Finding competitive advantage

The challenge for advertisers, as with retail media networks, is how to leverage Expedia’s data relative to competitors that have access to the same pool of audience data.

“How do competing hotel portfolio brands benefit if they’re both leveraging the data from a competitive conquesting perspective?” asked Dave Kersey, chief media officer at Austin-based Omnicom agency GSD&M.

The travel media network also includes Expedia’s in-house creative team and media buying platform. In the past, the company has worked with Visit California, the state’s destination marketing nonprofit, to place co-branded ads at London’s Heathrow airport—inventory that was exclusively available through Expedia. The campaign generated 275 million impressions, according to the company.

Another example from the in-house creative team features a short film about Scotland, hosted by actor Ewan McGregor and as part of the company’s Local Lens series, and was viewed 8.7 million times on YouTube, the company said, and social posts received click-through rates that were 10 times higher than average. The company wouldn’t share how this impacted revenue.

Expanding audience targeting offsite lets brands meet consumers in all the different places they end up while booking travel—something that’s become “a pretty manic process,” Andre said. While they might start with a site like Expedia, they’re also “going to search and social and then they’re coming back to online travel agencies,” she explained. “We want to be able to capture them where they show up.”