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6 ways hotels
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 28/02/2019
 Rajul Chande
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Facebook advertising is one of the highest ROI marketing
channels because of the power it gives you to target the
Suppliers
Suppliers
right people and personalise. If set up right, Facebook
helps your hotel generate more direct business when you
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In short it puts control in your hands as a hotel owner or
manager because you can switch it on or off like a tap. And
if you set it up right the ROI will be 100% transparent.

Unfortunately it’s all too easy to use Facebook advertising

the wrong way. Avoid these pitfalls to boost your Facebook
ad campaigns immediately:

1. Superficial targeting

A 4 or 5 star hotel GM may say: ‘I want more luxury clients for our premium services’. But direct targeting
of upscale brand or travel affinities without deeper segmentation will blow through budgets because
such audiences are already saturated.

Your hotel’s Facebook ads need to motivate the right people in a timely way.

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Use two contrasting approaches to find the right audience on Facebook:

ULTRA-NARROW: Segment micro-audiences by locality, proven behaviour or prior interactions.

Example: Make an F&B offer to previous business guests who live within a certain radius, enjoy
dining out or follow close competitors.
BROAD: Target a big audience but retarget based on engagement with your ad. Go for the sale in
your retargeting not the initial ad. Example: A concierge video of local attractions retargeting a
leisure offer to those who watch a specific segment.

Hotels and their agencies often get caught ‘betwixt and between’ which risks being lost in the crowd.
Instead, EITHER be ultra-specific and go for direct conversion with an irresistibly timely and personalised
offer…OR go broad for low CPC with engaging content to segment your audience for a confident one-
two punch (convert in step two).

Above all test, don’t assume!

Extra tip: Combine broad targeting with Facebook Trip Consideration – a sweet spot to obtain high
reach and good conversion if you execute well.

2. Inadequate remarketing

Putting generic ads in front of a cold audience is rarely profitable unless you are lucky. Retargeting of a
‘warmed up’ audience is usually where the money is.

You have a few options to do this right:

1. Launch an awareness, engagement or video views campaign to prime and qualify your audience.
You may want to reinforce this with an email or Messenger sequence.

2. Use a custom audience from your email database, past interactions with your social media, affinity
from a related source, lapsed guests, etc.

NB: Ensure you have the required permissions related to GDPR, privacy and local laws.

Do you manage multiple properties? Great! Share the Facebook pixel across your account to improve
conversion by targeting people who already engage with your brand.

A Facebook Lookalike Audience is also likely to get better results than a cold audience.

Extra tip: Use retargeting across platforms (e.g. sharing data between Facebook and Google) for even
better ROI.

3. Me-too messaging

As I live in London and follow hotels, I’m inundated with afternoon tea offers on my personal Facebook
and Instagram, most of which are identical:

Image of trays and cakes in a luxury setting

Description based on ‘indulgence’ motivator – uninspiring to me as a health freak
No transparent pricing until I waste my time and the hotel’s budget by clicking
Poor mobile optimisation and inadequate use of FB mobile features

Facebook knows my preferences but the hotels presenting these offers or their agencies have been too
lazy to use all its personalisation capabilities.

Imagine instead the following:

An ad that catches me at the very moment I’m thinking of booking afternoon tea for a friend or
anniversary
 An ad with engaging mobile-specific video or images with copy speaking to my specific interest or
location

An ad that creates credible urgency by offering a transparent deal that genuinely disappears
unless I act now
An ad that gives me the customer experience I’d expect from a 5 star hotel and makes me feel
special from the ad itself (e.g. a call back, personalisation, gift, etc.)

In short: intercept your client’s ‘thought process’ to go deeper and stand out. It sounds like magic but
Facebook makes it possible. Stimulate curiosity, intrigue and emotion.

Extra tip: Targeting time-constrained professionals? Our testing has shown that mobile ads are the only
way to go. Desktop should be just an afterthought.

4. Bad timing

Time your ads properly and your conversion and ROI from Facebook ads will skyrocket. But it’s easier
said than done.

How do you catch people right when they are planning to travel or book?

First of all activate Facebook’s ‘Trip Consideration’ feature, developed specifically for the travel sector:

https://developers.facebook.com/ads/blog/post/2018/03/06/trip-consideration/

Facebook says that Trip Consideration “optimizes ads delivery to people who expressed interest in
travel, but have not yet selected a destination.” Qualifying your audiences by travel intent is a game-
changer for multi-property brands with different locations. Are you using Facebook’s dynamic ads for
travel and if not, why not?

How else do you time your campaigns effectively?

Pick a theme indirectly related to a landmark date e.g. instead of a Valentine’s ‘me too’ why not
target romantic stays for the whole of February with a limited time offer?
Target your campaigns with personalised offers around birthdays, anniversaries or life events. Set
these up to run automatically.
Target previous guests with a personalised offer near the same dates as their stay with you the
previous year.
Use data from booking calendar searches (see below) to automatically present real-time offers
linked to that guest’s interest or location.

Being ‘timely’ with your Facebook advertising is what makes everything tick.

Another aspect of timing is to make your offers ‘time sensitive’ with genuinely limited availability.

Extra tip: After split testing several ideas, automate the best ones to operate all year round, ensuring
that you get daily reports at each funnel step to quickly rectify bottlenecks.

5. Lack of conversion focus

There are other tweaks that will hugely improve the conversion and ROI of your hotel’s Facebook ad
campaigns.

Here are some of the things we’ve learned through extensive testing for different hotels:

Use dedicated landing pages for the campaign. A landing page usually converts at least 50%
better. Sending people to your site confuses them and dilutes conversion.

Use FB-exclusive offers. Use promo codes specifically linked to your Facebook campaigns so that
you track to the funnel endpoint.
Use Messenger/Chat CTAs. Don’t waste precious ad real estate on details. Just motivate people
to message you. In some cases a bot sequence works best in others a real person in your team.
Answer questions to convert.

Make it urgent. Notice how the OTAs always play up their limited inventory and the transient
aspect of offers. Do the same in a classy way and your conversion will jump.
Get your hotel team on board. We work with the hotel sales team to ensure that lead conversion
is maximised. Enhancements like text alerts can also be added. Speed in handling enquiries and
leads also improves conversion.

Last but not least, we use a tool called Optimand to develop better targeting and drive superior
conversion for our hotel clients.

This app is a quick install and analyses your hotel’s real-time demand. It is used by hoteliers around the
world to increase direct bookings by letting you offer personalised rates while a lead is on your site
based on geolocation, average stay, booking value and other criteria.

We use it with all our hotel Facebook campaigns because of the deep referral and conversion data it
gives us – far superior to Google Analytics. It helps us optimise campaigns at the speed of light.
Optimand lets us track revenues generated by specific Facebook ads and compare them to other
referrals: it’s our secret weapon to deliver superior ROI to our hotel clients.

6. Poor revenue tracking

This takes a little time to set up but is essential in making your ROI from Facebook advertising
transparent.

We use a combination of tools to execute this including funnel tracking analytics, Optimand and Google
Analytics.

Transparent revenue tracking ensures your team buys in to these campaigns, which increases your
ability to convert and close transactions with your leads, so it is a virtuous circle.

Once you’ve mastered Facebook advertising you can turn ‘evergreen’ campaigns on and off in line with
your monthly or quarterly sales targets.

Finally…Be creative!

Stuck for ideas?

Here are some ideas for great Facebook campaigns you might consider for your hotel:
 A Facebook-exclusive stay offer for Sunday nights combining a local attraction like a cinema,
museum or restaurant
Last-minute F&B coupon campaign for companies within a fixed radius of your hotel
Spa + Afternoon Tea offer to target ladies who lunch in your vicinity

Gym open day (Facebook event) for companies nearby with a company-specific promo code and
ad that targets only people who work there
Take guest email at check-in to retarget with relevant F&B deals during their stay

Target PAs of large companies in your area with a video tour of meeting & banquet facilities,
offering an incentive (e.g. smoothie or a glass of wine) to book a show-round. A similar concept
can be applied to wedding planners.
Create ‘intrigue’ and curiosity with your ads. Use a playful tone of voice in keeping with social
media and watch your CPCs fall and your CTRs improve significantly.

If we can help you implement the above, do ask about our Facebook advertising service for hotels.

Rajul Chande
1 post
http://www.pplimited.com/
Rajul Chande is the founder of Positive Partnerships, a digital marketing agency working on ROI-measurable campaigns in
the hotel & travel sector since 2009. He is also author of the book “At Your Service” interviewing legendary hoteliers like Sir
Rocco Forte, Geoffrey Gelardi and Gordon Campbell Gray who share their insights on hospitality and leadership.

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