This summer will see swathes of the UK population jetting off in search of sun, but for advertisers, that journey starts before travellers set off on holiday. Marketers can target users at different points in the booking process, whether promoting particular travel destinations at the start of their search, or reminding them of brands available at Duty Free before they head to the airport.
Tripadvisor Advertising, the ads division of the consumer reviews and comparison website, says its logged-in user environment provides those audiences to advertisers. By understanding the type of consumer using its products, Tripadvisor can serve video ads both on-site and off-site, including Instagram, YouTube Shorts and on connected TV. The company’s CTV sales offering is currently available in the US but will soon be landing in the UK, enabling programmatic buys using TripAdvisor’s first-party audience data.
“That’s probably our greatest asset in this area,” says Justin Reid, Senior Director of Global Partnerships Solutions at Tripadvisor. “The amount of first-party data that we are able to collect on a wide range of people’s interests.”
From swimwear to skincare
This data is collected from the types of attractions users search for, as well as the reviews they leave on the website, which allows Tripadvisor to build up a detailed picture of the customer. For example, if someone reviews multiple fine dining experiences over the course of a year, the company can put them into a high-income category.
“Where a Google review can just be a thumbs up or a thumbs down, a Tripadvisor review has to be a minimum of 500 characters,” notes Justin Reid. “And then within that, you have to put in things like, what were you dining for, what were you travelling for, was it business, pleasure, singles, couple, travelling with family. So, again, all those points of data come back.”
In terms of video, users can be dynamically served one of several pieces of creative based on that data. L’Oréal for instance is one of Tripadvisor’s main advertisers, and can use this first-party data to determine the right messaging for each user, whether that’s a beauty-based message, a sunscreen ad or a Duty Free promotion.
And while first-party data delivers the best performance, Reid also sees a role for contextual targeting in campaigns. The publisher is producing more editorial based on user reviews, for example a rundown of sunny holiday destinations, where advertisers “could be anything from Nike swimwear to L’Oréal skincare.” Or if a destination, such as London, wanted to target people researching Paris, contextual also plays an important role.
Going local
However, consumers are looking not just for holidays, but for things to do in their local area. This was of course particularly pronounced during the pandemic, according to Reid, with around 45 percent of the Tripadvisor audience searching for local restaurants and attractions. And since lockdown, the business has witnessed a shift away from “fly-and-flop” holidays at the beach to more experiential trips. “A byproduct of the pandemic has been working from home, with people probably glued to their screens even more,” says Reid. “So this idea of digital detoxes based around experiences is definitely a growth area.”
This in turn has increased advertiser interest from more experience-based companies, says Reid, alongside “a bit of a drop off” from bigger hotel chains looking to fill rooms.
But the publisher is keen to attract smaller advertisers, and offers a self-serve buying platform where marketers with smaller budgets can book campaigns, with placements limited to standard IAB units. The self-serve product also runs a sustainability project whereby the company plants a tree for every dollar spent, and is looking to expand the initiative across all campaigns booked by Tripadvisor.
The business also has an in-house creative studio, Wanderlab, which has created a series called The Wanderer, available on Amazon Prime Video. The series features influencers exploring destinations that sponsor the show, and the company is exploring further advertising opportunities within the show, such as product placement.
Reid notes that housing sales, data and creative within the Tripadvisor Advertising team reduces the friction that might occur when a creative idea from a brand or agency comes into conflict with the media side. “We’re able to come at it from a single, strategic viewpoint as to what the client/brand/destination wants, and how can we deliver that at scale?”
