Facebook Wedding Ads Continue To Drive Leads During COVID-19

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April 20, 2020 by

With so much uncertainty during these times, there is one thing that GCommerce is certain about - wedding requests for proposals continue to roll in for hotels. Now more than ever, people are on their devices, trying to find an escape, planning for brighter times ahead. While people are still planning for future wedding arrangements, don’t miss out on this opportunity to be in front of a highly qualified audience to drive wedding leads for your hotel. 

All of our clients running wedding lead campaigns right now are seeing leads continue to roll in. For example, one client is seeing significant increases MOM for wedding leads. 

In January, when the COVID-19 threat was still relatively low, the client collected an average amount of wedding leads. From there, as travel bans continued to become stricter, submissions continued to increase. 

In February the number of leads increased by 155%. 

In March, we saw another jump with a 35% increase in wedding leads.

How to Get More Wedding Leads for Your Hotel

GCommerce recommends a variety of tactics to help drive more wedding leads for your hotel but the channel that we see the most success with is social media campaigns. We recommend running Facebook wedding ad campaigns, testing lead generation campaign types and trying Instant Experience ads.

Facebook Lead Generation Wedding Ads for Hotels

Wedding lead generation campaigns look just like normal Facebook wedding ads, however, rather than sending a user to your hotel’s website, the ad will populate a request for proposal form for the user to complete. The information is exactly the same as it would appear on the RFP on your site and the fields can be customized. Wedding lead generation campaign ads tend to have a higher completion rate since the user never needs to leave or click through on the ad and the RFP form is populated directly to them based on their Facebook user information. Once the user completes the form and hits submit, an email notification will be sent to the determined list of employees from the property side with the info from the form. These are also collected within Facebook manager and you can download that list at any time.

Best Practices for Wedding Social Media Campaigns During COVID-19

Focus on the local drive market- At this point, the majority of our client’s wedding social media campaign leads are coming from a drive market radius and surrounding states. While air travel and travel bans are still fairly uncertain at this time, keep your targeting local, within a drive market radius for your social media wedding lead campaigns.

Expand or Revamp Your Hotel's Website Content- Our clients’ social media wedding campaign ads are still seeing a lot of great engagement with plenty of guests tagging others and leaving comments showing excitement. Although overall traffic is down YOY, in the past 30 days, we’re seeing that wedding landing pages have an increased average session duration and higher pages per session compared to the previous year. This shows that users are interested and are taking more time to explore hotel wedding venue content and details. They are also visiting additional pages on the hotel website once they leave the wedding page, perhaps F&B pages to learn more about culinary offerings, or room types for room blocks. Make sure the content on your hotel’s website is up to date, as these are positive user engagement metrics that users are exploring your site.

Interested in learning how GCommerce can increase your property’s wedding leads during this crisis and beyond? Reach out to your Account Executive today!

7 Themes to Drive Your Hotel's Messaging During a Crisis

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April 14, 2020 by

Context is everything when it comes to messaging and the current worldwide situation means whatever messaging your brand puts out there needs to consider this heavy atmosphere. The world has already changed forever and your brand’s messaging needs to be adjusted to make sure it cultivates the right response for your audience. Whatever brand messaging you choose for your hotel, it needs to be consistent across all of your channels from your website to social media and advertising. Your brand also needs to be the one to drive this direction to any partners that are helping to manage these channels for you. Here are 7 different themes to help guide what type of messaging you want your hotel to use during these times. Whichever you choose, it’s important to be authentic and use empathy to understand the best way to speak to your audience.

Note- these are just examples and represent how the messaging would appear in an ad. These are not live ads. 

1. Share Messages of Hope with Your Hotel's Audience

I think we can all agree that hope for future travel is one of the things keeping us positive right now. Humanize your brand’s messaging by infusing it with your own messages of hope and looking forward to the days when your guests will fill the property again.

2. Inspire Your Audience with Dream/Aspirational Messaging

Similar to a theme of hope, dreaming, researching and planning for future trips is still happening around the world. Use these themes to help inspire people who are currently in this dream and planning phase of their customer journey. Craft messaging to tie into customers’ dreams and aspirations.

3. Help Your Hotel's Audience Feel Safe & Secure

Anxiety is something that everyone is experiencing right now and we are all looking for ways to escape it. Tie your messaging into this basic human need to feel safe and secure to help soothe your audience. Use your messaging to inform them of your flexible cancellation policies and that booking their future stay at your property is a worry-free experience.

4. Demonstrate Empathy & Understanding In Your Hotel’s Messaging

We connect with brands that speak to who we are and understand us. Use your brand messaging to showcase your deep understanding and empathy for your audience. It humanizes your brand and inspires an even deeper connection to your audience, and right now we all need that human connection no matter where we are.

5. Describe Your Brand’s Stance On Corporate Social Responsibility

Another way audiences develop a deep connection with specific brands is through a mutual agreement on social responsibility. Brands everywhere are taking a stand and implementing measures to keep their customers and the world safe. These decisions are not always driven by their ability to make profits and customers are taking notice and standing closer to these types of brands. If your hotel has made the difficult decision to temporarily close you can share this with your audiences to explain how your brand is being socially responsible to more establish respect from your audience.

6. Support Your Audiences' Desire to Book that Once in a Lifetime Trip

A lot of people are reevaluating their life's priorities during this time. The pandemic is an unsettling reminder that life is short and never certain and things can change at any time. Tap into these feelings by presenting messaging that allows people to prioritize their desires to book trips they had been putting off. Although they can’t travel now, there is a lot of pent up demand that will eventually open up and drive new bookings.

7. Provide a (Future/Virtual) Escape to Your Audience

We might all be stuck at home right now but that doesn’t mean we can’t mentally escape. Dive into people’s desire to escape where they are right now by crafting messaging that provides them with a beautiful mental image of your property. Give them permission to escape to the mountains, your spa or other experiential amenities. Everyone deserves to treat themselves in some way once this crisis is over, so provide them with the picture of the perfect escape to book when they are able to.

Whatever messages your brand decides to communicate, make sure they are authentic and take into consideration the feelings, fears, and perspectives of your audience. We will get through this and once we do, we’ll all want to travel and reconnect with our world.

Planning for the Rebound | COVID-19

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April 3, 2020 by

After an absolutely crazy couple of weeks, our dear friends at Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort & Spa shared this picture with us:

It was so refreshing to see this positive message that reminds us that the current coronavirus pandemic is not going to last forever. The entire world will bounce back. We just have to hang on, be kind and support one another while we get through this. Also, start to put our thinking caps on as to how best to be ready for the inevitable rebound of the travel industry. Whether your property is closed or remains open, there’s no better time than today to start thinking about how to adjust your hotel’s digital marketing strategy.

Here are the top 11 digital marketing tactics you should do to get your hotel ready for the rebound and get ahead of the competition:

  1. Be ready with drive market and staycation messaging. Think about it, how long will it be before you’re ready to get on a plane? 
  2. Geo-target your hotel’s digital marketing campaigns to focus on the drive market. Don’t spend money or effort reaching your fly-markets for a few more months. If they still want to come, they will find you. Right now, we need to penetrate the local market who can hop in their car and drive to your hotel.
  3. With the increase of people driving in cars, consider including free parking in a staycation package if you have that ability at your hotel.
  4. If you’ve followed some of our previous hotel marketing recommendations during coronavirus, you are most likely spending a minimal amount of ad dollars on paid search focusing on your brand terms. As we start to see specific markets rebounding, we will be adding keywords related to your specific neighborhood (i.e. Back Bay Boston Hotel) to your hotel’s paid search campaigns.
  5. Social media advertising is a great way to reach a geo-targeted audience for your hotel. Get creative and think about fun things that are specific to your property that can correlate to people desperately looking for a leisure getaway.
  6. Expand your hotel’s campaign retargeting list window - typically we set these to 30 days, but since people will be researching for months while they aren’t quite ready to book it is a great opportunity to reach a larger audience that is still interested in your property. Test increasing this to 90 days.
  7. Keep your Google My Business and other local directory listings updated as you change the hours and days that your hotel is open. This is the first place people are looking to see if a business is open.
  8.  If your hotel is in a destination where the outdoors play a part in the overall experience, find a way to creatively leverage this. After being stuck at home for so long, travelers will want to connect with nature and the fresh air if they can. 
  9. Get your hotel’s guest email database ready to reach out to your following with specific messaging. Think about the following past guest segments for your hotel:
    • Guests who had to cancel their plans and invite them back
    • Guests who live in your local drive market
    • People who had called for information between January and March did not book
    • Guests who have stayed at your property multiple times a year. They will expect you to talk to them differently since they have proven their loyalty.
  10. Continue to promote gift card purchases as a way loyal fans can help support your hotel’s business during this time.
  11. As much as you may not want to get into how you are ensuring your property is clean (because it’s always been clean), travelers are going to expect more communication around this in the future due to the coronavirus pandemic. If you don’t have information on your hotel’s website, in your pre-arrival communication and on-site, your guests may wonder if you aren’t taking this seriously.

April Newsletter | Your COVID-19 Digital Marketing Update

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April 3, 2020 by

This time every month we usually reach out to inform you on the latest news in the hotel digital marketing world. I think we all can agree there’s only been one thing on our plate lately and it’s the daily whirlwind of trying to react, adjust and play defense against the damage caused by our world-wide enemy, COVID-19. We understand that just like us, you’ve been trying to consume as much content, tips and strategies to help your business see the way through this crisis successfully so we’ve crafted this month’s newsletter to help provide our top free partner offers to help your hotel during this time. We hope this content helps, but if you need more advice, insights or guidance please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Webinar On-Demand | Key Strategies to Boost Hotel Revenues During Recovery

The impact of COVID-19 on hotels continues to increase and the U.S. stock market continues to drop, leaving the hospitality industry unsure of what is to come in the upcoming weeks and months. Hotels need to focus on driving awareness and taking as much of the market share as they can get. In an informative webinar, NAVIS, Dragonfly Strategists, and Chris Jackson of GCommerce discuss ways you can leverage technology and build loyalty, leads, and a resilient brand. 

Access Webinar 

If you’re looking for even more help to get your hotel’s marketing ready for life after COVID-19, GCommerce is offering free hotel marketing phone consultations- no strings attached. Our team has experience with unpredictable markets. One thing we learned during the 2008 economic downturn was that the properties who doubled down and continued to invest in their hotel’s marketing programs were the ones that made it to the other side less scathed. This is a similar moment in time – lots of uncertainty about where the economy is headed not to mention our public safety.

Our team is standing by to offer free hotel digital marketing phone consultations. To schedule a phone consultation please submit a request below.

Contact Us 

Navis Providing Shop Cart Abandonment Tool Free for 120 Days

Most hotel and vacation rental websites see over an 80% abandonment rate after people reach the booking engine. With lower demand during this time, it is more important than ever to capture and convert any website visitors. Instead of losing these visitors, capture and convert them with NAVIS’ Shopping Cart Abandonment Tool, free for 120 days. Website visitors that don’t checkout immediately become available for outbound calls and automated email communications. The great part is you can be up and running in as little as 5 hours and at the end of the 120 days, you have no obligation to continue, although you’ll probably want to based on results and the power of the NAVIS CRM platform. NAVIS’ Shopping Cart Abandonment Tool offer includes:

  • Includes triggered email response
  • Generate 3 to 5X lead volume
  • Convert up to 30% of your abandoned web traffic

Learn more here. Reach out to GCommerce with any questions or help moving forward with this free trial.

Google Pledges $340 Million in Google Ads Credits to SMBs

On March 27th, Google announced a plan to commit $800+ million to “support small and medium-sized businesses, health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic”. One of the key components of this plan is $340 million in Google Ads credits that will be available to all SMBs to use until the end of 2020. Google stated these credits are available to any SMB with an active account over the past year and can be used at any point within 2020 and across any Google advertising platform. There aren't a lot of specifics yet about when and which Google Ads accounts will see these credits or how much each advertiser will get. GCommerce will be monitoring this within our client accounts and will inform clients as they receive credits to use towards advertising.

Facebook Offering $100 Million in Cash Grants & Ads Credits to Small Businesses

Facebook has also announced grants for small businesses impacted by coronavirus. The Ad tech company is offering $100 million in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 small businesses in over 30 countries. While there’s not much additional information at this time, be sure to sign up for updates on when applications will open up by going here. GCommerce is monitoring this program for our hotel clients and will reach out with more information when we have it.

COVID-19 | A Hotel Marketing Guide

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March 13, 2020 by

Starting today, March 13th, GCommerce is instituting a mandatory work-from-home policy for at least the next week. Since the situation is fluid, we will be re-assessing the need for employees to stay home on a weekly basis. 

I think we are all blown away by how fast this has escalated. Whether you believe that COVID-19 is dangerous or not, it has forced all of us to think about our social responsibility. I read a fantastic article yesterday morning that talked about social responsibility and how every day matters in implementing social distancing. GCommerce is fortunate to provide hotel marketing services that can be done from anywhere, but many companies and their employees are not as lucky. It’s important for all of us to be sensitive to that and help in any way we can.

Last week I released our then-current tips for how hoteliers can traverse this volatile climate. Here are a few reminders and a few updates:

  • CPCs are rising because there is less demand so you need to focus your budget on your drive market. Most people do not want to travel by plane right now so targeting fly markets is not a good use of your media dollars right now.
  • Update messaging throughout all campaigns to call out any reviews around the cleanliness of the hotel. Leverage insights from your reputation management tools to pull in quotes and testimonials about the cleanliness of your property.
  • Take a stance. Many properties are asking the question, “Do we acknowledge the crisis?” Yes. Own it. That doesn’t mean you have to prove how often you are cleaning the rooms. Just be honest with your audience. Show vulnerability and show compassion for those impacted. You can do this through a blog, an email campaign, or social posts. Honestly, all of the above is probably best.
  • Focus on weddings, since the “big day” will rarely be postponed. Again, stay true to the drive market audience. Destination weddings will see a decline over the next few months.
  • Give guests more flexibility with lenient cancellation policies. You don’t want to create a bad reputation now and have to live with that once this dies down.
  • Keep your ADR intact by adding value. Whether you can offer free breakfast or extra cleaning supplies, now is the time to get creative with your packaging.

If you’d like help identifying ways to help your hotel or property, we’re offering a free phone consultation, no strings attached.  We’ll interview you about your specific situation, your historical business mix and talk about actionable things you can do to drive bookings.

Most properties will not see a strong ROAS over the next 30 days (if any at all). The hope is if we are all socially responsible now, in about 45 days, the virus will be mitigated and businesses can start to go back to normal.

In the meantime, we are here. Call us. We’ll get through it together.

Contact Us

Flywheel News: Your Top 6 Hotel Digital Marketing Updates From February 2020

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March 10, 2020 by

Even with an extra day, February seemed to be over in the blink of an eye and we’re now rolling through 2020 at full speed. Let’s slow down for a few minutes to review all of the exciting hotel digital marketing news from February 2020.

1. Google Announces Changes to Google Ads Partner Status Requirements

The biggest news to hit agencies in February is hands down the announcement from Google to changes in its requirements to qualify as a Google Ads Partner. The new requirements go into effect in June and include:

  • 90-day minimum spend requirement doubling
  • At least 50% of account users must be certified
  • Must hit 70% account optimization score as tracked by Google

GCommerce is already well-positioned to maintain Google Partner certification regardless of these changes. The big moral dilemma facing agencies, including GCommerce, moving forward is when Google’s optimization score campaign recommendations conflict with the best interests of the client for performance. We’ve always gone through Google’s recommendations with a fine-tooth comb because we understand Google’s ultimate goal is to drive more campaign spend while we are concerned with the clients’ specific objectives. GCommerce’s paid search approach will continue to be focused on the client’s best interests for performance and KPIs, even if those conflict with Google’s account optimization recommendations.

2. Google Launches New Local SERP in Europe

Google has launched a new local SERP in the UK in response to EU antitrust decisions. As seen in the below screenshot from Search Engine Land’s article:

Google has started to include directory listing link features at the top of the SERP to give visibility to other directories such as Yelp. It will be interesting to watch this continue to unfold within the EU across different Google SERPs. If your business is located in the EU and is impacted by local search, you should keep an eye on traffic from these subdirectories in relation to your Google and GMB traffic.

3. Google Maps Turns 15!

You may be saying, “great, but why is this important”? Google Maps has become ingrained in our daily lives as consumers but also as hotel marketers. It is linked with Google My Business and helps drive local search proximity signals, local impressions, and exposure for businesses. It is second to only Google’s search product in importance and Google continues to invest in it.  Search Engine Land’s article states “According to data from GatherUp and ThriveHive, Google Maps is now driving significantly more local impressions than Google search.” Local search is extremely important to hotels and GCommerce continues to focus on ensuring client pages are optimized in GMB and they are focusing on signals that can impact exposure on this channel.

4. Ads Standards Updated by Coalition for Better Ads

In a change that could mean issues for some YouTube ad formats, the Coalition for Better Ads announced that “Chrome will stop showing ads on sites that repeatedly show” disruptive ad formats. This means consolidation to ad formats that are less of an annoyance which should be a positive impact for consumers and for advertiser performance. These standards look to prevent issues around the increase of consumers blocking ads on browsers. According to Search Engine Land, “ad blocker rates in North American and Europe have declined modestly from their peak in mid-2017” showing that these steps by the Coalition for Better Ads could be having a positive impact.

5. Chrome SameSite Changes Take Effect

If you read our recent blog on the rise of data regulation and the impact on hotel marketing you may recall seeing a timeline event for February 2020 called Google’s SameSite change. This is the first step in Chrome’s move to end support of 3rd party cookies by 2022. According to Search Engine Land, “this change also makes it easier for browsers creators to grant the users options to manage third-party cookies and first-party cookies independently”. It’s another change felt by the impact of data regulation on the web to make it a safer space for users and giving them more control over how their data is tracked and used. GCommerce has confirmed with our technology partners that we are prepared for this setting change. Over the past months, we’ve made updates to our tracking for Google Marketing Suite and other platforms to follow revised best practices and ensure tracking remains as accurate as possible.

6. Facebook Plans Shut Down of Mobile Web Arm in Response to Data Regulation Changes

The second digital marketing news article this month related to data regulations changes from the browser companies, Facebook announced they are planning to shut down the mobile web arm of their Audience Network feature this April. Digiday is stating that “sources said the decision was likely fueled by browser companies’ recent changes to throttle cookies...plus the internal resources required to keep on top of potential negative impacts from new data regulations”.  Facebook’s Ad Network is featured as inventory in the current Ads Manager platform. It’s presence and impact on GCommerce client campaigns is minimal as most inventory and performance is driven through in-app inventory. While this might have a slight impact on Facebook Ads campaigns, it should be minimal at best.

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