The Social Travel Network

Why travel brands are investing a greater portion of their ad budget in Facebook.

When it comes to digital advertising, Google remains the dominant platform to drive traffic to a resort’s website, but there is also a strong case for allocating more ad dollars to Facebook. Online travel companies and hotels are already increasing their ad spending on the social network, according to travel research company Skift’s report A Deep Dive Into Facebook’s Impact on Travel, released in February. Timeshare resorts may want to consider doing the same.

“We go to Google when we need to quickly search for something specific, but the time we spend on Facebook lasts around 40 minutes a session,” says Frederic Gonzalo, online tourism consultant at Gonzo Marketing. And the time spent on the social network may be more valuable to brands. Many people use it as a source of inspiration and discovery, which has motivated Facebook to add features that aid advertisers. In September 2016, the company unveiled dynamic travel ads specifically to help brands reach users who have shown interest on Facebook’s website or mobile app in taking a vacation.

Facebook’s app is better positioned to capture a growing mobile audience than Google’s search engine because it tracks user behavior across platforms based on identity, whereas Google largely depends on cookies to track user behavior, which doesn’t translate past desktop. This means that Facebook advertisers can better reach their audience on any screen—phone, tablet, or desktop.

Another advantage is that Facebook gathers data that allows brands to target hyperspecific audiences. “Facebook has many more sources of intent data than Google and thus has a huge potential to deliver great performance for prospecting,” says Conor Ryan, cofounder of StitcherAds, an advertising platform. These data allow Facebook to offer a variety of ad types. Brands can choose from more than 15 different objectives, including location, events, post interaction, and types of videos the user has watched. In the future, intent data may be used to generate new ad features. “This year we are expecting Facebook to provide intent-driven features that will allow us to deliver automated prospecting to travel clients,” Ryan says. These features based on intent data may be yet another reason to invest more ad dollars in Facebook.

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