Demystify your App Marketing Strategies the Trivago way

As the mercury rises to amazing heights, the travelers who wanted to venture a little further either trekking trails or off the beaten track, are actually looking for good deals. They are broadening their search with the widest choice of exotic places, but the hefty sum to spend on accommodation is making them drop off their plans. It’s embarrassing, but don’t get upset. With mobile technology redefining travel industry, it has made things easy for travelers.

Bingo! Trivago is a great treat for travelers to compare the hotel price and find which place is the best bet to place this summer season. The company has scored high popularity and profitability since its inception in 2005 and is now regarded as one of the world’s largest travel brands that are generating over $500 million in revenue. The resources report that the company has doubled its profit every year since 2008.

The Trivago website search engine was the first of its kind that launched in the hotel industry for hotel price comparison. The website that claims to be the largest hotel search site receives an incredible amount of 1.4 billion visits every year. Moreover, Trivago has websites in 50+ countries that compare over 190 million hotel ratings and holds 14 million hotels’ photos by scanning 250 booking sites worldwide in a couple of seconds.

Taking a step ahead, the company has launched Trivago mobile app for both iOS and Android platforms, wherein the app allows people to search the hotel, locate the hotel with interactive maps and show the results for the hotels in close proximity. The app is also regarded as the best app to book stays and save some dollars. It is widely known as a precious time saver for holiday planning by some of the leading publications.

Undoubtedly, Trivago has earned a lot from accolades to dollars in a short tenure, which is appreciating, but at the same time, it raises the inquisitiveness of knowing how the brand has made it possible. Well, there is an interesting tale behind the tremendous growth and terrific attention that the brand has managed to gain.

Let’s spill the secrets of how Trivago’s app marketing strategy makes it a leading player in the hotel search;

App marketing strategy by Trivago

Employed dynamic search ads

In 2009, the company planned to leverage Adwords to establish itself as a global brand for travelers which brought immense success to the brand. Later, the company wants to supplement the strategy to increase brand awareness in the new and matured markets through the expansion of long-tail keyword coverage and driving traffic at beneficial CPA.

Here, dynamic search ads (DSA)to the rescue. The automated solution in a matter of minutes crawled all the websites, identified the targets, and recommended the search terms for the first DSA campaign that’s launched in 50+ markets. The auto-generation of the customized ads based on the person-specific search enables Trivago to reach the right user at the right time with the right ad.

This way, within a few weeks, multiple marketing campaigns are launched that brought the impressive result of 140% high CTR on DSA search terms, lower CPA in the matured markets, and significant conversion gains in the newer markets.

“The results have led us to make DSA campaigns a core part of our online marketing strategy, and we’re now optimizing them for even better results,” said Mr. Maren Alke, Global SEM, Trivago.

Video advertising takes the center stage

Till 2008, Trivago completely relied on digital marketing campaigns to drive search engine traffic, but the company has realized it’s not enough to sustain itself in the market. It gives birth to the TV advertising phenomenon. The experimentation with video advertising made the company stand as the top advertiser across the globe by making a large investment of $440 million in sales and marketing.

The video advertising ranges from showcasing the essence of the platform to sharing Trivago customers’ experiences to the display of a broad spectrum of Trivago’s ever-increasing offerings. You have certainly remembered the Trivago woman and Trivago guy ads.

According to Trivago, in 2015, the advertising cost was 88% of the total revenue in America, 131% in Europe, and 114% in the rest of the world.

Initially, in the A/B testing stage, the earnings were less, even sometimes more than what was earned. It’s a gigantic risk that the company has taken, but video campaign performance is monitored regularly and changes are reflected off the bat to make the strategy rewarding in the later stage.

Enhanced brand awareness

Looking back a year, in 2017, the decision to advertise on billboard and poster format has really paid off for the brand. The ad campaign in London has a positive impact on brand perception and brand awareness. The advert campaign breaking the rules of conventional advertising worked and was well rewarded. Thus, having a custom mobile app developed will be a better investment and provide better returns

According to YouGov ad awareness metric, a remarkable rise from 27% to 42% is marked in the Trivago brand awareness in London.

In addition, when the figures of Trivago against its competitors are cited in terms of brand awareness in five top markets, then Trivago stands high with whopping figures of 86% in Germany, 79% in France, 89% in Spain, 77% in Australia and 92% in Italy.

Transparent business model

In reality, Trivago makes millions of dollars by teaming up with advertising partners leveraging cost per click (CPC) model. The hoteliers, booking platforms, and other providers who want to list down the rates and advertise on the site, pay Trivago when any user clicks on the advertisement or link.

The bidding model for the advertisers is lean and transparent where no negotiation is made on the pre-defined rates. The business model is modified in 2015, where the CPC bidding is enabled at the property level, which allows the hotels to create their bidding strategy, instead of making a selection from the pre-set bidding options.

The line between OTA and meta-search is not blurred

With advertising and booking services, the company enables hoteliers to promote and compete for the services. However, in this attempt, Trivago won’t forget that the underlying idea behind the establishment of the company that’s the search for the hotel at the best price. To give a complete focus on the search stage that comes first in the travelers’ booking journey, the ‘book on Trivago’ option is overlooked by the company.

Daniel Holl, Head of Global Hotel Sales at Trivago said, “Trivago’s unique selling point is a clear product focus: hotel search. No flights, no car rentals, and no confusion for the users. It’s all about hotel price comparison. We’re the only global tech company focusing solely on the vertical of hotel search.”

The single focus on enhancing the search experience is to remove the confusion for the users when they browse Trivago. Going ahead, with metasearch, the hotel market will be more transparent, with more options for the hotel to choose from, better prices, more availability, and much more. This way the user experience is improved and they are turned into loyal users.

Value-based marketing

Trivago is a marketing channel that closes the gap between the hotel’s offerings and the customer’s expectations, increasing both indirect and direct bookings for the hotels through the Trivago Hotel Manager PRO. The system arms the hoteliers with the demographic information and the needs of all the customers, which in turn lets them optimize their presence on Trivago and apply customer-oriented techniques.

Also, the hoteliers can update their profile on Trivago with the Trivago hotel manager to show the guest that the hotel is meeting their expectations. The offerings can also be promoted and hotels can differentiate themselves by publishing hotel news using hotel manager pro. In addition, the hotels can capture the attention of huge travelers and drive more direct bookings to the hotels along with improved visibility.

The evidence proving the effectiveness of Trivago hotel manager pro:

Alexander Schuster, Digital Marketing Manager at 25hours Hotels said, “Trivago Hotel Manager PRO has helped us overcome the challenge of targeting the right customers with the right offers. Combine this with our price parity visible via the Rates Benchmarking, customers are more likely to make a booking as well.”

Furthermore, the resources also reported that active usage of Trivago Hotel Manager PRO has brought a 28 percent increase in clicks and three times more clicks to the official hotel website when the hotel profile is edited.

 The Last word

Trivago was a one-of-a-kind app when it makes its way to the hotel industry, and it sets its high benchmark by breaking the shackles of traditional marketing. The brilliant app marketing strategies along with great big data insights have taken the brand to the top of the funnel and complemented with traffic at the peak and a large sum of revenue.

The success of an app also depends on how well the app is developed and the UI and UX aspects are put together for a perfect app design. So make sure you hire an experienced travel app development company to build your app perfectly.

Do you have a burning desire for your hotel and travel app to take it to new heights? If so, look at the aforementioned tips illustrating how Trivago’s marketing plans, adaptability to the changing trends, experimentation, and understanding of the customer’s needs helped them go a long way. When the same strategy or small tweaks in the strategy solve the challenges that your app is facing, then cuddle the changes warmly and implement them.

Ashish Parmar

He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Prismetric . An enthusiastic entrepreneur, interested to discuss new app ideas, rich gadget tricks and trends, and admires signature tech business styles to readily embrace. He enjoys learning most modern app crafting methods, exploring smart technologies and passionate about writing his thoughts too. Inventions related to mobile and software technology inspire Ashish and he likes to inspire the like-minded community through the finesse of his work.