Airbnb’s search marketing shift: Should advertisers follow suit? (Search Engine Land)
Airbnb’s search marketing shift: Should advertisers follow suit?
With CPCs rising across performance media channels, is it worth following Airbnb's shift from PPC to brand marketing? Here's what to consider.
A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that Airbnb’s “strategy of slashing advertising spending, investing in brand marketing and lessening its reliance on search-engine marketing is continuing to pay off.”
This remark has sparked discussions among many advertisers, wondering if a similar strategy may work for them.
In 2019, Airbnb started to move budget away from search marketing in favor of broader marketing initiatives.
The pandemic accelerated the shift, with video and social media picking up the largest share of digital spend in 2021, according to data gathered from Semrush and Pathmatics.
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SEL's Amanda with an interesting and helpful article on Airbnb search marketing. I tend to agree that brand marketing and the like is the way to go. It's a saturated market as has been so for many years. Many brand managers, CEO's, bean counters and the like having been going direct to both creative and advertising agencies - I should know. Airbnb operators still see value in SEO as well as negotiating ad and copy rates with destination websites and niche website owners/ publishers. I've been in this game a few decades. A decade ago I secured a five figure deal with an owner on three continents with a number of properties involved, plus with an interactive game of skill tie-in with PR and news media elements. It was huge. If our agency didn't exist the likes of News Corp's Real Estate.com.au and/or Domain.com.au or maybe Google Ads would have secured it. As they say, you win some - you lose some. This Search Engine Journal feature has sparked my team and I to ramp up property aka real estate coverage including Airbnb again so thank you. There's still opportunity in the sector, be it Sydney, Melbourne, Vegas, Florida, Virgin Islands, Fiji or maybe even out the back of the U.A.E - you can bet the house on it! Web to the world over.
