Inside Priceline Group’s Diss of Trivago — The Backstory
Photo Credit: Earlier this year, the German hotel search site Trivago downplayed actor Tim Williams because he was becoming too much of a star in the site’s seemingly never-ending stream of television commercials. Revenue has since shrunk. Coincidence? Trivago
Skift Take
What do a debate over landing pages, the acquisition of Momondo, a shift into hotel software services, and regulators forcing changes in online travel agency contracts have in common? Each of those seemingly unrelated things may have pushed Priceline to toggle back its spending on Trivago.
It's a boom time for trying to fathom the bust-up of Trivago.
For several years, the Expedia-backed hotel-search company had been gaining share of the combined Priceline Group and Expedia Inc. advertising budgets.
In 2013, Priceline and Expedia spent only 3.4 percent of their ad budgets on Trivago, according to estimates by Cowen & Co., an investment bank. By 2016, they spent 9.5 percent.
The two giants liked how Trivago's TV ad campaign gathered an audience primed to buy and how the website's user experience did a cost-effective job of converting shoppers into buyers.
As is now relatively well-known, something went wrong for Trivago in 2017. It went from double-digit, year-on-year growth, to a likely bleak forecast for the first half of 2018.
We've noted that Priceline pulled back on its spending. The most popular explanation for this was that Trivago had changed its algorithm in a way Priceline didn't like, prompting a retaliation.
Priceline is the winner in th
