Keep Your Hotel In CCPA Compliance on Facebook Ads

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July 9, 2020 by

Facebook has launched a new Limited Data Use tool to give control and responsibility to advertisers regarding keeping their business in compliance with CCPA while using Facebook Ads. Keep reading to learn more about this new feature and what your hotel needs to do to ensure your business stays in CCPA compliance.

What is the new Facebook Limited Data Use feature?

It is a new feature that Facebook advertisers must utilize to match the compliance requirements of their business in regards to CCPA. It requires an update to the advertiser’s pixel used on the business’ website to go into effect.

What does this new Facebook LDU feature mean for my hotel?

Currently, Limited Data Use has been automatically enabled for all Facebook business accounts, but this will turn off on July 31st, at which point Facebook will require your business to update the pixel used on your website to include the new Limited Data Use parameter to control data collection and usage for certain users.

If your hotel does not take action by July 31, your business takes on sole responsibility for compliance with CCPA and Facebook is not liable. 

What does my hotel need to do to stay in compliance with CCPA while using Facebook Ads?

We are not legal experts, I repeat we are not legal experts, and this is not to be taken as legal advice. You should seek counsel with your CCPA lawyer based on what level of action you should take. Once you have direction from your lawyer, select one of the following three possible options that make sense for your hotel and contact your hotel’s digital marketing agency to direct them on what action you want them to take.

It’s also important to call out that the option you go with can have serious implications for your hotel’s marketing. If you decide to use a risk-averse approach and enable Limited Data Use for all California users then you will be excluding all of these users from your remarketing list. If you have a large number of consumers from California this would potentially decrease your audience size to be too small to target and cut off your retargeting campaigns and a great source of revenue in your hotel’s marketing funnel. 

My hotel currently uses the OneTrust cookie banner to regulate cookie settings on my site, do we still need to make any changes to our Facebook pixel to stay in compliance?

If you are currently using OneTrust cookie compliance on your hotel’s website, bravo! You’ve already taken great strides to make sure your business is in compliance with CCPA by providing users with cookie tracking preference options. If you don’t have the OneTrust cookie compliance banner on your site, we recommend it highly as a solution to help with cookie usage compliance for California residents. 

If you already have OneTrust cookie compliance on your hotel’s website, you still need to adjust your Facebook pixel to set it to only enable Limited Data Use when the user opts out. The great part of using the OneTrust tool is that it provides the opt-out option that has a more limited impact on your hotel’s marketing and automatically disables tracking across any platform you’re using, including Google Ads and Facebook Ads, when a visitor opts-out.

How do I get my hotel’s Facebook pixel updated to include Limited Data Use?

Contact your hotel’s digital marketing agency, or whoever manages your Facebook Ads campaigns, to request they update the Facebook pixel. Then make sure your website is updated with the revised pixel.

If you need assistance or have any questions,  please reach out to our hotel digital marketing experts at GCommerce. 

Flywheel News | Your Top 5 Hotel Digital Marketing Updates From June 2020

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June 30, 2020 by

Even though we’re still experiencing the random snowstorm here and there in the mountains of Park City, summer is officially here. Over the past month, we’ve continued to see positive trends for our clients and the hospitality industry as a whole as we entered this new season. There was also no shortage of announcements across the digital marketing space, and we’re here to bring you the highlights.

1. GMB Adds More Flexibility with Business Hours

Google My Business has quickly adapted throughout the Covid-19 crisis with new feature updates. The latest update gives local businesses more specific types of “hours” that they can communicate through their GMB page. They can now set up separate hour types for seniors, pickup, kitchen, and more. This allows your business to better communicate with your customers regarding special hours throughout the day due to social distancing regulations.

2. LinkedIn Announced New Retargeting Audiences for Video Ads & Lead Gen Ads

LinkedIn has officially announced new on-site retargeting engagement audiences.  Advertisers are now able to create audiences based on anyone who opened a lead gen form, people who submitted a lead gen form or based on how much of a video has been watched (25%, 50%, 75%, 97%, 100%). These changes allow advertisers to continue to speak to audiences past the initial point of engagement and lead them down the funnel for better structured (and better-performing campaigns).

3. Prominent Brands Pledge to Stop Facebook Ad Spend in July

Brands and advertisers including Starbucks, Patagonia, REI and Unilever have pledged to stop all ad spend on Facebook during July. The campaign is called Stop Hate for Profit and has been organized to put pressure on Facebook to stop the spread of hate speech and misinformation. While Mark Zuckerberg has since come out to state that the social media company will roll out new labels to better explain why some content is allowed to run and that it will work to detect and remove any misinformation posts, the campaign continues to gain traction to push for greater change on the platform.

4. Google Sees 7% Decline in Paid Search Ad Revenue, Mostly Driven Travel Ad Spending

Google is set to see it’s first-ever U.S. revenue decline which is “driven primarily by a loss of travel ad spending”. We’ve seen first hand what the Covid-19 crisis has done to ad spend for the travel industry. Everyone from the OTAs to independent hotels were forced to decrease or stop spending altogether and with travel being one of the most monetized industries in the Google platform, it had a huge impact on the search engine’s revenue. For our clients that have been able to keep paid search ads live, we’ve seen a huge decline in CPCs which are down 52% YOY and 32% since pre-COVID-19, showing there is a great opportunity for low-cost advertising through this channel right now. This is most likely due to less competition in the space.

5. Spotify Adds Video Advertising Option

Spotify’s self-service ad platform continues to evolve, now offering video campaigns in addition to audio ads. As we watch Spotify expand its reach and content by going after more content creators from YouTube and Podcasts, such as Joe Rogan, it shows an interest in emerging as an alternative to YouTube for advertisers. Let’s hope the audience targeting options also follow suit.

Cause for Optimism in Hospitality During COVID-19

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June 22, 2020 by

I am forever an optimist.  Through these rose-colored glasses, I am starting to see signs of hope for the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 crisis.  None of this is to discount the important moments and movements happening in this country and worldwide, or to understate the fact that nobody knows what the future months hold.  That said, recent metrics both published and in my internal diagnostics have picked me up off the floor and encouraged me to dig back in, start to sell again, start to market again.

I had a growing sense of optimism slow-boiling below the surface for a month or so when, last Friday, I watched the ever-popular Today Show travel segment.  Airbnb reported that May 17- June 3, 2020 bookings exceeded bookings from May 17 - June 3, 2019.

Stop.  Rewind.  I was focused on other things and not really paying attention.  I could have misheard that.  Play.  (3:45)  

Smith Travel Research reports that nationwide occupancies knocked on the door of 40% in the last week (39.3%).  Another eye-popping number; NYC occupancy for the week was 47.1%.  Seriously?  After everything that the city has been through over the past three months, it is encouraging to see the very early signs of recovery in the data.  

Last week, the California Hotel and Lodging Association sent an email providing guidance to their members.  The state had “released new guidance for the lodging industry stating that individual/leisure travel can start next Friday on June 12.”

We have also been looking at our own proprietary internal data.  The company has the benefit of looking across our portfolio and picking out trends as they emerge.  The data proves that the bottom in hotel demand is well behind us, and as an industry, we are gaining steam in a recovery.  Demand is returning, though it is a fickle creature.  

Never one to be interested in feckless debates about whether people “should” be traveling, whether hotels and restaurants should be open during a pandemic or speculating whether COVID related travel pullbacks will occur in the near future, I have always instead focused on consumer behavior.  Ultimately, travelers are our true north, and it's clear to me that travelers are restless.  Every hotel occupancy trend line I review, most markets I study, shows a slow, steady march towards recovery led by those restless globetrotters we all love.  The wanderlust runs deep in this country!

Every market is not favored by this trend, and if you are operating a hotel in Downtown LA, for example, there aren’t enough travelers to support a property.  However, if you are open, and in a favored area, market to those journey-bound optimists.  There is an opportunity to compete for room nights.  Don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because you are open they will find you, and choose you.  Tell them a story.  Inspire them.  Help them achieve what they seek; escape.   

On this, the data is clear.  Just look at the Cornell study from the last travel recession.  Those who adopted a bunker mentality and waited on the sideline for the bad times to pass lost market share to their competition.  Those who came out and tried to steal occupancy (and save money) by slashing their rates as their primary strategy did long term damage to their rate integrity, and to their brand.  

I suggest a different path.  Watch the data, talk to your neighbors.  As soon as you get the inkling that demand is beginning to return to your market; pounce.  Better yet, be there before the demand starts to tick up.  If you’re struggling to find room in your budget to get help on your marketing, check out our performance-based model.  Focus on the leisure travelers instead of screaming to anyone within shouting distance that you are open.  Leisure guests will drive the early days of demand’s return.  Yes, I know optimism is subjective, but the data is not.

Flywheel News | Your Top 7 Hotel Digital Marketing Updates From May 2020

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June 4, 2020 by

1. Google Announces New Signal in Ranking Factors

Google has announced that it will be introducing a new ranking signal that focuses on evaluating user experience from a web page. Existing signals that were aimed at assessing user experience such as HTTPS, mobile-friendliness, and avoiding interstitials will be combined with what is called Core Web Vitals. These Core Web Vitals include:

Google has defined these as the Core Web Vitals:

  • Largest Contentful Paint: The time it takes for a page’s main content to load. An ideal LCP measurement is 2.5 seconds or faster.
  • First Input Delay: The time it takes for a page to become interactive. An ideal measurement is less than 100 seconds.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift: The amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content. An ideal measurement is less than 0.1.

These won’t impact ranking until next year at the earliest but you should start taking a look at how your site performs by auditing these in Search Console or Chrome’s developer tools. Webpages that are able to positively impact these metrics will have a leg up on the competition. 

2. Google Ads SMB Credits Start Rolling Out to Accounts

Good news for SMBs! Google ad credits have started showing up within accounts. The first is going to SMBs in New Zealand but will expand to other countries over the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for these additional marketing funds. We’re actively monitoring our client accounts for these ad credits.

3. Facebook Launches Shops Feature

Facebook has officially entered the eCommerce world with the introduction of its new feature, Facebook Shops. Facebook’s new feature looks to directly compete with Amazon and Google Shopping. Positioned at helping SMBs during this crisis, pages are able to add products to their Facebook Shop and people are able to interact, shop, and purchase either directly on Facebook or by visiting the business’ website. Shops are free to set up and right now don’t have any fees or commissions charged. Facebook does plan on launching fees in the future, but now is a great time to test this feature for free. Learn more here.

4. Bing Can Now Answer Certain Queries With a Simple Yes or No

Do you loathe having to read through an entire paragraph before you can find the simple “yes” or “no” answer you’re looking for in the search results snippets? Well, Bing has come to the rescue. The search engine is now able to answer certain queries with a simple “yes” or “no” answer. Give it a whirl at Bing.com.

5. Google Sunsets Gallery Ads Beta to Focus on Image Extensions

Google has decided to kill one of the most talked-about features from its Google Marketing Live in 2019. Gallery ads beta has been sunsetted to focus on image extensions instead. Microsoft Ads has had this feature for a while now. Google’s image extensions are currently in a closed Beta so if you aren’t included you’ll have to wait until the official release. 

6. New and Missing Google My Business Reviews Now Showing

During the start of the crisis, Google made the decision to disable certain features on its Google My Business product. This included the Q&A feature as well as the ability to post new reviews and customer photos. We’re excited to say that new reviews are now showing up on listings. If you are now open don’t forget to re-engage your customers through eCRM to ensure you’re generating new reviews. Review rating and quantity plays a large role in local SEO rankings.

7. New Google My Business Feature for Hotels: COVID-19 Responder Policy

Last month Google introduced a new Google My Business feature specifically for hotels. This feature allows hotels to post information about any discounts or free lodging for COVID-19 first responders. You can find this feature under the hotel attributes section of your GMB account.

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

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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.

Best Practices for Messaging Your Hotel’s Reopening During COVID-19

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May 21, 2020 by

When people are ready to travel again they are going to return to brands and hotels they trust. The question is, how can your hotel instill trust in loyal guests and new guests in a post-COVID-19 world? The answer is consistent communication and thoughtful messaging. Your team has been working hard to develop a plan for reopening that follows local guidelines to maintain guest and employee safety. You should share this information and messaging across different channels to help re-establish trust with your customers. This trust will make them feel secure in booking at your hotel to drive the revenue your business needs to thrive. Here is a breakdown of our recommendations for great communication and messaging by channel.

Hotel Reopening Messaging Best Practices By Channel:

Hotel Website Messaging

Your hotel’s website is your online storefront and the place where guests and potential guests go to get official information from your business. Make sure you keep this information up to date and accurate. Here are some best practices and ideas to follow:

1. Create a post-COVID-19 reopening website landing page specifically developed to communicate your hotel’s new policies, procedures, and FAQs around how it’s complying with regional requirements to keep guests safe.

2. Install a post-COVID-19 website ribbon at the top of the homepage that links to the landing page. We recommend using messaging in the banner geared towards cleanliness and peace of mind vs. using the words COVID-19 update. 

3. Include updates with specific information about the current status of your hotel’s amenities such as the pool, restaurants, and spas. Include any new procedures and what guests can expect when interacting with your hotel’s amenities during their upcoming visit. For example:

  1. Lounge chairs at the pool will be 8-ft apart. 
  2. We’ve removed ½ of our tables at the restaurant to comply with social distancing regulations. 

4. Do not hide any pages devoted to business entities at your property that might be temporarily closed. This could negatively impact your performance in the search engines and confuse customers rather than inform them. Instead, place text at the top of the page with a status update on the specific amenity. 

5. Avoid pop-ups as Google has stated these can negatively impact SEO and provides a poor user experience, especially on mobile devices. If a visitor closes the pop-up it also makes it difficult to find the information again.

6. Add an email sign up right below any “We’re Temporarily Closed” messaging so visitors interested in your hotel can stay informed and connected with your property. This ensures you can maintain communication and encourage future stays through email marketing campaigns.

Hotel Booking Engine Messaging Updates

Keep messaging around new policies visible within the booking engine flow to make people feel secure. Include messaging around flexible reservation cancelations or changes and include details on how you are keeping them safe to increase conversion rates.

eCRM & Email Messaging for COVID-19 reopening

Ensure all of your email and eCRM communication include messaging around COVID-19 related policies, procedures, and links to learn more from your hotel’s COVID-19 specific landing page. Help the guest understand what to expect upon arrival at your property.

Hotel Social Media Communication

Your loyal hotel customers, as well as aspirational ones, are following you on social media. Make sure you are utilizing this channel to keep them informed on your hotel’s reopening or current status and any changes to policies and procedures. This is also a great place to keep your hotel’s fans updated on what’s happening locally that may encourage them to consider traveling to your area soon.

Paid Media

If your hotel hasn’t relaunched paid media, you should strongly consider jumping back in if you are able to find the funds. Check out our last blog post for a list of very convincing reasons why. Not sure what approach to take with your hotel’s reopening messaging? Here are a few examples:

  • Hotel Paid Media COVID-19 Messaging Examples:
    • Book today with peace of mind. 
    • Our spacious grounds are the perfect escape. 
    • Book a Risk-Free Vacation with our Flexible Cancellation Policies
    • Plan your worry-free escape and book today. 
    • We’ve made changes to make sure our guests stay safe. 
    • Book today with worry-free planning. 
    • Cancel for any reason. 
    • Escape to the mountains where fresh air and blue skies await.
    • Escape a world of worries. We’ve got your beach chair ready. 
    • Celebrate with a staycation and experience local attractions like never before. 
    • COVID Services Update – Learn More
    • Questions? See up-to-date COVID Information >>
    • A Deep Clean and Peace of Mind for All of our Guests
    • New Standard of Clean 

You can find an expanded list of ideas for themes to drive your hotel’s messaging during a crisis here. 

Your hotel’s direct booking channels are going to be the key to communicating with your guests and making them feel secure in planning their next stay at your hotel. Keep them informed and make them feel secure in order to have the most positive impact on your hotel’s website conversion rate to drive more bookings.

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