will be coming from adjacent states who are looking to travel short distances. The majority of this audience will be your road tripper guests who aren’t quite ready to fly yet. You may even consider a wider radius for your drive market targeting than before, people may be willing to drive further for an escape. Make sure you consult your hotel’s data to figure out the ideal targeting.

4. Destination Guests

At the very end of this tier, we have our destination guests. These are people who will be flying in or taking long road trips and staying for more than a couple of days. Targeting these further destinations won’t really be useful until the general population is ready to start air travel again. Although this group will take longer to recover from COVID-19 impacts than other audiences, they will be key because they tend to stay longer and spend more.

How to Measure and Analyze General Campaign Metrics

Once you’ve launched your initial hotel marketing campaigns you will also need to monitor them and continually check performance. With a plethora of data to look at, it’s useful to identify key metrics to make marketing decisions. These metrics will be important to look at once campaigns have been created in order to further optimize and make sure each marketing dollar is spent wisely.

Here are a few metrics we look at consistently and how to determine the next steps.

Impressions. Impressions serve as a performance indicator at a very basic level and are great for top-of-funnel decisions. They show us a good reach estimate and help determine whether certain dimensions are worth pushing more or less budget behind. However, large impression sums don’t mean a campaign will convert well and begs the question of quality over quantity. For the current climate, we would use impressions to judge where a certain market or target audience is worth pushing budget behind or not.

Clicks. Measuring clicks is perhaps one of the greatest indicators of campaign performance, behind actual conversions. Clicks actually prove whether or not users are interested in what you are offering as a click is generally a direct action and indication of interest. If a campaign is receiving below-average clicks we know to scale back or change up the ads. 

As a general rule in the marketing space, we aim for a Click Through Rate (CTR) of 1% for more easily engaging ads (Facebook) and .05% for ads that rely more on view-through conversions (Display).

Conversions. As mentioned earlier, conversions are one of the most telling metrics. Unless you are running a brand awareness campaign, you’re most likely promoting your ad for the objective of conversions. If your marketing campaigns are displaying high numbers of bookings, that’s a great indication that you can push more budget or that you can look at expanding into different markets and interests. Low conversions at this time might tell us that your property or location is either not ready for travel or that you might be hitting maximum occupancy for the desired time frames. 

Conversion Value. Getting conversions is only one piece of the puzzle. Another important metric to analyze is your conversion value. For example, high conversions with a low value could tell us a number of things. Perhaps you are offering a large discount offer, lowering your ADR, or maybe your ADR is lower than normal because of current circumstances. It could also mean that people are booking for shorter lengths of stay. 

Conversion value helps complete the puzzle by giving us more insight into consumer behavior. If we see users are booking more weekend trips, we can adjust our ad copy and push more weekend offers. Similarly, if we see that conversion values are high it could mean an increase in ADR or longer lengths of stay. 

It’s Time To Seize the Day

Making data-driven decisions for your hotel’s marketing campaigns doesn’t need to be hard or complicated. With warmer weather arriving across the country and a temporarily unsaturated advertising market at your fingertips, now is absolutely the time to turn your marketing campaigns back on.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to our team of hotel digital marketing experts if you’re looking for guidance with your campaigns. Contact us now.

6 Very Convincing Signals That Prove It’s Time To Restart Your Hotel Marketing In May

SHARE:
+
May 7, 2020 by

*May 11th Update*

  • Online transactions have increased 37% week over week while sessions have remained flat
  • ECommerce rate has increased 36% week over week
  • Paid search ROAS increased from $3:1 in April to to $10.50:1 in May month to date
  • Google trends have show an increase in search interest for some locations and a decline in others
  • Client reports are confirming that OTAs are bidding on market terms in most markets and branded terms for only some hotels
  • Local organic impressions and traffic are maintaining the increase reported last week

Travelers have been confined to their homes for over a month or more due to coronavirus. They are constantly consuming travel-focused content, dreaming of future vacations, and ready to jump on the next chance to escape once it feels safe enough to do so. We’re seeing indicators in certain markets that traveler confidence is starting to return, and May looks to be the ideal time for hotels to start actively marketing again to ensure they are poised to capture the most market share. Here are 6 signals that prove why your hotel should start marketing again in May.

1. Website Sessions Are Increasing For Hotels

Looking across our portfolio of hotels we see that website sessions bottomed out at the end of March and have been steadily climbing since the week of April 6th. Chances are your hotel’s website visitors are returning and traffic is increasing indicating that consumers are in-market to research and book their next trip. Now is the time to make sure your hotel’s plan for reopening is present across your website including any new procedures and flexible cancellation policies to make travelers feel safe and secure with booking at your property.

*May 11th Update*

We continue to see transactions increase week over week while sessions have remained flat. Transactions increased by 37% for our clients week over week while sessions only increased by 0.09%.

2. Online Transactions & ECommerce Rates are Increasing

Many states have announced plans to slowly reopen, and some consumers are starting to see the rainbow at the end of the storm. The pot of gold for many people is that chance to reconnect with loved ones and revive their souls with travel. For most of our clients, transactions flatlined from the middle of March to early April. Once stimulus checks started to arrive in mid-April our hotel clients started to see transitions trickle in and they have been steadily increasing ever since. If your state is poised to reopen in the near future, now is the time to start advertising for your hotel again to capitalize on demand. Week-over-week we’re seeing a 25% increase in online transactions and a 30% increase in E-commerce conversion rates across our portfolio of clients.

*May 11 Update*

Week-over-week we’re seeing a 37% increase in online transactions and, since sessions remained relatively flat, a 36% increase in Ecommerce conversion rates across our portfolio of clients.

3. Our Clients Paid Search Averaged $3:1 ROAS in April

Although ROAS averages are still very low (down more than 50%) compared to pre-COVID-19 days, the majority of clients that are currently running paid search advertising are seeing transactions resulting in a portfolio-wide average of $3:1 for April. It is important to keep in mind that most conversions are for stays that are 60+ days out. As more states announce and solidify plans for reopening we expect to see this increase even more.

Now is the time to find the best deals on advertising platforms including Google Ads. Paid Search CPCs are at a low (down 15% on average YOY for our hotels' clients) as competition has declined significantly. Advertisers that relaunch now will be rewarded with lower CPCs to help drive more traffic for lower costs.

Although accommodations specific search volume has declined from pre-COVID levels, it is still present for branded and non-branded terms for hotels across different markets. Get in front of these potential guests now to influence bookings.

*May 11th Update*

Paid search ROAS has increased to an average of $6.30:1 from April 1st through May 12th, with a $10.50:1 for just the month of May. CPCs continue to show declines year over year, down 25% indicating that competition in the paid search ad space is still much lower than last year and presents a great value opportunity for advertisers right now.

4. Search Interest is Increasing For Some Markets

In March we witnessed the largest decline in search interest for accommodations terms that we can recall in the history of our company. Using Google Trends we can get a better understanding of current search interest for accommodation terms vs historical and pre-COVID-19 interest. It is important to note that some markets that have been hit the hardest will take longer to recover, as stay at home restrictions will last longer and travelers may still feel unsafe in traveling to those locations.

Here are a few examples showcasing search interest across different geographic markets. You’ll notice that after bottoming out in late March/early April, search interest for these accommodations terms has continued to increase steadily throughout the month.

*May 11th Update*

Google trends reporting a week over week search interest decline for “West Hollywood hotels”, going from 15/100 to 6/100.

*May 11th Update*

Week over week search interest increases on “San Diego hotels” from 19/100 to 26/100 - roughly 50% of where search interest was the same time last year.

*May 11th Update*

Week over week search interest increases on “Park City resorts” from 9/100 to 18/100 - in line to where search interest was at this time last year.

5. OTAs Have Started Paid Search Advertising Again

This week, Search Engine Land noted that several OTAs have resumed their paid search advertising, including Trivago, Booking.com, and Priceline. This may indicate that these travel companies are starting to see granular improvements and signs of increased interest from their own data. 

*May 11th Update*

Clients running auction insights reports show OTAs (Booking.com, Priceline.com, Hotels.com) bidding on market terms for all markets but only branded terms for some clients. See example Auction Insights report below.

6. Local & Organic Impressions and Traffic are Increasing

Towards the end of April, many of our clients started to see an uptick in local organic impressions across search and maps.

This increase in search impressions on Google has also resulted in increased traffic and other customer actions such as calls through their Google My Business listings.

*May 11th Update*

Reports show that some clients are maintaining the increased local organic views and customer actions reported last week. The steep decline on May 6th appears to be a glitch in Google My Business data available for that date.

We’ve also seen many clients' total organic sessions increase by at least 15% week over week, indicating an increased search interest in a combination of branded and market terms for these hotels.

As we start to see search volume increase for accommodations terms and governments relaxing stay at home orders in the next few weeks, pent up travel demand will evolve into bookings. Since total demand will still be much lower than pre-coronavirus days, hotels need to be ready and act quickly in order to capture the available demand. GCommerce strongly recommends that hotels in markets that show signs of opportunity prepare to go live with paid media in May. It will be extremely important that hotels clearly message their new cleaning policies, cancellation or change policies and more to make consumers feel secure enough to book at their property. 

If your hotel needs guidance on how or when to prepare to re-launch marketing please reach out to our hotel digital marketing specialists today.

Keep Reading

Family watching tv

What is CTV advertising and why does your hotel need it?

Luxury pool and lounges

Key takeaways from Google I/O 2025 for hotel marketers

Person holding tablet

Google Marketing Live 2025: key takeaways from the GCommerce team

Get More Insights