Youtube & Display for Travel

Above is an amazing EMEA video showcasing how global brands are effectively utilising our platforms.

With Google's media and platform solutions, Travel advertisers can develop comprehensive, innovative, and scalable display solutions for their objectives. Whether that be driving bookings as efficiently as possible, driving awareness of a sale, or showcasing the value of their brand, the Google Display Network and YouTube can help.

Here are three key strategies that you don't want to miss:

1. Sell more as efficiently as possible by combining audience buying with Google's powerful contextual targeting technology.

2. Deliver additional reach at a more effective cost per point of reach with YouTube Skippable Ads, and pay only when users watch your ad (not for the impression).

3. Engage your users and develop true brand advocates with YouTube programs, especially leading up to the Olympics.

Learn more about Google's display solutions, trends, and tools at www.google.co.uk/watchthisspace.

Posted by Cristy Aragon, Industry Manager UK.

Travel Whitepaper Q3 2011

We are pleased to release our latest travel whitepaper, Destination analysis Q3 2011. This destination-focused whitepaper is an attempt to go beyond the usual seasonality and event analysis, and delve a bit deeper into product-specific destination trends.

We hope this provides you with greater insight into evolving destination trends and your customer’s geographic preferences. We have proposed strategies which will hopefully enable you to navigate through this dynamic environment.


Posted by Stephen Cunningham, Industry Analyst

Mobile Masterclass

On Wednesday 26th October, the Google UK Travel Team hosted a Mobile Masterclass. The event was a huge success and has really sparked interest in Google's Mobile offering. We wanted to share the link to the presentations which include best practice takeaways, Travel Mobile trends, Mobile site layout recommendations.

One of the highlights of the event was our conversion specialist's presentation on mobile site design where he imparted his words of wisdom in terms of a main rule of thumb - "if it can't be done with the thumb it can't be done!" Another talking point was the innovative demonstration session where attendees were shown exciting new Mobile features such as Google Voice & Chrome to Phone.

You can view the presentation at this link.

Thanks!
Divya Kukar, Account Strategist UK

Google Analytics Becomes Enterprise Ready

The travel industry have long been known as digitally advanced, as consumers embraced online planning, research, and shopping from an early stage. Many Internet users’ first transaction online was booking a flight or hotel room. As travel planning now occurs across myriad devices and social interactions online, understanding how users find and engage with your site is essential to optimising both customer experience and marketing investment.

It’s a challenge which the Google Analytics team have been addressing through Multi-Channel Funnels - a set of reports enabling site owners and analysts to see how multiple marketing channels and online touchpoints contribute to bookings. The travel industry have embraced these reports - uncovering insights about path length, time to convert and channel contribution - even prompting them to re-evaluate long-held attribution assumptions.

Though many of our partners across travel base marketing and design decisions on insights drawn from Google Analytics, they've asked for ongoing additions to the product, to enable fuller adoption within their companies. We’re happy to share that today we’re launching Google Analytics Premium - everything customers currently enjoy about Google Analytics, with the addition of guarantees, support and extra processing power.

We’ve worked closely with a select group of partners through the development phase, and Travelocity was one of our first customers to benefit from access to the premium team. Learn more about how Travelocity and other partners are using Google Analytics Premium today by visiting www.google.com/analytics/premium.

Google Analytics Premium is available for a fixed annual cost in the United States, Canada, and the UK directly from Google, or through Google Analytics Premium Authorized Resellers. To learn more about Premium, you can contact the Google team or find our authorized resellers here.

Travel has embraced the mantra that decisions made using data trump those based on opinion. We’re confident that Google Analytics Premium will encourage more data-driven decisions throughout the industry, ultimately resulting in a better experience for travelers and marketers alike.

Nicolas Tully - Industry Analyst, Travel, United States

GDN Solutions

"GDN Solutions" was a half day event for Travel and Finance advertisers, held at our new Soho offices on Sept 19th. With unmatched reach across UK audiences, the GDN offers performance at scale, whatever your marketing goals and solutions. Missed out and want to read more? You can find the presentation at this link!

Posted by Ellie England, Account Strategist

Think Mobile with ebookers

Watch Robert Define, Director of Product Strategy give insight into the transactional and brand aspects of ebooker's mobile strategy, July 2011:

Posted by Ellie England, Account Strategist

Summer 2011 Whitepaper

We are pleased to announce the release of our latest whitepaper, entitled Summer 2011. The paper looks at the potential development of a challenging and value-driven lates market for holiday suppliers. Throughout the paper, we've highlighted insights on the latest query trends and have provided data which will hopefully help travel advertisers plan for the summer ahead. We welcome any feedback as well as questions on the paper and hope that it proves insightful.

Please find the paper here.

Posted by Matt Kala, Industry Analyst