TripAdvisor Rolls out Sponsored Placements, a “Top of Search Listing” Solution for Better Targeting

New Features Empower Owners to Target Travelers Researching Weekend/Weekday Stays as Well as Allowing an Owner to “Pause” and Select a Restart Date of Their Campaign

TripAdvisor announced the global rollout of Sponsored Placements, making the site’s advertising solution available to any accommodation business who shares live rates and availability with TripAdvisor – just in time for owners to target travelers booking their summer trips.

The ads enable accommodation businesses to capture the attention of travelers and drive quality, targeted traffic to their property by advertising in high-visibility placements on TripAdvisor. Sponsored Placements launched last year exclusively to accommodations with a Business Advantage subscription, and the global rollout now gives properties worldwide the opportunity to target the 490 million visitors browsing the world’s largest travel site every month.

The ads put a property right in front of potential guests looking for places to stay in any given area when there is availability and the property matches the guest’s search. Sponsored Placements appear in high-profile pages across TripAdvisor, including above search results and on nearby listings.

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With high season just around the corner, TripAdvisor data shows that travelers are already beginning to search for places to stay this summer. On average, 70% of searches for travel during high season will happen within the next three months, and with 74% of travelers who book on a hotel site visiting TripAdvisor as part of their research², there’s no better way to target potential guests.

“Sponsored Placements has been a game-changer for hotel owners, increasing their visibility to travelers researching their next trip. Now that we have made it available to all accommodation businesses that share rates and availability with us, there’s a great opportunity to influence potential guests during a critical phase of the customer purchase path,” said Martin Verdon-Roe, Vice President B2B Hotels, TripAdvisor. “And because an ad only appears when your hotel has availability, you can be sure you’re spending your advertising budget on a channel which will make a real difference to your business.”

New features launched

The global rollout also means new features and functionality. Sponsored Placements now allows owners to target their ads by weekday or weekend stays, allowing advertising budgets to be better targeted than ever before.

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TripAdvisor has also built more flexibility into the advertising product with a new “pause” function, allowing hoteliers to schedule a date in the future for their campaign to automatically restart.

“We have listened to feedback from early adopters of Sponsored Placements, and continue to invest in our advertising product for accommodation businesses with these recent enhancements,” continues Verdon-Roe, “Sponsored Placements, when combined with Business Advantage, is proving to be a great way to help accommodation owners drive direct booking referrals and build customer loyalty.”

“Highly targeted travelers”

Silvia Sutter, Online Traffic Manager, says starting her Sponsored Placements campaign has really helped Sofia Hotel in Barcelona to gain more visibility and traffic: “The results have been great – Sponsored Placements has performed so well that all nine properties in the group now have active campaigns to increase their exposure,” says Sutter. “On average, these ads have generated over 50,000 impressions for each property in six weeks to highly targeted travelers.”

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