Search engine and social marketing are the
priority spending categories for 67% of travel brands’ mobile marketing budgets
finds new research.
New research
from EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect,
which surveyed nearly 300 travel industry professionals on the topic of mobile
has found that search and social have a stranglehold over mobile marketing,
likely reflecting the dominance of Google and Facebook in the digital marketing
sphere.
When respondents were asked what is the
largest component of their mobile marketing budgets, 35% selected search and
32% social, according to EyeforTravel and SAP Digital Interconnect’s new Driving Intelligent, Interconnected Mobile
Engagement Throughout the Travel Journey report, which is free to download
now.
Search spending was even higher among
hospitality and accommodation brands, where it was the most important category
for 45.3% of brands. This preponderance is a result of the way in which
consumers search for hotels, with mobile still a last-minute channel when it
comes to booking and at that stage consumers are looking mainly for specific
locations, largely through search engines. However, it may also indicate an
over-focus on the latter stages of consumers booking journey and an
acquisition-driven strategy that doesn’t fully take into account the role of
mobile in inspiration and initial research phases.
One area where travel brands might look to
expand spending and make the most of mobile’s role at the inspiration stage is
video marketing, which was rated as most important in just 4.4% of budgets.
The small role of video marketing currently
would seem to be a major missed opportunity for travel brands given the growth
of mobile video consumption in recent years. A multi-country study by AOL
estimated that 57% of consumers watch videos through their mobile every day and
Zenith estimated that there was 20% growth in global video consumption in 2017.
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