Get SmarterWith Targeting.Grow Your Hotel's Direct Bookings

With Facebook

Neimh McGlynn, Digital Marketing expert

Advertising on FacebookAdvertising on Facebook is now an absolutelyessential part of any hotel's book directstrategy.

Facebook constantly updates their algorithm to givetheir users the experience they want.

That's great news for users, but a challenge formarketers - the news feed is a more competitiveplace than ever!

Organic reach - the reach you can get for free - hasseen steep decline due to the sheer volume ofcontent being shared every day.

Here's the good news: Facebook has an incrediblyadvanced ad platform for showing very relevant ads,and one-fifth of leisure travelers worldwide turn tosocial media to inspire them in their travel plans.

That means you have the chance to engage travelbuffs and potential guests in your customerpersonas. What's the best way to do that onFacebook? Let's get started.

Key Takeaways:Identify & develop key target marketsUse Facebook advertising to target new &existing customersCreate custom audiences to reach guests whohave already engaged with your hotelReach customers at the right time in theirguest journeyRedefine targeting to increase relevance & ROI

What Can Facebook Ads Do?84% of marketers are using Facebook as theirtop medium for paid social advertising. Hereare the benefits they've discovered.

Brand Awareness: Facebook is an additional, and

powerful, touchpoint for increased brand visibility.

This is true for past, present and future guests.

Increasing Conversion: Communication on a personal

level through Facebook helps improve trust &

credibility

Website Traffic: A strong Facebook presence will

increase traffic

Improved SEO: The major search engines all indicate

that they now look at social media for signals to help

determine a page's ranking

Retargeting: Facebook allows you to retarget

potential guests based on their email addresses,

letting you create highly targeted campaigns

Grow Newsletter: Your retargeted adverts can

encourage your visitors to sign up for your newsletter

The number one benefit:

Building a relationship with your potential guests.

Social media channels give you a chance to create

familiarity and loyalty on a broad scale, one that's

difficult to achieve with just a website.

How Should You Target?Some targeting methods are better than over.Here's our guide to the absolute besttargeting options, to help you reach yourguests in a cost-effective way.

Facebook custom audiences allow you to reach

customers you have already established a

relationship with. These types of campaigns are very

effective, and avoid the wasted clicks from a more

generic audience.

Here's 3 ways to make a custom audience:

Custom Audiences:

1. Database Retargeting

Upload your e-zine or phone number database, and

Facebook will match these contacts with Facebook users.

You now have an extremely targeted list of customers that

you can deliver ads to. This is a powerful follow-up tool to

complement your e-zine campaigns.

Try to reinforce your message & the offers in your e-zine -

familiarity with your brand will encourage bookings.

2. Website Retargeting

Website retargeting lets you target people who have

visited your website or a specific page within your website.

For example, you can target someone who's checked for

availability on your website, but hasn't made a booking.

The biggest advantage of remarketing is that people have

already invested an interest in your hotel.

Tip: Try targeting these towards people who have seen a

page for a particular campaign, like the landing page for

your summer getaway package.

3. Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike audiences allow you to reach new people on

Facebook who share similar demographics and traits to

your other audiences.

For example, a powerful lookalike audience would be

people who are similar people to those who have already

made a booking on your website. Facebook will then

match up the top % of users to display your ads to.

There are a number advanced targeting options that

can be layered on top on one another, gradually

making your audience both smaller and more

relevant, driving down costs and raising ROI. You can

use single or combinations of interests, behaviour &

location.

Here's 3 ways to do it:

Advanced Targeting Options:

1. Demographics Targeting

Target people based on demographics like age,

gender, relationship status, education & parental

status.

2. Interest Targeting

Choose specific interests that are important to your

target audience. Facebook will look at people's

interests, activities, pages people have liked and

closely related topics. When choosing interests, be as

focused as possible. Know your target audience.

3. Behavioral Targeting

With behavioral targeting, you can reach people

based on purchase behaviors or intent. This type of

targeting takes users past behavior into account to

help you determine your audience.

As you can see, Facebook has a number of robust

tools that can help your hotel achieve direct booking

greatness.

Facebook's advertising platform combines the

opportunity for a personal connection with lots of

data, giving you a great opportunity to connect with

your potential guests.

We recommend you try out any or all of the abovestrategies - find out what targeting options workbest for your hotel.

Make sure to reference your customer personas when

you build your campaigns so they're as relevant and

powerful as possible!

Net Affinity is an award-winning technology companyfocused exclusively on the hotel sector.We have collatedthe brightest, experienced and passionate team of onlinemarketers, account managers, designers and developers

to ensure our clients' online success and continuedgrowth.