New Hotel Search Results Experiment on Desktop

A new local search results format is being tested, and it could have an impact on Hotel Price Ads. See below for a screenshot taken earlier today: Screen Shot 2014-08-19 at 11.31.29 AM Notice anything missing from the screenshot above? The carousel isn’t present in this experiment! It looks like this new format matches the rich list that shows up on local for all searches, which was tested earlier this year. Here’s a look at the entire unit: Screen Shot 2014-08-19 at 11.31.41 AMIn the screenshot above, you can see that data from Hotel Price Ads campaigns (pricing, availability…) is already present in this new format. When you click on a hotel, the knowledge panel for that hotel appears, along with the HPA localuniversal ad unit: Screen Shot 2014-08-19 at 11.31.51 AM

Potential impact

Based on the great growth we’ve seen in mobile since a very similar result was launched, this new results format could represent a major shift to traffic that flows through HPAs on desktops. The mobile experience has been live for a few months and has proven to be a very efficient way to get users through to their destination. Though the reach of this experiment currently appears to be very small, advertisers utilizing Koddi can leverage the “desktop + localuniversal” dimension to monitor their campaign for any impact. If this experiment proves successful, we may see the carousel retired in the coming months.

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