How to Advertise for High ADR Hotels on Facebook and Instagram

For the past year, a luxury hotel located in Palm Springs, California, has been advertising on Facebook and Display to promote its beautiful property along scenic vistas, offering anyone visiting a relaxing vacation. This property has a high ADR for its luxury hotel and the amenities it offers, which can make it challenging to get conversions through social advertising. Through various tests and trial and error, we have increased conversions through Facebook and Instagram advertising. 

Leverage different ad types

One of our first tests utilized dynamic ads, where we used multiple images, videos, and headlines that were optimized by users based on how they would interact with the ads. We saw incredible results with this ad type shown below:

We compared dynamic ads to static ads by click-through rate. As you can see, we got a 7.89% CTR with dynamic ads and a 2.87% CTR with static ads. Both of these click-through rates are incredible and above our general goal of 1%, but we found that when we used dynamic ads, there was a higher response rate and better interaction among the prospecting audience.

We then compared outbound clicks between dynamic ads and static ads. We found that there were a lot more clicks with dynamic ads than there were with static ads, most likely because dynamic ads tend to be more personalized and interactive for the user.

What helped these dynamic ads succeed was not only using multiple images but also multiple videos. Video advertising is becoming increasingly more popular, where the user can see the full experience of the hotel, rather than just a single image.

Reaching the luxury traveler

Getting conversions for luxury hotels can present a challenge when there is a high ADR. How can you target the right audience? How can you get your ad seen by the right people who will convert?

To answer those questions for this property, we used 1st party intent audiences. These audiences are collected through a large number of partners in the airline, hotel, rental car, and travel space and they assist in finding the right kind of potential guest who would stay at this luxury Palm Springs hotel. We use these in prospecting audiences to help us reach those people who are at the top of the funnel and eventually bring them down to convert.

Winning the booking

When it came to generating revenue, this property had two offers that really helped them in generating conversions. The first one was a resort credit offer where if you stay two nights, you receive a $100 resort credit. The second was a linger longer offer where if you stay three nights, you receive the fourth night free. Below, we will share the results of these offers:

This graph compares conversions between two different offers. The resort credit generated 8 conversions and linger longer generated 11 conversions. 

Although we generated more conversions from the linger longer offer, we generated more revenue from the resort credit offer at over $25,000, indicating that the resort credit brought in a higher value guest.

Having offers that appeal to different people is critical for all marketing efforts and especially in this example on Facebook and Instagram, along with using very specific luxury travel audiences to reach the right potential guest.

If your property is looking to reach the luxury traveler, contact us today for help with advertising on social media channels!

4 Tips to Win Black Friday in 2024

Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are often the biggest revenue-producing periods for hotels. With increasing competition and more companies fighting for your guests' wallets in 2024, planning your Black Friday strategy early is key to having a successful weekend (or week) once November rolls around.
 
Here, our team of hotel digital marketing experts will share some of the best tips and tricks for making the most of Black Friday.

1. Kick off Black Friday early this year

Every year, Black Friday seems to come earlier and earlier. What was once a 4 day rush from Friday to Monday has become a multi-week long sale period spanning from early to late November.

There’s more to this than just beating your competitors to the punch this year though: in our increasingly algorithm-driven marketing environment, your ads need more than just 4 days to optimize and deliver the best results. Getting data early on what ads are performing the best, allowing algorithms to optimize who is seeing your ads, and making key adjustments are all possible only when your sale period is longer than 4 days.

The short:

• Extend your Cyber Sale to at least 7 days, ending on Cyber Monday.
• Extending your sale past Cyber Monday usually doesn’t drive additional conversions.
• Although we recommend a minimum of 7 days, some of our most successful campaigns have been for Cyber sales longer than 14 days.

2. Avoid high CPMs by leveraging first-party data and cyber sale teasers

With Black Friday advertising spend increasing 55% from 2022 to 2023, the competition for ad space on our platforms is increasing every year. In 2023, we saw CPMs increase for some hotel properties by 5 times their average non-sale period. These high CPMs make it harder to reach potential guests at a time they’re already being bombarded with more ads than usual. 

These CPMs are especially high just before and on Cyber Weekend. By running Cyber Sale teasers and email collection campaigns in early November before CPMs rise, you can engage new customers interested in your sale and collect their emails to re-engage them during your sale period, avoiding spending most of your budget at the most expensive time to advertise.

The short:

• Find ways to engage your customers outside of paid media, like email.
• Leverage low CPMs before Cyber Weekend to build anticipation and collect new email signups for Early Access to your cyber sale.
• Expect CPMs to rise during Cyber Weekend: plan for fewer impressions with the same spend and consider increasing spend accordingly.

3. Offer a percent discount and avoid narrow hotel stay dates

As we’ve covered, your prospective guests are seeing new offers from their favorite brands for almost all of November. Contrived offers with different savings for different stay durations, narrow stay dates, and many exclusions confuse customers and make them skip to the next company. Across our sales, we consistently see that campaigns with the clearest offer and fewest exclusions far outperform other offers.

The short:

• Keep it simple. A 20% off offer is easier for your customers to understand than a Third Night Free offer, even if savings are better with the latter.
• Multiple stay date exclusions just confuse customers, especially if they aren’t outlined clearly. If a customer can’t find your offered rate easily for the stay dates they prefer, they’re likely to just leave your website – not keep searching.

4. Use your platform’s features

If your Cyber Sale strategy is to just launch a couple ads on one platform, you’re missing out on a variety of features available on both Search and social. On social, test out adding reminders to your posts for your sale to deliver a notification to your guests when your sale goes live. Although countdowns aren’t available natively on Meta’s ad platforms, consider scheduling ads to update for the last few days of your sale emphasizing that your offer is about to end.

On search, consider doing a full ad takeover instead of just launching sitelink extensions. In addition to ad takeovers, add countdowns to your search ads within copy and headlines to drive a sense of urgency, especially as your sale comes to a close. Using images to mirror your social and display campaigns can also drive visual interest while posts on Yext, Google My Business, and Bing Places can help the people who care the most about your hotel find your sale easily.

Consider setting up a Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar event that users can add to their calendar from your email sends. This is a great way to get out of the inbox and reach your customers in a unique way once your sale begins. Here’s a guide on how to do that in Google Calendar.

The short: 

• Use new features your competitors aren’t using to bring attention to your sale.
• Countdowns, reminders, and events are all great ways to create a sense of urgency while reminders and events can be a great way to get into your guests’ notifications when your sale begins.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment!

It may not seem like it now, but the end of year cyber sales are just around the corner. Now’s the time to start making a plan for your Cyber Sale. Reach out to GCommerce to help reach more guests and supercharge your marketing this Black Friday.

Which Ad Preformed Best? Can you Guess?

Facebook ads are a powerful tool for businesses to reach their target audience through personalized and engaging content, but selecting the perfect elements for an ad is like finding the missing puzzle piece to campaign success.

Take a look at these Facebook ad variations and see if you can guess which one outperformed the others? Discover more here.