In the highly competitive hospitality industry, successful brand awareness campaigns are crucial for hotels to stand out from the crowd. To measure the success of digital campaigns, it is essential to track the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This article will outline the most important KPIs for brand awareness campaigns.
The primary objective of brand awareness campaigns is to make a lasting impression on potential guests and increase the likelihood of them considering your hotel when they decide to make a booking in the future. These campaigns focus on building familiarity, trust, and positive associations with your brand, rather than driving immediate sales.
Campaigns in the Inspiration Stage
The objective for the campaigns in this stage is to inspire your audience to travel to and stay at your destination, dine at your restaurant, or for example attend an event you're organizing.
You can compare this to a TV / Youtube commercial, a billboard, or an ad in a print magazine. Such ads might inspire you to look into a product, service, or experience you were not actively considering prior to seeing the ad.
In most cases, you won't purchase the product or service right after seeing the ad. You might do some research, compare prices or simply add it to your wishlist to look into it at a later moment.
Campaigns in the Awareness Stage
Campaigns in the awareness stage play a vital role in helping hotels tap into existing demand and position themselves at the top of mind for potential guests during their orientation phase. As travelers research and explore options for their upcoming trip, a well-executed brand awareness campaign can increase the likelihood of them considering your hotel over competitors.
KPIs for Brand Awareness Campaigns
So what do we measure and analyse for Brand Awareness Campaigns:
Impressions
Impressions are an important KPI for awareness campaigns as it indicates the number of people who are exposed to your brand.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR measures the percentage of users who click on your ads or links. A high CTR signifies that your ad copy and targeting are effective.
User Engagement
We measure interactions with the ads (CTR, Likes, Comments) and your website (bounce rate, avg time on website) to help evaluate the effectiveness of the ads and determining if we're targeting the right audience.
Booking Engine Visits
We measure the amount of users who visited the booking engine after clicking on the ad. This is a good indicator if the user is considering the hotel as an option to stay.
Return on Investment
You might wonder why we haven't listed ROI as a KPI. However, measuring the ROI for awareness campaigns can be challenging due to several factors. First of all due to the nature of campaigns, and secondly due to technical limitations:
Intangible Outcomes
Brand awareness campaigns primarily aim to increase recognition, familiarity, and positive associations with the brand. These intangible outcomes are difficult to measure in terms of direct financial gains, making it challenging to calculate a precise ROI.
Long-term Effects
The impact of brand awareness campaigns is often realized over a longer period, as it influences the decision-making process of potential guests during future booking cycles. As a result, it can be difficult to attribute immediate revenue gains to awareness campaigns and determine their direct ROI.
Tracking Challenges
In recent years, new regulations on cookies and privacy, have complicated the process of tracking and attributing conversions to brand awareness campaigns. Privacy regulations place restrictions on the use of cookies and other tracking technologies, limiting the amount of user data that can be collected without explicit consent.
Attribution Challenges
Digital marketing channels often overlap, making it difficult to attribute conversions and revenue to a particular campaign accurately. For example, a user may first become aware of a hotel through a brand awareness campaign on social media, then later book a room after seeing a remarketing ad. Or the user first interacts with the ad on their mobile device, and then make a booking on a desktop. In such cases, determining the exact contribution of the brand awareness campaign to the final conversion is challenging.
Conclusion
By distinguishing between the objectives and KPIs of brand awareness campaigns and those aimed at driving direct bookings, we can help hotels develop a more holistic digital marketing strategy. This approach ensures that different campaigns are designed and measured based on their unique goals, ultimately helping your hotel optimize its marketing efforts and maximize its return on investment.
