What is retargeting?

In a recent study, the tech company Fastbooking found that the average hotel website conversion rate is 2.2%. In other words, around 98% of visitors to your hotel’s website don’t convert – at least, not on their first visit.

Retargeting increases those conversion rates by putting your brand back in front of bounced traffic after they’ve left your site. When a prospect arrives at your site, a retargeting pixel tags the visitor with an anonymous browser cookie. As they travel to other sites, the cookie goes with them and triggers your retargeting ads to display wherever you’re running them.

If you’ve spent any time online, you’ve experienced retargeting pixels, though you may have attributed the sensation to the all-knowing eye of Google or techno-synchronicity. Recall the last time you thought about a trip to Vegas. Was your Facebook feed suddenly inundated with ads for the Bellagio or Cirque Du Soleil? It’s not that Facebook is telepathic. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t stalking you. Rather, you were tagged by a retargeting pixel during some innocent bout of daydreaming that included spending a few minutes perusing casino hotel sites.

Will retargeting actually improve conversion rates?

Unlike traditional display ads, retargeting ads are directed towards an audience that has already shown interest in your brand. They’re primed for your message, which means that prospects are significantly more likely to click on a retargeting ad. By some accounts, the click-through rate of retargeting ads are 76% higher than standard display ads.

Try these retargeting best practices to convert more hospitality prospects.

Make retargeting part of an integrated marketing and advertising strategy.

In nature, the most robust environment is the most diverse environment, and that holds true for the marketing and advertising ecosystem, too. You’ve got to get customers to your site before you can tag them with a retargeting pixel, and that means you need compelling inbound and outbound marketing strategies in place. Once you’ve got visitors arriving at your site, retargeting will keep them coming back.

Try different retargeting tactics for greatest effect.

The most common form of retargeting occurs when a visitor to your website is tagged and then displayed ads on an ad network like Facebook. However, you can also use retargeting technology to tag people who search for particular keywords (search retargeting), people who have taken certain actions in a brand email (email retargeting), and even people who have visited a complementary site (contextual retargeting). You can use retargeting to serve ads on ad networks and social media, but you can also use retargeting to trigger automated emails. Explore all of the options in order to reap the greatest reward from retargeting.

Use sequential ads to drive prospects through the conversion process.

Visitors to your brand site already know who you are, so your retargeting ads need to take a different approach than standard display ads. Since you’re retargeting visitors who have already shown an interest in your brand, these ads should be tailored to nurture leads through the sales funnel. Sequential ads are a way to gradually initiate prospects into the inner circle of brand converts. You can use these ads to provide more information about your product or service, to combat sales objections, to sweeten the deal with insider discounts, or to incite FOMO. Offering a series of increasingly valuable retargeting ads automates the sales process and keeps the experience of your brand fresh and novel as opposed to seeing the same advert repeated ad infinitum.

Work with marketing and advertising experts to create a comprehensive promotional strategy.

Morgan & Co works with leaders in the hospitality industry to build integrated marketing and advertising strategies that drive traffic to your site and keep them coming back for more. Our knowledge of the travel and tourism industry paired with our expertise in media planning and buying produces smart strategies that incorporate new ideas and hard-nosed buying. All of our efforts are supported by analytics that capture the true ROI of your marketing investment.

Contact us today to begin driving new sales, calls, and sign ups using retargeting as part of your comprehensive promotional strategy.