4 Dangers with Trivago, Google Hotel Ads & Co.

Most of you have already used them yourselves: Trivago, Google Hotel Ads or TripAdvisor are the showcases of hotels and ideally ensure many direct bookings. Bundled under the name metasearch channels, hotel prices from Booking, the hotel website and other portals can be compared there. On Trivago alone, 45 million users search for inspiration for their trip every month.

Danger #1: CPC bids that are too high or too low

Practice makes perfect and expertise is hard cash. If you want to link your website on the metasearch channels, you have to bid for it. The right measure ensures that you are still displayed in the top positions, but don't pay too much. The channels must be considered individually here: On TripAdivsor or Google, the top rankings differ only slightly and even a position 2 or 3 ranking is perfectly adequate. With Trivago, on the other hand, position 1 is clearly emphasized. This ensures more clicks, but also more costs. If the corresponding bookings do not materialize, you should perhaps be satisfied with a lower position. Different bids according to length of stay, arrival date or end device are the cherry on top.

Lösung: Ein guter Richtwert ist ein ROI von 10 oder höher. Liegt euer ROI langfristig darunter (Schwankungen gibt es immer), sollte eure Strategie angepasst werden. Schließlich wollen wir Direktbuchungen günstiger einkaufen als OTA-Buchungen.

Danger #2: Cheaper room rates with OTAs

A true classic. If your rates on the OTAs are cheaper than via your own channels, this will not only cause your metasearch strategy to falter. Your entire channel mix will also suffer - to the detriment of free direct channels.

Lösung: Die Metasearch-Kanäle sollten mehrmals die Woche geprüft werden. Sind Preise bei Booking & Co. günstiger als die Preise auf der eigenen Website, gilt es die Ursache zu finden und zu beheben.

Danger #3: Outdated company entries

Filtered out and therefore no visibility. This can happen to any hotel that does not keep its company profile up to date on the metasearch channels. Does your hotel offer vegetarian or vegan food, have sustainability certificates or welcome dogs? If this attribute is not stored in your profile, you will not be shown to guests who filter for exactly this.

Fazit: Da die einzelnen Portale und insbesondere Google immer wieder neue Attribute ergänzen, empfiehlt es sich spätestens jedes Quartal einen Blick ins Profil zu werfen und zu prüfen, ob alles noch aktuell ist.

Danger #4: Poor image quality or meaningless images

Love at first sight. This is often the case when choosing a hotel. The visual language is of decisive importance here. If an unflattering image with no impact or an image of poor quality is chosen as the cover image, the probability that the user will simply scroll on increases considerably.

Lösung: Analog zum Profil-Check sollten auch die hinterlegten Bilder jedes Quartal überprüft werden. Sind alle Bilder aktuell? Ist mein Titelbild ansprechend?

Looking for professional metasearch support?

Ihr nutzt aktuell noch gar keine Metasearch-Kanäle oder wollt einfach mal eure Plattformen nach schlummernden Potenzialen analysieren lassen? XPORT steht euch mit seiner langjährigen Expertise gerne zur Seite - von der technischen Anbindung über das Erst-Setup bis zur laufenden Strategie-Beratung und unserem Komplett-Management.

Photos:

Tripadvisor, Trivago