This week Facebook has launched Dynamic Ads for Travel (DAT), its native retargeting solution for travel advertisers, as Tnooz first reported.
NB This is a viewpoint by Burcu Gobuluk, chief operating officer for Adphorus.
As a Facebook Marketing Partner exclusively focused on the travel sector, Adphorus is one of the first partners to support DAT and we are very excited about all the extra features and benefits that DAT will bring to travel advertisers.
How is it different from Dynamic Ads?
Until now, travel advertisers have been using Dynamic Ads (formerly known as Dynamic Product Ads, or DPA) for their retargeting campaigns. Dynamic Ads has been the most effective Facebook retargeting product to date and it works great for e-commerce advertisers, but, time and again, we had to come up with customized solutions for our clients to make it work for travel.
This is also driven by the fact that travel sector consists of different sub verticals, such as meta-search engines, OTAs, airlines and hotels, and all of them have different user funnels and business models.
DAT is built specifically for travel. It will allow travel advertisers to implement the main components of their business model into the newly created ad format and promote their business to the most relevant audience in an effective way.
Top 10 reasons DAT will change Facebook advertising for travel brands
1) A native solution for travel
For a travel business, the definition of a “product” is different from that of an e-commerce business. For a travel business, a product could be hotels, destinations, car rentals etc. The initial version of DAT will be focused on hotel advertisers, allowing them to create retargeting campaigns at a property level. Hotel advertisers will soon be able to do region-based advertising as well. In the coming months, DAT will be applicable for destinations and other travel products.
2) Promote more relevant product sets with the new travel-specific product catalogs
The new Product Catalog for DAT includes additional hotel-specific variables such as detailed address info, hotel chain, price and star ratings. Using these new parameters, advertisers will be able to group categories by value or create more granular product sets, such as “Hotels with 4+ stars”, to bid more effectively.
3) Capture intent data based on your user funnel
With DAT, travel advertisers will no longer have to adjust their user funnel to fit into that of an e-commerce website. Default events have been changed and adapted to fit the needs of a travel business. The following signal events will be used in order to capture different levels of intent:
4) Capture flight intent data for hotel targeting
One of the great things about DAT is that it captures flight data from your website. In other words, if you are selling both flights and hotels on your website, you will be able to use flight signals for your hotel-level retargeting.
For example, let’s say a user has searched for a flight to Barcelona. Then you will be able to show Barcelona hotels to that user until the departure date.
5) Increase ROI with precise targeting and effective use of intent data
DAT allows advertisers to utilize many variables such as length of stay, number of weekends between check-in and check-out dates, number of travelers and star ratings to set up more focused targeting. In addition, advertisers will also be able to target users based on level of intent. With the new structure, you will be able to target people who have shown more explicit intent, such as those who have searched for the same hotel more than three times.
For example, you can create an audience set for “couple travelers who searched for a hotel stay of eight nights at least three times in the past 15 days but haven’t booked yet”. By doing this, you will have the chance to bid more for the target group with higher length of stay which will help you to optimize ROI in a more effective way.
6) Stay relevant by “exclusions”
Most of us have become irritated when a travel advertiser continues to show the same remarketing ad when you are already on your holiday. One of the most impressive changes on targeting with DAT will be excluding users whose check-in dates have passed from your target audience. That feature will help you to avoid wasting impressions and money by showing ads to the users whose check-in dates have passed. This will potentially increase your ROI as you will eliminate redundant impressions.
7) Dynamic pricing and room availability
Different than those in e-commerce, prices and availability in travel change more frequently. DAT supports showing dynamic pricing on the ads. As prices change frequently within the travel industry, DAT keeps your prices up to date and helps you serve more effective ads which will increase performance.
8) Increased conversions with customized creatives
Advertisers are now able to create more customized creatives by adding parameters that are used in the hotel catalog or captured as user intent. For example, you can use the check-in date to convey a more personalized message.
9) Personalized landing pages
Having check-in and check-out date preferences of each user will also allow advertisers to customize the redirection URL of each ad. Thus, once a user clicks on the ad, she will be redirected to the hotel page with the pre-defined check-in and check-out dates specified by the user on her previous visit.
Our previous tests show that having customized creatives that include check-in and check-out dates, personalized landing pages coupled with all the new targeting options of DAT increases the performance for travel advertisers remarkably.
10) Upsell scenarios to increase ROI
Advertisers will also be able to upsell with DAT. For example, you will be able to show more expensive hotels' ads to the users who viewed or searched for cheaper hotels in the same neighborhood and vice-versa.
To conclude, we believe Facebook’s Dynamic Ads for Travel is the beginning of a new chapter for travel advertisers.
NB This is a viewpoint by Burcu Gobuluk, chief operating officer for Adphorus. It appears here as part of Tnooz's sponsored content initiative.