The past decade has been a period of dynamic change for digital advertising in the travel industry. Consumers have adopted smartphones at a rapid pace, putting mobile and cross-device campaigns at the center of industry ad strategies. Meanwhile a growing trend toward automation and algorithm- driven techniques like programmatic advertising is remaking the entire process of how marketing campaigns are planned and managed. On top of all this, a continuously growing universe of new ad formats like social, connected TV, and more are forcing industry executives to make hard decisions about where to allocate limited ad budgets.
Each of these changes is creating new challenges, as well as opportunities, for travel industry marketers. How should the industry use the growing wealth of information it now has about traveler habits to better understand and target customers while simultaneously delivering more relevant products? What’s the best way for marketers to stay ahead of continuous changes in travel shopping habits? Which ad formats and buying techniques will yield the highest return on investment?
The financial stakes riding on answering these questions correctly couldn’t be higher. According to eMarketer, the travel industry will spend more than $9.8 billion on digital advertising around the world in 2019. If those in the industry are not careful about how and why they align their marketing strategies with the shifts mentioned above, they risk falling behind, or even worse, not connecting with today’s fickle and demanding travel consumer.
In this report, Sojern and Skift examine seven trends that will shape digital advertising in the travel industry in 2020, offering a roadmap to the most important strategies, ad formats, and techniques marketers will need to embrace in the year ahead.
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