Using Remarketing To Win Back Lost Bookings

It’s an unfortunate consequence of running a thriving hotel business – sometimes customers abandon their bookings before they’re complete. Remarketing gives you a chance to win back these customers, and represents one of the cleverest hotel marketing solutions available.

What is Remarketing?

Not all people who visit your site complete their intended activities – whether that’s making an enquiry or crucially, a booking. Remarketing is a highly effective advertising tool for online marketers, giving them the chance to pursue a lost lead in the hope of creating a meaningful connection between brand and potential customer.

Whether referred to as remarketing or retargeting, the goal and the tactics are the same – creating advertising which draws the prospect back into engaging with the company.

Implementing a Remarketing Campaign

Remarketing is dependent upon a non-invasive piece of Javascript code which is entered onto your hotel website. A remarketing campaign works by placing cookies on web visitor’s devices, adding them to your list of potential customers. Remarketing activity then begins. Remarketing ads are those adverts which appear to ‘follow’ you after you’ve visited a brand’s website but not made a purchase – and they can be delivered in either plain text or image formats. The ads can be managed via Google AdWords and pursue your target audience’s subsequent online browsing on websites which permit Google advertising, attempting to coax them back into interacting with your website.

Defining Remarketing Effectiveness

The success of a remarketing campaign depends almost entirely upon what it is your customers are looking for, and the effectiveness of your chosen remarketing advert in pursuit of that goal. If your prospect was genuinely window-shopping, continued exposure to your brand via a remarketing campaign could help nudge them further along the customer journey to complete the transaction they began. Remarketing can be used in conjunction with other hotel marketing solutions, such as influencer marketing and email marketing to create a greater brand awareness and ultimately, secure a reservation.

Creating Great Remarketing Ads

Your remarketing ads should have a solid structure and a clear strategy. What is it you ideally want your prospect to do? In all likelihood, you want them to book a room at your hotel. This should be a clear enticement for anyone who is targeted by your remarketing ads. Persuasive text, clear branding and attractive imagery are all key factors to consider. Whilst your end goal is sales-oriented, you should make the content customer-oriented, explaining why they should respond to your call to action. Focus on the benefits of your offering.

Choosing the Right Frequency

Deciding the frequency with which your remarketing ads will be seen by your target audience – and therefore their opportunities to engage with the content and be drawn back into making a purchase – is no simple task. You don’t want to become that annoying sales message which is easily blocked from people’s minds, but you do want to make sure you’re visible enough to leave a lasting impression.

Segmenting Your Audiences

A one-size fits all approach only works if all of your website visitors were there for exactly the same reason. Whilst it’s likely they were all looking for a hotel, perhaps they weren’t all looking for the same kind of hotel visit? Audience segmentation in AdWords can extend to those who viewed particular pages, not just the website as a whole – giving you a chance to craft content which provides them with the optimum customer experience.