At the end of July 2011, Google rolled out the new Hotel Finder. It was titled  ”Comparison Ads” within the search engine results page and placed in the yellow Paid Search box directly above the paid search ads and organic results. However, as of April 30, 2012 when you search for “Houston Hotels”, or any other hotel search, you will see the Google Hotel Finder is now titled “Sponsored” and sits below paid results but still above organic results. According to Google, The “Sponsored” title means that “Google may be compensated by some of these providers.”Also notice that it now has a white background, rather than the yellow background of the paid ads. This makes it blend in even more for the untrained eye of the average consumer.

When you click the “Book Now” button, you are taken to the Google Hotel Finder page which allows you to shop many hotels within in Houston and view their Google Places information reformatted into the Hotel Finder interface.

Potential hotel guests can view photos, reviews and location. An important thing to remember here is that this is now one more place where your Google Places reviews can be read. We highly recommend building up your Google Places reviews just as you would encourage guests to post reviews on TripAdvisor. Google Hotel Finder and Google Places are two search results that now take up quite a bit of space on the search results page, so you want to have a beautiful and full Google Places account including many guest reviews.

There are a few more things that are important to notice within the Google Hotel Finder.  Notice that below the prices in the Results list, there is a percentage up or down on the usual pricing. When you rest your mouse pointer over the percentage it says, “The price for your dates is 42% more than this hotel’s typical price over the past year.” Google has taken the current price from the major OTAs and compared it to your prices over the past year. Now depending on the seasonality of your property, this could potentially help or hinder bookings. Plus, this is one more place where we have to compete with the OTAs ranking above us.

Unfortunately, Google is not giving hotels an opportunity to play in this paid game yet, but at least there is a link to the hotel’s own web site.

We encourage you to go check out your city in Google Hotel Finder, and see what you find. As part of your complete SEO strategy, Screen Pilot recommends building out a complete Google Places listing, and now with the Hotel Finder this is more important than ever. Hopefully one day we will get the opportunity to compete on equal ground in Google Hotel Finder but until then just be sure you have a great Google Places listing.

Essentially Multi-Channel within Google Analytics allows you, the user, to move beyond the last click and see the true path to conversion that your customers take. To find Multi Channel within GA,  click conversions and then Multi Channel Funnels. Ensure you’ve selected the relevant date range in the top right corner and also the correct conversion method. For hotels and resorts, we recommend transactions since there is a great amount of data available.

Next you click on Assisted Conversions, which is below overview in the left toolbar. This breaks down your transactions into the most basic marketing channel they can be put into.  These include Organic Search, Direct, Referral, Paid Search, Email and Social Network. The table displays the number and revenue from assisted conversions and last interaction conversions.

Last Interaction Conversions are where the last interaction in a conversion funnel took place.  Assisted conversions are where conversions occurred BEFORE the last click  in a conversion funnel . You can also compare First Interaction Conversions with Last Interaction Conversions. Underneath explorer at the top of the page, click ‘first interaction analysis’ to see this. First Interactions are the first interaction point in a conversion process. For example:

Someone Googles ‘San Francisco Hotels’ and they see a paid search listing for Hotel California. They click this link and visit the site. While on the site they become a fan of Hotel California on Facebook. No purchase takes place at this point. A week later they are on Facebook and see an update from Hotel California. This prompts them to visit the site and look around again. They see a deal they like and leave the site to discuss whether to book the trip with their partner. The next day the user has decided to return to the site. They remember the URL and type HotelCalifornia.com to go to the site directly and make their booking.

In this example the paid search channel would be attributed with the first interaction conversion. Both the Paid Search channel and the Social Network channel would be attributed with the assisted conversion – since they both assisted with the conversion. And finally the Direct channel would be given the last interaction conversion.

Remember that every conversion has to have a last interaction conversion point.  Also every assisted conversion has a first interaction point. However not every last interaction conversion has an assisted conversion – This occurs if there is just 1 touch point in the conversion process. For example a friend tells a user about the hotel, the user goes to the site directly and books.

This information is vital because it allows us to see which channels are creating awareness and bringing visitors to the site without necessarily making the final conversion. In fact, by visiting the path length data within GA we can see that 56% are booking first time – this means 44% of this sites customers are taking 2 or more visits to the site before making a booking.

The top conversion path tool allows us to see which conversion paths are the most popular. Below is an example that shows the top 5 conversion paths that include 2 or more touch points in the funnel. Unsurprisingly the most popular is Organic Search being the first interaction and then direct being the last interaction:

The assisted conversions tool also allows you to see which channels are more likely to close the deal and which ones are more likely to create awareness. This is the assisted/ last interactions conversions ratio. A number over 1 shows that channel is an awareness creator. A number under 1 shows that channel is a deal closer. In our example Social Media, Email and Paid Search show less last interaction conversions than other channels but this is because they have a high ratio number:

 You also have the ability to create your own channel groupings. For example we can test whether unbranded (San Francisco Hotel rather than the branded ‘Hotel California’) organic keywords are more likely to be assisted conversions than all (including branded and unbranded keywords) organic keywords. The ‘(other)’ channel grouping consists of all other data including direct, paid search, social networks etc.

This shows us that unbranded keywords (0.99) are more likely to assist in a conversion than all (branded and unbranded) keywords (0.93). To create these click on ‘create a custom channel grouping’ to the right of ‘other’ within the assisted conversions tool.

I think that’s a good start for you. The next step is for you to dive in and try out these ideas with your own data. If you’ve got any questions for us don’t hesitate to email us or comment below. Happy Analyzing!

Overall, the hotel industry reports dissatisfaction with flash sale websites – of which Groupon is the most used (60%), ahead of Living Social (28%) and JetSetter (15%).

The survey, conducted amongst almost 400 chain and independent properties in mainland Europe and the UK, revealed five main reasons why hotels were unhappy with the group sale experience:

1. Did not make enough revenue per room
2. Gave up too much revenue to the sale site
3. Deal wasn’t as successful as expected
4. Failed to see any repeat business
5. Did not attract the right calibre of customer

But the survey was not all negative. Hoteliers were also asked why they would consider using group discount websites. Key benefits include:

1. Increasing off-season occupancy (70%)
2. Raising the property’s profile (60%)
3. Reaching a new demographic (35%)
4. Keeping up with competition (24%)

“Group discount websites are a real success story and have grown incredibly quickly, but it seems word has spread in the accommodation sector that they don’t always deliver the results that hotels are anticipating,” explained Jan Tissera, President, TravelClick International.

“Anecdotal evidence has indicated that hotels are also concerned that a large percentage of the customers who book had actually stayed with them before and cannot be ‘up-sold’, which discourages incremental business.”

According to Pinterest, “Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests.” Pinterest offers people the ability to “pin” or share a their photos or a photo they have found somewhere on the internet with people who are following them by putting the “pin” within a “board.” “Boards” are basically groups of pictures that the user has defined and titled, things such as “Foods I love,” “Places I want to go,” etc.

So you may be wondering, is there really a place here for the hospitality industry? I challenge you to think about this for a minute, where else can you find a group of people who are passionately endorsing brands, styles, places, food; basically anything and everything they like in a visual medium. They are women between the ages of 25- 44 with household incomes of $25, 000 – $75,000.* These are influencers who love to play on social media and are embracing the newest kid on the block, Pinterest.

Pinterest gives your guests an opportunity to share what they love most about your hotel through stunning visuals. We all want brand advocates; why not encourage them to share your property with their friends. A quick search for “hotels” reveals boards like “Places!!!! I like these places,” “Hotels I love” and many others.

Also, there aren’t many hospitality folks who have jumped on this bandwagon, so it gives you the opportunity to be a trendsetter. If you search for W Hotels under Pins, you will find lots of people sharing photos; however if you search for W Hotels under people you will find a bare bones beginning of their Pinterest account. This tells me that hotels need to find a way to integrate this into their social media strategies, as these ladies aren’t going anywhere and the Pinterest community is growing.

After sharing why we think the hospitality industry should join Pinterest. Here are our top ways to share your brand on Pinterest:

1. Make it fun – I know this is obvious but if you’re not enjoying your time on Pinterest, no one is going to want to interact with you. You need to make Pinterest interesting and not just about you. Share pins of things that align with your brand, your city, events, menus, etc. Then hopefully, people will see you as an ally, not a brand promoting itself.
2. Create boards that tell your story – Don’t just create boards that spell out specific room types, etc. that’s what your website is for, use this space to tell a story. The Arizona Biltmore has done a fabulous job of creating interesting boards that tell its story.
3. Contests – Develop playful contests to entice your guests to “Upload a Pin” or in other words upload and share their favorite pictures from their stays at your hotel.
   

We have shared with you our ideas on how to utilize Pinterest but here are a few brands that have done exceptional jobs of using Pinterest: Whole Foods, Real Simple and West Elm.

Now get out there and pin until your little heart is content. Share the beauty of your brand with the millions of ladies (and I’m sure some gentleman) on Pinterest. If you have any questions, or need social media guidance, reach out to us at Screen Pilot.

*Statistics are from Tech Crunch – http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/14/this-is-everything-you-need-to-know-about-pinterest-infographic/

No More ‘Fan-Gating’

The new brand pages have done away with the default landing tab for non-fans. Now everyone is directed to the main timeline view. This makes it a lot more difficult to convert non-fans to fans. The trick here will be to use posts and other channels to drive non-fans to fan-gate tabs or create a compelling Timeline that doesn’t need a fan-gate.

Users Can Send Direct Messages To Brand Pages

This is a double-edged sword. Some customer communication is certainly more suited to the privacy of Direct Messages rather than wall posts and this addition will certainly help that. However, while a wall post can get lost in the crowd the public will EXPECT a response back from a Direct Message. This isn’t a problem as long as you are prepared to be reply to these messages in a timely fashion. If you can use this effectively it could be an excellent customer service tool for your business. We’d suggest that if you aren’t ready for it then take advantage of the “Off Button” for this feature for now.

Cover Photo

This is an excellent space that allows you to get really smart with branding your Facebook page. Some brand pages have thrown themselves into this already. Here are a few examples to get your juices flowing.

The New York Times Staff – They also utilize the timeline function brilliantly to highlight news throughout their history.

People Magazine did a great job of creating a cover photo thats fits their brand and is perfect for the space that Facebook provides.

I used this mainly because I love SportsCenter but also enjoyed the shot of  their studio from behind the camera.

Using The Timeline

Another great opportunity to tell the story of your brand using Facebook is the new Timeline. Some companies like Coca-Cola and even Facebook themselves have gone back in time and filled in their Timelines back to when they were founded. Efforts like this should keep fans on your page longer and more engaged. If you have 5 minutes, I urge you to take a look at those 2 examples: Coca-Cola & Facebook.

A negative here is that the two-column format of the Timeline seems to get in the way of natural conversation between fans and the brand. The wall certainly had the upper hand here.

Pinned Posts

This allows you to keep a post at the top of your Timeline for up to 7 days. Rather than be frustrated by the time limit on this function, try and use it to your advantage – Fan of the week, Employee of the week, Special offer of the week. The possibilities are endless!

Although the Facebook Timeline for brands has been available for a few weeks now very few brands have activated it and even fewer are using it to its full potential.

Remember that on March 30^th everyone will be moved over to Timeline. We urge you to spend time moving over to the new format and taking advantage of it as soon as possible. If you don’t have the time then get in touch with the Screen Pilot team and we’ll see what we can do for you!