What is Metasearch?
To introduce the channel; metasearch are unique search engines.
They display current live rates of hotels, pulled from multiple OTAs. Opting in for meta search for your brand website enables your pricing, and booking engine link, to appear alongside OTA presences. In 2020, metasearch sites account for more than 45% of global unique visitors in travel, according to analysis of the top 10,000 travel websites. The popularity stems from the fact travellers can use metasearch to compare accommodation rates from various online travel agents (OTAs) and other booking sites all in one place.
As such, metasearch is incredibly valuable for the hospitality industry, providing greater opportunity to directly compete with bigger travel companies.
What channels will you gain visibility on?
Opting in for meta search grants your brand increased visibility across Google Hotel Price Ads, Trivago, TripAdvisor, Bing Ads, Skyscanner, Kayak & Wego. Due to its prominent position in the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP), Google HPA drives the majority of hotel metasearch revenue.
Benefits of metasearch for your hotel
Having your brand appear when potential guests are navigating these sites prevents the booking from going straight to prominent OTAs instead. Driving channel shift in this manner is one of the primary purposes of metasearch, in order to reduce commission costs.
Avvio’s cost per acquisition for meta search was 7% in 2019; an incredibly low figure which speaks for itself. Channel shift is particularly effective when your brand website displays the cheapest rate, as meta search is highly price driven. On most occasions, the retailer displaying the cheapest price on these channels wins the conversion, emphasizing the importance of rate parity.
An additional benefit of meta search is the cost per click basis on which it runs. If there’s no intent to travel, and no click on your booking engine link, then you won’t pay anything bar the license fee. Your brand’s position in the metasearch pricing lists are determined by who’s bids are most competitive, meaning the cost per click & hotel visibility is something Avvio monitors closely.
Typical ROI of Metasearch
Another aspect Avvio carefully controls is the assignment of budget per channel.
The return is different per channel, though this of course varies per property depending on location, star rating & target audience.
To summarise, opting in for metasearch with Avvio
- Connects your booking engine with 7 metasearch channels
- Ensures the performance of these channels is consistently monitored to improve ROI. You’ll benefit from Avvio’s experienced bid management & optimisation techniques.
- Drives more direct bookings & increases channel shift.
To discover more about metasearch, watch the industry training resources on Hotel Digital Academy.
Our webinars cover an introduction to metasearch for hotels.