Why Inbound: A Hotel Marketer’s Guide

It’s the evening before Inbound 2024, and as I sit in my Boston hotel room, I’m reflecting on the impact this conference has had on me and GCommerce over the years. I attended my first Inbound in 2016. At the time, GCommerce was a much smaller organization, and investing in educational conferences was pretty new to us. And all we knew about Inbound was that it was one of the largest marketing conferences in the world (even at that time), and that we wanted inspiration from outside our industry to ensure we stayed on the cutting edge of digital trends and consumer behavior. What we found exceeded our expectations and made our annual attendance more of a pilgrimage than a perfunctory event.  

To be clear, Inbound is hosted by Hubspot, and it is primarily a B2B-focused event. So you might think, “How is this relevant to hotel marketing?” The best way to explain it is by way of a few examples. 

Example #1 - The rise of voice search

Over the years in digital marketing, we’ve been faced with a few highly memorable changes in our space. One of the most transformative moments I recall was the rise of mobile and voice search. In 2015-2016, “search” as we knew it fundamentally changed.

Google Voice Search

Google announced a faster and more accurate acoustic model for voice search and dictation on Android and iOS devices. 

Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo became the first mainstream smart home device in 2015. 

Voice search on remote controls

Some Sony remote controls released in 2015 had a voice search function that could be activated by pressing and holding the microphone button. 

Local voice search

Mobile searches surpassed desktop searches, which led to an increase in local voice search. This allowed retailers and marketers to target ads to local search users, even in specific geographic areas.

Inbound education

In 2016, two separate speakers provided a deep dive into voice search.  One of the speakers charted the rising impact of voice search and forecasted its importance for future marketing relevance. The other provided an educational deep dive, where she used examples from her role marketing a regional healthcare provider to demonstrate actionable tactics to better optimize for voice.

What did we do?

With the learnings from Inbound, we doubled down on our local SEO efforts for our hotel clients. We also refined our schema markup process and worked with each hotel in creating an FAQ page that would be easily crawlable lending itself to common voice searches.

Example #2 - Creating a frictionless customer experience

While not necessarily a novel concept, in 2019, Inbound’s content really leaned into the idea that you needed to remove all points of friction during the sales journey for your business. That includes:

- All pricing online

- all products free to try

- no forms or gates in front of content

- no custom contracts

- no hidden pricing

- all purchasing made simple

- underpinned with great service

Humans shy away from friction, so prioritizing a frictionless experience would, in turn, mean more happy customers.

Inbound education

One speaker, in particular, challenged us to rethink the friction we all accept as “standard” in the travel purchase journey.  In a motivational keynote, they talked about mapping every hurdle a consumer must jump to do business with a company and how they were able to break those barriers and unleash customer loyalty.  

What did we do?

In a lot of ways, this helped me shape the initial vision for Metadesk. Metasearch advertising has always been mysterious and complicated for hotels. And secondary to driving direct bookings, our mission with Metadesk has been and continues to be lifting up the curtain on how metasearch works, how to optimize for better performance, and how to make it easier, plain and simple.

Removing friction isn’t a one-time project. It requires a constant feedback loop and investment in the refinement of your business, product, or offering.

Example #3 - Understanding and marketing to GenZ

Also, in 2019, GenZ was starting to enter the workforce, in addition to our own research. They were seeking genuine relationships with brands, requiring marketers to dust off their storytelling skills and not solely rely on really good targeting.  We had to begin thinking about relevance again, how our brand is uniquely meaningful to our customers.  And we had to do so with authenticity and integrity.  

Inbound education

The main stage featured a panel of journalists and tastemakers that spoke exclusively to the GenZ audience.  They made clear that most marketers were falling into a trap - we expected the behavior of GenZ to be reasonably similar to Millenials when nothing could be further from the truth.  These were novel ideas at the time, presented by the ultimate subject matter experts.

What did we do?

The good news in all of this is that we are all in the travel industry - one of the most personal, emotional, and meaningful consumer categories on the planet.  We have the ability to tell meaningful and transformative stories; we just need to renew our commitment.  Remember, to be appealing in this reimagined world, we also have to be intimate and personal, which requires an emphasis on 1st party data acquisition - something we’ve all been talking a lot about for the last few years.

Example #4 - AI -> Present day

Flash forward to last year, Inbound 2023, Generative AI took our world by storm. We saw more advancements in technology in a 1-year time-span than we had seen in the previous decade. Frankly, as a digital marketer, it was exciting and incredibly exhausting to keep up. With that said, I was truly moved by Yamini Rangan’s keynote as she spoke about how AI can and will help us all reconnect. Since COVID, GCommerce has become a fully remote company, and maintaining our culture and what makes us a great place to work has been a daily exercise. Hearing AI used in a way that wasn’t just for the sake of being able to say we use AI, but to aid in our mission to cultivate genuine relationships with our hotel clients and, in turn their relationships with their guests - it was reinvigorating. If you haven’t seen Yamini’s keynote, I highly recommend watching it on YouTube.

Inbound education

AI was the main headline of Inbound 2023 and guidance on how to use AI showed up in multiple sessions. During one particular educational session, the speaker introduced the verbiage “Multi-modal AI, which covers not just text but also video and photos.  They also confirmed that people still want to interact with people and we need to make sure any AI we use is natural and not advertised.

What did we do?

The good news is that AI and ML weren't brand new to us. In particular, we’ve been leveraging ML for the last decade to manage our media campaigns on behalf of our hotel clients. We did take away several use cases where we can use Generative AI to cut down on menial tasks and give time back to our team to focus on more strategic work. From testing ad copy to on-page SEO, we’ve learned (like many others) that the secret is to combine the power of AI with human expertise. And the result is magic.

Why Inbound?

So, 8 years later, we’re hooked, and it’s not just because we love visiting Boston (we do) and love being around other experts in our field (we do). It’s because Inbound is so in tune with the major developments in the marketing world and how consumer behaviors are changing at a global scale. 

We’re pretty sure we know what the major theme of Inbound 2024 is going to be, and you’ll have to stay tuned to see if our predictions are correct. More to come soon!

How to Advertise for High ADR Hotels on Facebook and Instagram

Oftentimes, hotel marketers are challenged to show a strong ROI on paid media for properties with a high ADR. We've found that social media advertising lends itself for bringing the property experience to life, and when combined with a little bit of ingenuity and knowing where to find the luxury audience, you can successfully generate strong a ROAS.

Learn how we increased bookings for this luxury property with Facebook and Instagram advertising in our most recent blog.

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!

Inbound- Hospitality Marketing Nirvana

I’m at 30,000 feet on my way to the world’s greatest marketing conference, a conference I’d bet most of you have never heard of.  Inbound, imagined, and launched to the world by HubSpot, is attended by 11,000 professionals and features presentations, panels, and networking with the most celebrated marketers of our time.  This marks GCommerce’s tenth year attending, and over that decade, the inspiration and practical advice we’ve gleaned from countless Inbound sessions have been our secret weapon as GCommerce has ascended to the pantheon of strategic hospitality marketing.  And yet, over our ten years in attendance, our friends from the hospitality industry have been conspicuously absent.  I could wax poetic about the insular, circular nature of our industry, but I also love networking with peers at the premier events in hospitality.  Instead, here’s a compelling argument for why you should consider Inbound in your plans for next year.

World-class marketing content

Ryan Reynolds, Serena Williams, and Kara Swisher headline this year's main stage speakers.  Past years have included Barack and Michelle Obama, Anna Kendrick, Reese Witherspoon, Jane Goodall, Chip and Joanna Gains, and many more.  Each had an interesting story to tell, and their A-list status demonstrates the power of the Inbound audience.  Imagine, then, the quality of the marketing professionals that the conference can attract to present and discuss their current work.  Presenters that don’t speak on the main stage but instead present 90-minute deep divers into their most compelling works.    

What can we all learn from CMO’s steering great companies in technology, publishing/media, consumer goods, and transportation?  How does that content diverge from what we experience at hospitality-focused events?

Innovation is featured, unleashed by progressive budgets and perpetual research.  These speakers aren’t competing for today; they’re inventing for tomorrow.  While our R&D budgets may not mirror theirs, we can learn from their insights and outcomes.  We can understand how their research informs how they see the future and the steps they are taking to claim their share.  

At Inbound, we also hear about emerging technologies and practices that are hot topics in our industry.  This year, we expect to hear a lot about AI, and not just about how it is used to attract travelers.  We’ll learn about GenZ’s media consumption and not just about how they prefer to travel. I expect we’ll hear more about data privacy and security and how heavyweight social media companies are adjusting their advertising platforms to remain relevant.  The content; straight from the minds of the tastemakers, will give us a leg up on future trends.

We come to Inbound for content that inspires us; that breaks the mold of incestuous thinking, and dares us to question our own practices.  

Breaking the mold - Cross industry education

It’s often said that hospitality is years behind other industries. We stare wistfully at the conversion paths of eCommerce companies.  We marvel at the emotional resonance of DTC brands.  We envy the data collection prowess of technology firms.  

We don’t have to accept the dissonance.  It may seem basic, but simply hearing stories from innovators from other industries has led GCommerce to change our approach.  At Inbound, you come to understand that universal best practices from other industries are considered innovative in the hospitality industry.  Without this yearly jolt of perspective, it would be easy to fall into complacency.  Inbound provides us an opportunity to learn from the best and brightest marketers out there, regardless of their industry.  We are unified by marketing principles that are timeless…and practical.

Practical solutions - Rubber meets the road

All this high-minded inspiration may lead you to question the real value of the conference.  I can picture a well-intentioned decision-maker saying “I’m happy you were inspired by some celebrities, but how is this going to help our hotel this year?”

While the answer varies by year and by attendee, here are a few universal thoughts. How you collect first-party data matters.  How you use storytelling to connect with your audience matters. How you nurture your conversion funnel matters.  

Yes, we leave Inbound ready to leap tall buildings, but we also leave with a dozen or more practical ideas that, every single year, produce incremental advantages for our clients.  Dig into the details of the agenda, and you will see that it is chock-full of practical content that can change the trajectory of your property and improve the performance of your marketing.  

Improved performance

Bending the trajectory of our marketing towards better performance is what we are all after, right?  We want to discover the tools and techniques that allow us to perform while our competition struggles.  Yet, too often, we follow the same script as our competition; we attend the same conferences and read the same trades.  Is it a surprise that we often achieve similar results as our peers?  

Inbound breaks that mold and brings novel ideas to the forefront.  It allows us to bring new ideas and revenue focused initiatives to our owners.  When those ideas bear fruit, we find ourselves in new territory not yet harvested by our competition.  The result - improved performance relative to our competition.  

We are all staring wobbly demand in the face, hoping that 2025 won’t be a down year.  Hope is not a strategy.  Instead, imagine a dozen ideas, grounded in research yet novel amongst your comp set, all designed to drive improved performance regardless of fluctuations in demand.  That’s the definition of marketing nirvana.

Marketing nirvana

Ten years is a long time to enjoy marketing nirvana in blissful isolation.  This year, GCommerce has invited a few close partners to join our pilgrimage.  Our long-time partners and friends at the Lenox Hotel have offered great rates and even better hospitality.  We have a few select clients from across the country joining us for the week.  We’ll spend our days navigating the world’s greatest marketing conference together and the evenings sharing what we learned, brainstorming ideas, and building relationships with our peers.  

If this all sounds compelling, spend a few moments this week living vicariously through us on social media as we post vignettes from the journey.  More importantly, find yourself in Boston a year from now.  Register your interest in joining us next year here; we can’t wait to see you.

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.