Using an internet sales engine (ISE) is a fantastic step to drive direct business to your hotel. However, there is still work to be done to a) increase traffic to your site and b) create awareness and drive communication promoting your unique room features and the option for guests to book their "Best Match."
For this purpose, you should consider adapting your direct website and the way you present your inventory, highlighting different features and feature combinations for different target groups (please refer to our manual with details and recommendations here).
Below, you will find some options and tips that will help you to drive direct business to your hotel. For any questions or partnership activation, please contact the GauVendi Team directly.
Sojern Partnership
Sojern is a company that has partnered with GauVendi to run programmatic campaigns and provide Meta Search Connectivity. This Meta Search Connectivity is only available for hotels with more than 70 rooms. Programmatic campaigns are particularly useful for hotels that do not have a direct business contribution within their mix.
There are two main services offered:
Programmatic campaigns to drive brand recognition through Instagram, Facebook, and Display Campaigns on Google. This service offers free exposure, and payment is only required if bookings occur.
Meta Search Connectivity with 12 common Metasearch sites for hotels with a minimum of 70 rooms.
The setup process for these services takes approximately four weeks, and confirmed reservations must be reconciled on a monthly basis. Confirmed bookings are charged with a fee of 12% on the total transaction value.
Google Hotel Ads with GauVendi
Since the beginning of this year, we have established a direct partnership with Google, which allows us to provide additional services to support your direct sales efforts. These services include:
1. Google Free Booking Link
2. Google Hotel Ads & Room Bundles with direct links to the ISE (Campaign Match Booking Flow). GauVendi will cross-charge Google advertising costs using an agreed percentage commission of the transaction value, regardless of modifications or cancellations.
Example of room Bundles
Particularly room bundles promise to be an interesting solution as individual rooms with their features are being highlighted directly on Google search.
Google Performance Campaigns (Google Ad Account from Property)
- Set up Performance Max campaigns targeting different target audiences and create different asset groups for each audience using your own Google Ads account.
- Consider targeting groups using keywords, competitor websites, and remarketing of visitors from your own website. Prepare respective creatives and call-to-actions.
- The GauVendi team is happy to set up an initial campaign on your property's Google Ads account for 500 EURO, which includes three asset groups and up to 60 creatives.
GauVendi Direct Campaign - Booking Links
This feature allows you to promote individual products and stand out completely from your competition, whether it's a package product or just individual rooms. It enables you to sell like Airbnb sells individual homes and provide an individual booking experience for each accommodation unit.
To make use of this feature:
- Use direct product links from GauVendi in all communications, such as email and advertising, pointing to the relevant products.
- Add the desired product code to the URL using "&spec=Product Code" for call-to-actions.
- Example ibe.gauvendi.com/recommendation?hc=GVHOTEL&spec=RFC0001
Personalized Links with Booking Source
You can create your own booking source codes and attach them to the URL for any source you like. The booking source will be automatically translated into reservations, and you can filter production by source code. This is helpful when tracking campaign or specific channel performance.
To implement tracking for bookings, add "&bookingsrc=SOURCE" to the URL and replace "SOURCE" with your respective code. For example, for Instagram advertisements, use "&bookingsrc=INSTA".
Example below:
Once a guest makes a booking with the source code on the URL, the accommodation will be able to see them under “Source” in the reservation panel and therefore measure the performance of each of them. Screenshot below:
Tools and tips
Below we have provided a few good tools and tips - some of them free - to use for activities related to direct business.
Keyword research
Researches which keywords are searched for the most
Tool Searchmetrics: www.searchmetrics.com
Website audit
Here you can check what exactly website visitors are doing on your site.
Tool: Hotjar, www.hotjar.com
Here you can check if certain offers are well received by customers.
Tool: Google Optimizely, www.optimizely.com
Surveys
Surveys help to activate the community by involving them.
Tools: Instagram, LinkedIn, CRM tools
Promo Codes - Returners
Promo Codes with discounts for return visitors or as a "Bring a Friend" discount promotion. Upon departure (or follow up email) the guest will receive the link with the promo code that includes a discount for themselves or friends.
Tools: set up directly on the GauVendi extranet.