A hotelier’s perspective on changes in Google’s search and AdWords initiatives

Published: 01 Apr 2010

IN-DEPTH: Barbara Pezzi on latest developments in real-time search and SEM

Search engine giant Google continues to refine its offerings. The company has already come up with several interesting developments in the first three months of this year.

EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta assesses some of these developments with Barbara Pezzi, director web marketing and e-commerce - Swissotel Brand, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International.

Hotel prices on Google Maps

Google has started experimenting with a new feature that will result in showing specific prices for selected hotel listings.

With this feature, when users search for hotels on Google Maps, they will be able to enter the dates they plan to stay and see real prices on selected listings.

One can click on the price to see a list of advertisers who have provided pricing information for that hotel, indicated by the “Sponsored” text, and click through to reserve a room on the advertiser’s site. By showing users this relevant hotel rate information directly in the Google Maps results panel, Google hopes to make this aspect of trip planning more speedy and efficient.

Importantly, Google says this new feature will not change the way that hotels are ranked in Google Maps. Google Maps ranks business listings based on their relevance to the search terms entered, along with geographic distance (where indicated) and other factors, regardless of whether there is an associated price.

Assessing such developments, Pezzi says, “In general, I welcome any enhancements to Google Maps and Local business listings. Google Maps are an important element of our SEO strategy.”

She added, “However, I think this latest addition might have some serious implication for hoteliers. Even though according to the official Google statement, the ranking of the listing will not be changed, it is likely going to affect the click through rate to the supplier’s site, if for example, only OTAs are sponsoring the price listing for that specific hotel. It is also still unclear on how the prices will be fed. Will the system support rate rules, offers? OTAs and even meta search companies have in most cases a full CRS integration or at least offer an extranet option which can be updated by one of the various extranet management tools.”

She continued, “OTAs will have the technology to set up some pricing feeds for these ads, if supported, but this will not apply to all hotels. At the end, for us hoteliers, this can turn out to be a very costly and time consuming exercise. Potentially, probably cheaper than selling through OTAs, but it will very much depend on the technology needed and on how accurate and well updated the price feeds will be.”

Real-time search

Google has been experimenting with incorporating real-time search in their results but it is said that the search giant has not yet figured out how to establish authority in real-time search or change the display to be more than a never ending stream of updated information.

Pezzi says real-time still needs some work and a recent study showed that most users are actually ignoring the real-time search results on Google.

“In fairness, I don’t think any of the other main search engines are offering a better alternative, apart from that fact that at least in Bing, the results are displayed on a separate page. I am sure that with time the algorithm will get better and we are going to see more quality results, but whether real time search is really valuable for all type of searches, such as a hotel booking, it remains to be seen.”

She further added, “Personally, I am not a fan. It is definitely useful for breaking news, but otherwise I would rather have the option of switching it off. On the other hand, I know it cannot be ignored, and eventually, we will have to take it into account in our SEO efforts.”

Monetising the excess inventory in AdWords

With the recession kicking in last year, many advertisers pulled back their investment into search.

Search marketing agency Greenlight highlighted that towards the back end of 2009, Google introduced a few promising beta programmes, allowing the advertiser to spend more but in an effective way. For example, advertisers invited to the ‘Sitelinks’ beta saw up to a 30 percent improvement to their click-through-rates (CTR) - ultimately improving their quality score besides seeing a greater return on investment from their advertising spend.

However, a study earlier this year indicated that CPCs have been dropping in travel for an extended period and consumer search volume (interest) is up only modestly. Continued weakness is expected in the travel category in 2010.

Sharing her perspective on whether such a trend has emerged, Pezzi said, “Not from my experience. I believe many advertisers have actually switched their offline advertising to online, which has resulted in an increase in CPC. In many search terms, I am now competing with twice as many advertisers as I used to. It is becoming much harder to achieve high ROIs and we now have to be focus more on long tail terms, as generics, such as “hotel + city name” are just not a viable option anymore.”

‘Comparison Ads’

Having already tested the ‘Comparison Ads’ beta in the U.S., Google is about to launch the programme here in the UK. Where invited, advertisers will be able to set a target CPA against a group of specific keywords - and not have to worry about inflating cost-per-clicks as a result of a poor quality score or aggressive competition.

It will be interesting to see how it develops over here (in the UK), said Pezzi.

“I believe the test is only available to credit card companies for the time being. In the US they have used it for mortgages. These are products which are generally searched for on comparison sites, so there is not a major difference in the user search experience. It remains to be seen if Google will extend this to other sectors, even though I have heard that travel has not been ruled out,” she said.

SEM

It is mentioned that SEM is a mix of human and algorithmic actions. The hard part is that it’s difficult, at scale, to take real-time reality into account.

Pezzi says SEM is complex, but at least it can be measured to a large extent, and if it can be measured, it can be improved.

“I don’t find it any more complex than offline advertising, which is basically just “faith based”,” added Pezzi.

She further expanded on the same, “You spend a good amount of money on a page on some glossy magazine, and then hope for the best. You don’t know how many readers actually looked at that page, if they liked the page, whether the advertisement was successful.”

“At least with online marketing, we are now spoilt for choice when it comes to analytics and testing: we know how many users saw our web page or our ad, we know if they interacted with it and booked, we can keep on testing and improving it, and if we really want to, there are now real time analytics products available. Yes, it is slightly more complex, technology can be an issue, but with the amount of free resources and tools available, there is no excuse for ignorance anymore,” concluded Pezzi.