One of the most highly anticipated dates of 2022 has ended. The time of year when brands offer irresistible discounts and customers take advantage of the low prices in their favourite stores – Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

No real surprise here; this date represents a golden opportunity for hoteliers to boost revenue. Now that the shopping frenzy is over for another year, The Hotels Network (THN) looked at the impact on hotels’ direct channel, what went well, and some key takeaways for next year.

To understand how Black Friday affected hotel website performance, THN analyzed direct channel performance data from more than 3,000 hotel clients worldwide. The analysis compared the hotel websites’ performance during the heart of the Black Friday period (November 17th-29th, 2022) to a similar period the previous month (October 18th-31st, 2022). To isolate the effect of seasonality, the performance of hotels that ran a dedicated Black Friday campaign was compared to a control group of hotels that did not run a campaign.

Impact of Black Friday 2022 on hotel websites.

• More visitors are doing searches in the booking engine of hotels running Black Friday campaigns.

Following the same trend as 2021, a peak wasn’t detected in website traffic during the Black Friday period, with, in fact a decrease of 4% for hotels running a Black Friday campaign and a decrease of 3% for hotels that didn’t.

Interestingly, despite having slightly less website traffic, the number of visitors searching on the booking engine increased by 4% for hotels that ran a dedicated campaign during the Black Friday period. This indicates that these hotels effectively communicated their Black Friday offers on the homepage and drove more travellers to the booking engine.

• Hotels running Black Friday campaigns experienced a 61% increase in website conversion.

The study showed a significant gap in website conversion, with a 61% increase on average for hotels running Black Friday campaigns compared to only an 18% increase for hotels in the control group without any Black Friday campaigns.

The substantial difference between the two groups highlights that hotels effectively grab users’ attention and encourage them to book directly by utilizing the right tools and creating and promoting Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers.

It was also found that hotels conducting a Black Friday campaign improved performance in the final stages of the booking funnel. These hotels experienced impressive growth of 60% on average for website conversion from booking engine to actual booking, far exceeding the properties without any campaigns, reaching just a 15% uplift on average.

• Black Friday offers ≠ a lower average booking value.

A common misconception is assuming that providing a Black Friday offer will result in a lower average booking value. However, the findings suggest that no matter the type of offer, whether it was promoting extended stays, unique perks or upselling, hotels with a campaign effectively built with tactical deals resulted in an increased average booking value. These hotels have successfully engaged their website visitors and persuaded them to spend more to access these exclusive offers, leading to an increase of 9% on average in revenue per booking compared to an uplift of only 1% for the control group.

Comparing results from November 17-29th 2022 to October 18-31th 2022

• There are several top-performing messages and strategies

Creating a sense of urgency

The results have shown that messages featuring countdown clocks were among the top-performing campaigns. Incorporating a clock into the messaging effectively creates a sense of urgency among travellers, creating the need to act fast if they don’t want to miss out on the deals. This tactic significantly helped hotels bring more visitors to their booking engine, only one step away from booking directly on the hotel’s website.

Message displaying a countdown clock to create a sense of urgency

 

Launching pre-Black Friday campaigns.

Another strategy that has worked remarkably well is offering early access to discounts to newsletter subscribers. Inviting visitors to sign up for your newsletter in the run-up to Black Friday with the promise of early discounts is a clever way to collect potential visitors’ email addresses and grow your marketing database.

Pre-Black Friday campaign to capture email subscriber information

 

Making Black Friday offers unique to each user.

Another powerful strategy executed by our clients was showcasing personalized messages based on the visitor’s membership.

Identifying users’ membership status and delivering a perfectly crafted Black Friday offer to reward their loyalty or encourage new memberships has been a practical approach to boosting Black Friday reservations.

Exact layout with different content for users vs. non-users

Leveraging Predictive Personalization

Using Predictive Personalization, hotels can detect the users’ likelihood of completing a reservation and display the most relevant message or offer to maximize revenue and protect margins.

Following this approach, THN clients could offer discounts only to guests who need an extra incentive to book, driving more direct bookings without eating into revenue from users who wouldn’t need a discount to confirm their reservation in the first place. In addition, for visitors detected as having high purchasing intent, a relevant upselling or cross-selling message was shown to increase ADR.

A mobile approach

During this campaign, THN clients made sure not to forget about their mobile visitors. As this search device continues to grow in popularity, it is vital to create and adapt your offers towards this audience specifically. Adapting Black Friday offers to all devices has been a quick win to boost mobile reservations.

Black Friday offers are displayed for desktop and mobile visitors.

• Key takeaway: Black Friday is an opportunity that shouldn’t be passed up

The analysis results clearly show that Black Friday represents a golden opportunity for hoteliers worldwide to boost their direct sales.

During this period, hoteliers should prioritize their direct channel, offering the best deals on their website to capitalize on the growing demand and boost direct reservations and revenue. Preparing upstream and leveraging marketing technology on your hotel’s website is key to increasing direct channel conversions during Black Friday or any key date marked on your hotel’s marketing plan.

 

 

Edited by: Supaporn  Pholrach (Joom)

 

 

 

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