Tnooz reader Philip Kloeckner spotted a new advertising format for hotels on Google this week:
This is an interesting progression for Google, as they attempt to not only serve some of their largest customers (such as OTAs Booking.com and Priceline), but also provide a solid retargeting product for hotels.
Philip mentioned that they had been looking for hotels in Munich, and saw this ad after browsing hotels in the German city.
Up to this point, Product Listing Ads were the only products that had image thumbnails integrated into the product.
Google has been testing and rolling out a variety of new ad products. Especially in response to Facebook and Twitter's evolving ad products, the company continues to position focus on advertising products that deliver on the dynamic purchase intent of on-site searches.
Products like Dynamic Search Ads and Dynamic Display Ads are making it easier for advertisers to on-board extensive inventories, and then get the right inventory to the most targeted people.
These products could be very easily transferred to hotel brands looking to seed sites with dynamic inventory appropriate to both demographics and previous browse history - ie. a retargeting opportunity that delivers higher conversions for hotel brands. The main question here is who will get access to the product, and if Google will keep it walled off for only its biggest spenders.