The metasearch arena is a highly competitive marketplace for both well-established brands and brand new advertisers. While this tends to be universally true across most auction-based advertising environments, travel brands face some unique challenges in the metasearch space. In this post, we will walk through many of the biggest obstacles and reveal some of the best practices that can help advertisers maximize performance in the metasearch environment.

1) API Performance

Being able to distribute accurate room rates and availability is of paramount importance. Inaccurate data or inconsistencies can lead to drops in campaign performance. It is not uncommon for an advertiser to experience issues with API consistency. This can manifest as the distribution of inaccurate pricing or room availability. Ultimately, the information being delivered to the metasearch site is false and creates downstream issues. Either the user has a bad experience or the advertiser is missing out on opportunities to promote empty rooms.

This can be exacerbated if you are having to resolve issues through a third party vendor and are unable to pinpoint the source of the problem. Small API glitches can be hard to identify and can greatly harm performance if they go unnoticed. Like most distribution issues, the best way to mitigate negative impact is to catch the problem early and properly diagnose the cause of the discrepancy. Two of the more common causes for discrepancy are:

• Outdated source data – The database used to fuel the site and the distribution API are not always one and the same. If your data falls out of sync be sure to confirm that the source data is accurate.
• API bandwidth – During peak request times it is possible that the API is unable to handle the high call volume causing a slowdown. If this occurs, try spacing out requests over a longer time period or, if operating the API, upgrade to more powerful hardware to process requests.
• Incomplete data – This occurs when the data delivered is incomplete resulting in missing room rates and availability. Regular listing audits and review of itinerary coverage reports allow for the quick discovery of theses issues.

Proactively catching these issues requires advanced reporting tools that allow analysis at the most granular level. Our client services team routinely sets up automated reports and notifications that signal us when something has gone awry. Transparent reporting allows us to quickly identify the issue and enable distribution providers to address it. Once the issue is identified, we can redirect spend through the Koddi platform in real-time to help clients minimize the risk of inefficient spending until the issue has been resolved.

2) Itinerary Coverage

As you might expect, it is difficult to sell a room that is not actually available. When advertisers are not distributing their complete itinerary, they miss out on opportunities to reach customers who are looking to book in the distant future. Whether due to technical issues, lack of availability or oversight, a lack of itinerary coverage minimizes potential output.

When possible, advertisers should deliver rates as far into the future as they possibly can. When Google is assessing itinerary coverage they look up to 365 days into the future. If the advertiser is unable to deliver rates that far in the future, then it is important to manipulate your bids to maximize when you do have coverage. This can be done by manipulating the length of stay, check-in date, and advanced booking window multipliers.

3) Rate Issues

There are two recurrent types of rate issues advertisers run into – rate discrepancy and rate parity. These issues can be a symptom of API inconsistency, but can also appear when taxes, promotions, and sales are mishandled.

The first big issue is rate discrepancy. Rate discrepancy refers to the difference between the low rate showing in an auction and the actual rate displayed on the landing page. When rate discrepancy occurs, there is typically an increase in click-through rate but a big dip in conversion rate (CVR). This is because users drop off almost immediately when seeing an inaccurate price. That is, unless the price is actually lower than what was advertised. Then it is just a nice surprise! More often than not, the price is higher and this creates a bad user experience and kills return.

Rate parity issues are another common problem. Uncompetitive rates cause historically strong performing placements to degrade over time. With constantly fluctuating prices, properties with high impressions can see very low conversion rates when the rates are not in line with competition. Unsurprisingly, users tend to choose the lowest price.

These issues are primarily caused by either bad data or inconsistent API performance. In order to ensure that a campaign is not negatively impacted by rate issues, it is important to regularly monitor rate discrepancy and rate parity. Reports and bidding strategies should be built to catch and proactively respond when these issues arise. Big swings in click through rate and conversion can often point to one of these two issues occurring. Monitoring the historical performance of those two KPIs is a good way to start proactively identify rate issues.

4) Landing Page Issues

Poorly optimized landing pages are a common weakness we see across many advertisers. Problematic landing page practices we’ve identified include irrelevant display ads, excessive horizontal scrolling, a lack of a clear call to action (CTA), long load times and a complicated checkout process. A poorly optimized landing page can create a high bounce rate and destroy campaign conversion. This is especially true for mobile sites.

Here are some of the UX principles for building higher-converting landing pages. First, landing pages should be distraction-free (i.e. no excessive promotional messages or irrelevant ads) with a clear display of rates and CTA buttons, such as “Book Now.” Also, apply the “simple is best” methodology to cut down on page scrolling and complicated forms or rate calculation. Last but not least, several rounds of internal and external testing should be conducted to find out how travelers react to the page design. Some popular options for usability tests include:

• The five second test- This simple test allows users to view a landing page for only five seconds and then asks recall questions about it. This is most helpful for gaining an understanding of users’ first impressions when viewing a web page.
• A/B testing – By creating multiple versions of the same landing page, it’s easy to measure the effectiveness of a single variable change such as the color of the CTA button or the layout of the page.
• Heat maps and user recordings- Software tools such as CrazyEgg, HotJar and Mouseflow can provide qualitative insights into how users are interacting with a website by recording where users click, move their mouse and how far down the page they scroll.

We know landing page optimization is a bit beyond bid management, but if advertisers want travelers to convert after clicking through, providing a decent landing page experience is as crucial for metasearch campaigns as bidding. Additionally, as publishers like Google and Trivago begin to take landing page quality into account when determining CPCs, an optimized landing page can actually reduce your average CPC.

5) Low Brand Recognition

Low brand recognition tends to be a concern for advertisers who are new to the space, and it contributes to the volatility we see in some advertisers’ metasearch performance. Small-scale or regional brands may have trouble building trust with users. Even when their rates are in parity with competitors, advertisers with low brand recognition may experience softer traffic and CVRs when compared with big-name brands.

One way for smaller advertisers to stand out from the crowd is to leverage Google’s callout extension. This feature allows the presentation of a brand-specific promotional message on Google Hotel Ads. By displaying unique text ads that are tailored to your clients, such as “24/7 customer service” or “best train package,” users gain a snapshot of detailed information about the brand and its offers. It helps increase user confidence and the likelihood of a click.

These five challenges tend to be the most common pain points for advertisers. The list of strategies for overcoming these obstacles is virtually limitless. If you have an interesting approach that we’ve missed or you’d just like to learn more about metasearch management, subscribe to our blog below or contact us here.