Online travel companies shift marketing away from Google Adwords, says expert

Online travel companies are devoting marketing funds away from Google Adwords to metasearch specialists, according to one expert.

Online travel companies are devoting marketing funds away from Google Adwords to metasearch specialists, according to one expert.

While consumers may initiate a hotel search on the search giant they are then drawn to metasearch specialists such as kayak and hotelscombined to gain an overview.

Wouter Blok, chief marketing officer of easytobook said the company has been receiving 30% of its traffic from metasearch sites since the beginning of the year. He expects this to increase to 50% of traffic in the near future.

He said: “We’re now seeing a strong increase from all the metasearchers and the quality of traffic is where it is starting to change. Consumers can choose a number of deals that go through to sites like ours and land on the hotel page with the hotel room, the price they saw on the metasearch site and the availability. It’s very transparent.”

He added that the conversion ratio increases fourfold with traffic from metasearch sites and that Hotelscombined is currently one of easytobook’s biggest affiliate partners.