Interview: Facebook's Head of Travel Reveals How Brands Are Winning on the Platform
Skift Take
What a year it has been for Facebook and the travel industry and it's not over yet. For a company with the unparalleled size and reach of Facebook to say that travel is the industry it's putting some of its most significant investment towards in the next year should tell you something about the state of the industry. We can't wait to see what's in store for 2017.
The travel industry has been at the center of Facebook's advertising growth during the past year and despite market concerns over Facebook's statements that the uptick in its advertising revenue will decelerate in the future, Facebook expects its investment in travel to keep trending up in 2017.
This week Skift talked to Facebook's Head of Travel, Christine Warner, who's held the post since 2015, about Facebook's pivotal year in the travel industry. From its new ad products and video platforms to the company's continued foray into virtual reality, Facebook has been active in trying to build its traction in the travel industry.
We talked about Facebook's role in travel inspiration and planning, why it's important to get the "brilliant basics" right when it comes to mobile (a term Warner and many other Facebook executives use) and what the company learned from its new products this year and where those are headed in 2017.
In the process, Warner discusses how Westin, InterContinental Hotels Group, Delta Air Lines, HomeAway, and Carnival Cruise Lines used the platform this year.
See the interview below.
Facebook also reported third quarter earnings November 2, and speaking during the earnings call, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that it took the company a long time to break into the travel industry but that it's now seeing some really nice traction.
"[Travel] is a vertical that we are really investing in," said Sandberg. "We have rolled out different types of product ads that we think will help. So in [the second quarter], we rolled out Dynamic Ads that were specifically focused on the travel vertical."
Sandberg highlighted Celebrity Cruises' use of the Dynamic Ads for Travel product, which helps brands re-target users with relevant content, as an example of a brand that was able to increase online bookings through the ads. "They worked with one of our [facility management professional]s, StitcherAds and they created custom audiences who viewed specific itineraries by date," said Sandberg.
"So they look for people that at a certain date have used specific itineraries and then created Dynamic Ads which showed the available cruises and pricing and had a Book Now button. They saw a three times increase in their online bookings and I think those kind of results are made possible by more vertical-specific products, and we're going to continue to invest there."
Facebook's third quarter revenue exceeded $7 billion for the first time, a
