Seeking to navigate a changing digital advertising environment, Kayak tapped Kenshoo Enterprise for its digital marketing software platform.
"There's obviously a great deal of change in the works among Google, Facebook and Bing/Yahoo! and we need a partner who's on top of that," says Robert Birge, Kayak's chief marketing officer, of the change.
Kayak previously Marin Software as its tech platform for digital marketing efforts.
"This change is really about moving forward as we continue to expand from a little start-up to a global company," Birge says. "We determined that they were the company with the team, technology and ideas about where search marketing is going."
Digital marketing and increasing brand awareness is a key to Kayak's growth strategy.
Through various digital marketing and advertising campaigns, Kayak states it has increased its unaided awareness to 27% through June 2011, up from an October 2009 mark of 9%.
Through the first nine months of 2011, Kayak increased its marketing spend 26.4% to $87.4 million, compared with the first nine months of 2010.
Kenshoo's platform automates keyword/ad creation using inventory and promotion-data feeds, and its algorithms manage keyword portfolios with differing margin goals, the company says.
Kenshoo says its platforms power six of the top 10 hotel groups in the world and seven of the top 10 retailers. Clients include Facebook, Barnes & Noble, Travelocity, Walgreens and Zappos.