How Accor used Google AdWords to increase incremental conversions

Sneak Peak:

 Read this case study to know how a hotel brand Accor used Google Ad Extensions to increase incremental conversions by 14%. Company: Accor Hotels Industry:  Hospitality Tool Used: Google AdWords Result: ­ 14% increase in incremental conversions Business Type: B2B/ B2C

The Brand & the Story

One of the world’s premier hotel operators, Accor Hotels has 3,600 hotels across 92 countries with its clientele including both business & leisure travelers. The group was founded in 1967.  The hotel brand offers luxury midscale to economy properties. Since last few years the industry is witnessing a great shift in the travel bookings towards the online & mobile formats that has made a digital marketing strategy to become crucial for a hotel brand’s success. Realizing the shift, Accor wanted to ensure its hotels to be the first stop in consumers’ online search for accommodations to remain competitive in the hospitality landscape. The brand actually wanted to drive increased traffic to its sites and lift click-through rates (CTR) enhancing the online presence of its brand in the fragmented landscape of keyword searches. To achieve its goal the Accor turned to Google AdWords ad extensions. The hotel brand initially experimented with the high search volume campaigns after which it launched the most successful extensions to other campaigns & markets. The approach helped the brand with 14% increase in the incremental conversions with sitelinks & form extensions along with a 19% increase in click-through rates with review extensions, among other successes.

A flawless consumer experience

Accor tried creating a seamless experience for consumers while engaging them and making them aware of relevant promotions for which the brand made use of Google Ad Extensions, including site links & enhanced sitelinks, call extensions & local extensions, image extensions, seller ratings and social annotations. During the initial phase that was the test period, the brand planned to focus on campaigns with high search volumes for garnering the most impactful conclusions. This helped the hotel brand in identifying the successful extensions for its products & respective markets that usually vary across the world. Once the extension proved to be success, the brand rolled it out to the other campaigns & markets. After the initial test period was over, the hotel brand paid its main attention to four key objectives for all ist search efforts that were:

Increasing online conversions

Of all, the one key objective for Accor was increasing the online conversions that were made specifically on its website. In order to bestow consumers a more in-depth and relevant landing page as well as to trim down the conversion path to its website, the brand made use of Sitelink & Form Extensions for keyword search queries such as ‘hotel accor.’ This is how they tried to make ads more relevant to consumers compelling them to land on more relevant, in-depth pages using Sitelink & Form Extensions and witnessed a 14% increase in incremental conversions.

Getting offline conversions

Although there was a great lift in the online reservations, still nearly half of hotel reservations were made offline via phones or in-person reservations. For addressing this trend, the brand tried generating calls directly from its ads for increasing the hotel visits, especially when consumers were on the move. They tapped into Call & Location Extensions that helped them drive CTR increases of 4% and 9% respectively.

Providing consumers the information they need

Accor knew it that making travel plans is a time intensive process that involves multiple stages and at every stage the consumers require different answers to their search queries. This is why the brand segregated its offerings and provided potential customers with the information they need, mainly in the starting of their journey. The brand made use of Sitelink Extensions along with additional details for relaying the unique features of its hotels as well as Image Extensions for promoting its services in a visually more appealing way. The approach helped them double the CTRs on enabled AdWords ad groups, going from 13% to 24%.

Building up the consumer trust

“On average, 49% of hotel users review sites during their booking process, 3 and 13% of those who book hotels use social networking while they’re researching hotels!” This is what is happening today! Even the savviest travelers devote a considerable amount of time looking to their peers for destination reviews before deciding on a hotel. Accor realized how crucial it was to allow customers to engage with the brand on social media for building up trust in the hotel brand. The team used various tactics for engaging with these audiences that were:

• Seller Rating Extensions for highlighting the positive user reviews on its services
• Social annotations for pointing out the number of fans engaged with its brand on Google+
• Review Extensions for highlighting the positive press coverage

This made the CTRs to increase 6% with social annotations on brand terms while CTRs increased by 19% Review Extensions.

Standing out in the crowd        

By making use of a range of sophisticated tactics offered by Ad Extensions, Accor Hotels successfully increased its brand awareness while enhancing its performance across the board in the highly aggressive hotel search landscape. Conveying the relevant information to the customers at the right time helped the brand increase the traffic to its websites and the conversions made there.

Campaign Highlights:

• 4% lift in CTR through Call Extensions
• 9% lift in CTR through Local Extensions
• Nearly 2 times lift in CTRs on enabled Adwords ad groups from 13% to 24% through Sitelinks and Image Extensions
• 6% lift in CTR 6% through Social Annotations on brand terms
• 19% lift in CTR through Review Extensions
• 14% lift in incremental conversions through Sitelinks and Form Extensions