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1. Evolving
Strategies in
Travel Ad Tech
and Bookings
As media buying and delivery technology
expands in every industry, travel marketers
are competing to identify, reach, and con-
vert consumers in an increasingly complex
display-ad environment. Their strategies to
do so are evolving, as technology provides
newly dynamic and newly granular tools
across a spectrum of devices and platforms.
SKIFT REPORT #14
2014
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3. With a longstanding legacy of success at online marketing to live up
to, travel is working with new technology and newly changing para-
digms in the form of programmatic media buying. Big data, real-time
bidding (RTB), and an evolving suite of sophisticated platforms and
approaches mean that the tools with which ad buyers work, in 2014,
stand to function at pace with marketers’ imaginations.
Overall, brand spending on data-driven ad technology is up, and key
travel verticals are helping to continue that trend.
Online travel agencies, airlines, and hospitality are deeply invested in
programmatic, and many brands within those sectors are spending a
significant portion of their marketing budget on not only maintain-
ing their positions, but also on pushing the instruments of predictive
analytics in new directions. Well-established models of targeting
and retargeting are making additional space for increasingly refined
up-sell opportunities and more granular product offerings. The deep-
ening importance of mobile apps to the consumer experience is also
prompting change within travel’s approach to programmatic, and
video and e-mail are poised to play next-step roles.
Meanwhile, analysts say that the predictive capabilities and auto-
mation that characterize programmatic media buying are becoming
increasingly intertwined with travel’s need to focus on customer-
Executive summary
2011 $4,500,000,000 NA $2,800,000,000 NA
2012 $7,600,000,000 68.9% $4,800,000,000 71.4%
2013 $12,000,000,000 57.9% $7,500,000,000 56.3%
2014 $16,600,000,000 38.3% $9,800,000,000 30.7%
2015 $21,900,000,000 31.9% $12,400,000,000 26.5%
2016 $27,300,000,000 24.7% $14,800,000,000 19.4%
2017 $32,600,000,000 19.4% $16,900,000,000 14.2%
WORLDWIDE
PROGRAMMATIC
DISPLAY AD SPEND
U.S. PROGRAMMATIC
DISPLAY AD SPEND% CHANGE % CHANGE
ALL INDUSTRY WORLDWIDE AND U.S. PROGRAMMATIC
DISPLAY AD SPENDING, 2011–2017
SOURCE: eMarketer.com
2012 $1,920,000,000 13.0%
2013 $3,370,000,000 19.0%
2014 $4,660,000,000 22.0%
2015 $6,150,000,000 25.0%
2016 $7,830,000,000 27.4%
2017 $9,030,000,000 29.0%
RTB DIGITAL
DISPLAY SPEND
% OF TOTAL
DIGITAL DISPLAY
AD SPEND
ALL INDUSTRY U.S. REAL-TIME BIDDING
DIGITAL DISPLAY AD SPENDING, 2012–2017
SOURCE: eMarketer.com
Evolving Strategies in Travel Ad Tech and Bookings SKIFT REPORT #14 2014
3

4. relations management and a broader, deeper, and nuanced knowl-
edge of consumers. As multi-device research and a traveler for
whom mobile is now second-nature continue to define and rede-
fine online behaviors, how to understand what is being measured
— and how to accurately track and attribute different interactions
with a brand to the point of conversion across multiple platforms —
has never been more critical to the future of travel marketing in the
digital milieu.
Evolving Strategies in Travel Ad Tech and Bookings SKIFT REPORT #14 2014
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5. Predictive analytics within programmatic media buying are changing
the way the travel industry wins conversions. Travel’s move toward
data-driven marketing represents a new horizon for an industry that
carved out its early online reputation with user-generated content
(UGV) and an embrace of behavioral and contextual understandings
of its audience. The programmatic sea change is well underway.
A recent Lyris/Economist Intelligence Unit study shows the shift in
broad strokes: 23% of executives in the travel industry designate cus-
tomer-data analysis as the lead technology guiding product research,
as compared to 18% across all other industries. Travel boasts the largest
percentage of buy-in among the sectors in the study — surpassing auto-
motive, entertainment, and banking.
Perhaps this comes as no surprise. Travel started the millennium
as a leader in the digital and social space.
“UGC was a huge,” for travel, said Eric Ingrand, vice president of con-
tent marketing for the EnVeritas Group. “Yes, now you have star-ratings
for all kinds of products but travel started this. While everyone was
struggling to tweak website graphics and content to gain greater conver-
sion rates, travel found a way to really change the game on the conver-
sion side — it let real people rank the hotels.”
UGC, however, came with a less welcome price in the eyes of some.
Negative reviews meant the necessity of damage control — and for
many that prospect prompted a braking effect. Marketing departments
found themselves grappling with a love-hate relationship when it came
to the user reviews that started out as such a boon.
Travel also got increasingly wise, in the mid- and late 2000s, to the
value of tracking consumer activity. Gathering data from loyalty pro-
grams and purchase histories, agencies and providers saw the potential
of capitalizing on information surrounding browsing tendencies. Travel
Introduction
Evolving Strategies in Travel Ad Tech and Bookings SKIFT REPORT #14 2014
5

6. in the age of Google-fueled search became an even more refined
engine for understanding customers and conversions.
Now, with the advent of new developments in data-driven technology —
the ability to not only capture visitor data but also to target offers and
follow-up pitches — the possibilities of programmatic media buying
stand to change approximately everything about how travel picks its
providers, wages its ad campaigns, and measures returns.
Evolving Strategies in Travel Ad Tech and Bookings SKIFT REPORT #14 2014
6

7. Table of contents
About Skift
Skift is a travel intel-
ligence company that
offers news, data, and
services to professionals
in travel and professional
travelers, to help them
make smart decisions
about travel.
Skift is the business of
travel.
Visit skift.com for more.
Executive Summary 3
Introduction 5
New search architecture: data-driven ads and travel 8
Inside the technology: how programmatic advertising works
Data streams: the programmatic paradigm 8
Types of targeting 8
Revenue management, bidding, and targeting 9
Video and programmatic 9
‘One-to-one marketing nirvana’:
envisioning emerging trends 9
Programmatic trends across verticals 10
Online Travel Agencies 10
Dedicated players in ad tech 11
Hospitality 12
Monetizing the whole trip 12
Airlines 13
Car rentals 13
Pricing programmatic and ROI: basics and new methods 14
Data-driven ads in the multi-device milieu 17
Case study: Hotel Tonight 17
Travel bookings via mobile devices 18
Insights and strategies 19
Sociomantic: a prediction for 2014 20
Further Reading 21
About Skift 22
Evolving Strategies in Travel Ad Tech and Bookings SKIFT REPORT #14 2014
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