NEEDHAM, Mass., July 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) today announced the launch of new ads performance reporting for Sponsored Placements customers that provides accommodation businesses with valuable, actionable metrics to help them drive incremental awareness and business through their ad campaigns. The new analytics come on the heels of a series of enhancements to TripAdvisor's advertising solutions for accommodation providers, developed based on feedback from businesses.

Sponsored Placements, the recently launched advertising solution, is building in popularity as it enables accommodation businesses to capture traveler interest and drive targeted traffic to their property through high visibility ad placements on TripAdvisor. With this latest enhancement, advertisers will be able to measure the impact of their campaigns at a glance from within their Management Center, with valuable performance analytics and insights into competitive intelligence metrics such as market share. The new performance reporting shows that, on average, Sponsored Placements customers are seeing an uplift of 17 percent in unique visits to their TripAdvisor listing.

"We see Sponsored Placements as a real game changer and our clients are seeing the results too – mostly because it's helping accommodation businesses influence potential guests during a critical phase of the customer purchase path, but also because it's what the industry has been asking us for, and we've delivered," said Martin Verdon-Roe, Vice President of Hotel Product & Marketing, TripAdvisor. "Now we're giving Sponsored Placements customers the key performance metrics they need to ensure they can measure the success of their campaigns and make strategic decisions about budget and timing. We're also continuing to invest in our existing solutions for accommodation businesses with a series of recent enhancements to optimize Business Advantage features. All of these improvements help accommodation owners drive direct booking referrals and build customer loyalty."

Sponsored Placements performance reporting capabilities include:

• Visibility into number of ad impressions
• Number of visits to a property's TripAdvisor listing, including incremental traffic
• Booking referrals generated as a result of ads
• The percentage market share for a property in locations where their ads are showing

"Sponsored Placements is a powerful tool – it's saving the season for us," says David Martinez i Urgell who leads the digital marketing and ecommerce strategy for The Derby Hotels Collection, a family-owned 14 property chain based primarily in Barcelona. Martinez i Urgell knew 2018 was going to be a difficult year for tourism in the market so he decided to try Sponsored Placements to get an edge over the competition: "With your Sponsored Placements listed above search results, it catches more people's eyes and they click to learn more. We aim to delight potential guests on TripAdvisor with our reviews, photography and services. We thought that the more travelers see us on TripAdvisor, the more bookings we could convert. Sponsored Placements has increased our year-over-year bookings by 25% and we're getting 6% more in revenue. This is particularly impactful because some of our competitors are down 30-40%, forcing them to reduce services and amenities. We've been able to avoid this reduction."

Sponsored Placements is available to all accommodation providers with an active Business Advantage subscription, who share live rates and availability through TripAdvisor. Sponsored Placements and Business Advantage are designed to work together; ads drive high quality traffic to a property's listing, where the tools and features available to Business Advantage subscribers help to influence and convert potential guests.

As part of ongoing efforts to improve TripAdvisor's suite of solutions for accommodation providers, enhancements to Business Advantage were also announced today. These include:

• Adding subscriber website links to organic search results on TripAdvisor, providing potential guests with another opportunity to click directly through to a property's site
• Making subscriber website links more prominent within the contact details on a property's listing on TripAdvisor
• Optimizing subscriber contact details on mobile web to increase visibility for potential customers
• Adding website details to property overview section on TripAdvisor listing pages

"I've had Business Advantage for three years, driving interest in my properties with Special Offers and I'm able to be more strategic relative to competitors with the Analytics Suite," says Zhivko Zhelyazkov, hotel manager for independent boutique hotels Forum Hotel and Central Hotel in Sofia, Bulgaria. "I believe combining Sponsored Placements with the success we've already seen with Business Advantage could help us reduce OTA commission payments and easy occupancy challenges in the slow season. For the two months I've had Sponsored Placements, direct bookings are up by more than 150% over last year. I am getting more direct referrals to my Business Advantage contact details, especially my website link."

Find out more about Sponsored Placements and Business Advantage here. 

About TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel site*, enables travelers to unleash the full potential of every trip. With over 600 million reviews and opinions covering the world's largest selection of travel listings worldwide – covering approximately 7.5 million accommodations, airlines, attractions, and restaurants -- TripAdvisor provides travelers with the wisdom of the crowds to help them decide where to stay, how to fly, what to do and where to eat. TripAdvisor also compares prices from more than 200 hotel booking sites so travelers can find the lowest price on the hotel that's right for them. TripAdvisor-branded sites are available in 49 markets, and are home to the world's largest travel community of 455 million average monthly unique visitors**, all looking to get the most out of every trip. TripAdvisor: Know better. Book better. Go better.

The subsidiaries and affiliates of TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRIP) own and operate a portfolio of websites under 20 other travel media brands:
www.airfarewatchdog.com, www.bookingbuddy.com, www.citymaps.com, www.cruisecritic.com, www.familyvacationcritic.com, www.flipkey.com, www.thefork.com (including www.lafourchette.com, www.eltenedor.com, www.iens.nl and www.dimmi.com.au), www.gateguru.com, www.holidaylettings.co.uk, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.housetrip.com, www.jetsetter.com, www.niumba.com, www.onetime.com, www.oyster.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.tingo.com, www.vacationhomerentals.com and www.viator.com.

* Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, October 2017
** Source: TripAdvisor log files, average monthly unique visitors, Q3 2017

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SOURCE TripAdvisor