If you’re a Gmail user it’s highly likely that at some point you’ve noticed Google’s recent advertising platform, Gmail ads, or Gmail Sponsored Promotions to give it it’s full title.
Gmail Ads are a really powerful advertising opportunity, enabling advertisers to target users by a variety of important factors which include age, location, profession, and just about anything else that a user entered when opening their Google account. These have only recently been rolled-out to all AdWords accounts.
Perhaps most exciting for advertisers out there is the ability to also target by users current emails. This means you can target people who are receiving emails from certain companies, or receiving emails based on specific content.
Now this form of advertising isn’t really going to be embraced by all. And one advertising network previously jumped on this as an opportunity to brag about their own advertising platform, with the sneaky advert heading “We don’t read your emails, unlike others…” which was then in reaction to the old style of Gmail ads, which appeared on the right-hand rail of the page. These ads were criticised by many, but in the end they remain active on Gmail to this day (whilst some advertisers really took advantage of this opportunity) – see PPC Guru Larry Kim and his use of Gmail ads with Wordstream.
As a marketer you may not be too comfortable targeting users based on their current email subscriptions, but with it’s undeniable potential it’s unlikely that many hotels, and businesses would want to pass up on this kind of opportunity.
Ways of using Gmail Ads for a hotel
At our own digital marketing agency we’ve previously considered campaigns based around the following ways of taking advantage of Gmail Ads for a hotel, so they may also be worth considering for your own hotel;
- Targeting users who’ve received emails that make use of flight numbers (perfect for hotels close to airports)
- Targeting users who are receiving messages from nearby hotels (potential to “steal” any normally-loyal guests with tempting special offers).
- Targeting users based on their profession, such as sales and marketing professionals (good for corporate business).
- Targeting users talking about attractions in their city (could be potential bookers).
There are of course other benefits of using Gmail Ads which go beyond simply trying to achieve a new booking, such as for events that are being run by your hotel, or for obtaining extra guests in your hotels restaurant, signing up new members to your hotels gym, and so on. If you’re ready to put your thinking cap on, there’s an almost endless number of ways in which this advertising platform can be used.
We’d love to hear how your hotel has used, or plans to use Gmail Sponsored Ads. Perhaps you’ve got some experience of running the ads already; either as targeted placements on the Google display network (using right-hand rail ads) or using the new all-singing platform. Either way, feel free to let us know by leaving a comment below.
