

In mid-November, Google replaced the local carousel in their organic SERP with the Local Universal 3-pack. Since then, we’ve noticed significant changes in the traffic flow within the Hotel Ads search types. The new 3-pack began rolling out in the US market the week of November 17th. We immediately noted a 22% week over week increase in click volume for Local Universal, which continued to increase throughout the month. Traffic from Google Maps and Hotel Finder took a hit in comparison, but the majority of the new Local Unviersal click share came from Hotel Finder. We found it went from averaging 25% of click share before the switch to around 10% after. Google Maps traffic dropped about 5%. The increase in Local Universal led to a slight but noticeable increase in CPC across clients, around 12% week over week increase when it rolled out. Conversion rate remained steady across search types throughout the transition. Comparing the 12 days before and after the 3-pack roll out, we found that eligible impressions for Local Universal went up 100%. However, overall eligible impressions across searchtypes only went up 16%. This further shows how much of the increase in traffic from Local Universal came from other search types. Overall it was a great move for Hotel Ads. Historically, Local Universal was one of the top performing searchtypes in terms of ROI, but didn’t receive as much traffic as Hotel Finder and Google Maps. Hotel Finder on the other hand was typically the lowest performing search type by ROI. With the rollout of the 3-pack, Google has shifted traffic from their lowest to highest production experience, leading to an overall increase in click volume and return for advertisers.
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