Travel & Hotel Solutions¶
Yahoo Native now provides you with a new feed ad solution: Dynamic Product Ads for Travel & Hotels.
This guide describes what you need to know to get started and take advantage of this new strategic offering and product solution from Yahoo Native.
Examples¶
On the desktop, you’ll see these examples of online travel and hotel solutions using Yahoo Native feed ads.
Important
For best results with this new product solution, you should work directly with your Account Manager team. They’ll walk you through the steps you need to follow in order to take advantage of this new product.
Tip
If you’re an advertiser who is familiar with Facebook Travel ads –– specifically Hotels and Flights feed formats –– you’ll want to be sure to sign up for this offering from Yahoo Native. Our implementation is similar to that of Facebook’s.
Key Benefits¶
Viewed listings: Reach customers who have viewed your listings and dynamically retarget them across Yahoo Native properties, including mobile, desktop and tablet. One feed enables several different native ad formats.
Cart Abandoners: Target customers who have not completed their purchase with offers to help drive the conversion.
App Re-engagement: Drive users back to your app to increase engagement and in-app bookings.
Get Started¶
Follow these steps to get started. A Yahoo Native Account Manager will walk you through them systematically, so you can get optimal results with your product feeds for ROI with your travel and hotel catalogs.
Steps |
Retargeting |
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Required |
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Described in the documentation for setting up your Dot tag. The Account Manager will also provide you with a sample tag file, replacing all instances of the numeric sequence 12345 for the pixelId with your preferred Yahoo Dot tag ID that was selected from your account in the Native UI. |
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Your Account Manager will set up a meeting with your webmaster and a Yahoo Native solutions engineer in order to confirm your Dot tag and Custom Event script, as well as provide additional technical support. |
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Required |
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Supported formats: |
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If you don’t host the file yourself, the Account Manager can create a Yahoo Dropbox FTP account; Yahoo Dropbox is an enterprise solution owned by Yahoo Native, not Dropbox. Instructions on how to create a yahoo dropbox ftp are provided. |
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The Account Manager will access the Yahoo Native UI under Shared Library - Product Catalog, and enter the url location and filename, with login credentials as needed. You can also perform this through the Native Ad Platform API. |
Create Product Sets¶
When you create a new Product Set in the Yahoo Native UI (shown below), you’ll be able to set filters on your product catalog, enabling you to collate a group of products. Product sets give you more control over who you want to run dynamic ads to - for example, people who viewed specific types of items in your catalog.
Start by selecting Shared library > Product catalog.
In the panel that opens, select the types of products, either Hotel or Retail you wish to use for your product set.
If you select Retail, you’ll have a range of choices for your product set.
If you select Hotel, you can select Address, Airport code, Base price, Brand, and Check-in-date.
Click Create to finish creating your product set.
FAQs¶
Is there a recommended feed size?¶
To maximize the benefits of Dynamic Product Ads, we encourage you to provide a feed with your complete product offerings. With 1 billion users, a complete feed (regardless of size) helps Yahoo Native map more relevant products to a relevant audience.
Is there a minimum/maximum feed size?¶
We can load tens of million of ids. If you have a product feed that is a concern, try loading it into a Native Test Account to see if it will load. There is no minimum feed size.
What is the pricing model?¶
CPC bidding.
Is there an option for carousel ads?¶
Carousel ads are supported on some devices. The primary image is the product that the user has last interacted with. The secondary images will be recommendations from the product set that the advertiser sets for the ad group. (Thus, all three product images will come from the same ad group.)
What are the editorial policies for feed ad Travel?¶
All country-specific targeting restrictions still apply to Travel. Travel advertisers should not include prohibited locations in their feeds. For current ad policies, refer to Yahoo Native Advertising Policies.
Can I target by purchase funnel?¶
Funnel targeting allows you to retarget based on a user’s progress in the purchase funnel - for example, whether a user has searched vs. viewed product vs. initiated checkout vs. made a purchase.
You can set campaigns (or ad groups) to target users based on the following actions on the site are possible:
Target people who viewed a product in the last X days and have not purchased.
Target people who added a product to the cart in the last X days and have not purchased.
What is the appropriate lookback window to set for funnel targeting?¶
The number of days X is configurable and can be set to any value between 1 and 30. Setting the funnel is possible through bulk (sample here).
We recommend creating multiple lookback windows at launch (1, 3, 7, and 30 days for Search, ViewProduct and InitiateCheckout funnels). Depending on size and variety of your Feed, you may wish to further divide these by different sets for a more granular understanding of performance (i.e., different hotel brands or by region). For customers who are not happy with performance, experiment with a lower/shorter lookback window before reducing bids. Most conversions happen from recent site interactions, so lowering the lookback window can help.
Can I pursue mid-funnel targeting to target new users?¶
Custom audiences can be utilized to target new users (or exclude current users).
Can I use feed ads to upsell/cross-sell other products?¶
Yes, you can upsell/cross-sell by driving to different pages for a particular sourceid or group of source ids. Funnel targeting can be utilized for additional granularity.
How should I bid?¶
We suggest starting with $0.60 - $0.80 bids, then optimizing based on performance.
Do feed ad Travel Campaigns support bids by supply?¶
We are aware that BBS is currently accessible in the UI. However, BBS for shopping campaigns is not yet supported.
Do feed ad Travel Campaigns support adding Custom Audience/Custom Segments?¶
Custom Audience/Custom Segments are supported for both Shopping Campaigns (DPA Travel is currently run as Shopping Campaigns). As the site-retargeting signal is so strong, we recommend using custom audiences/segments for prospecting campaigns only.
Do feed ad Shopping Campaigns support Geo targeting settings?¶
Yes, Geo targeting is supported.
Can we apply targeting to campaigns?¶
We currently support geo and custom audience targeting with feed ads.
If I already have a product retargeting partner that works with Yahoo, can I target users only on Mail?¶
This option is currently unavailable, but we are exploring possible solutions.
Will I be able to bid on recency?¶
Yes, multiple windows can be created for both Add to Cart and View Product funnels.
What countries can we target?¶
You can target any countries that serve Native ads.
Am I required to display price in the title?¶
The requirement of including price in titles to reduce friction in onboarding clients has been removed. You can control the creative and exclude price as needed. Sale prices are also available for advertiser use.
Does the feed auto-update?¶
When importing the feed into Native Ad Platform, daily and weekly update options should be set to correspond with your feed update schedule (or shortly afterwards). If you update your feed daily at 9 AM, you should set your feed update schedule to daily to 10 AM.
Strategies¶
Travel and hotel strategies are described in the table below:
Advertiser |
Strategy |
Best solution |
|---|---|---|
Travel |
Take advantage of large travel catalogs. Use personalized ads based on each user’s unique shopping history, and funnel targeting to automatically show products to shoppers who have already Viewed, Searched, Initiated Checkout or Purchased a hotel or cruise reservation. |
Retargeting with Feed Ads |
Travel & hotel |
Deal with high cart abandonment rate. |
Retargeting with Feed Ads |
Travel |
Need to consider customer travel arrangements where purchase decisions and research can span multiple steps across devices |
Retargeting with Feed Ads |
Hotel |
Pitch most popular hotel properties to customers. |
Retargeting with Feed Ads |
Travel & hotel |
Push and popularize recommendations to existing customers. |
Retargeting with Feed Ads |
Best Practices¶
When working with Travel & Hotel feed ads, here are some best practices to follow:
Use product sets to highlight particular products within the feed.
Use Funnel targets to differentiate based on intent signals.
Use different lookback windows to differentiate based on age of intent signal.
Use bid by supply to prioritize the best performing traffic.
Considerations¶
Some important considerations when implementing best practices:
Different products have different values and priorities for advertisers.
Performance varies by funnel. For example, Add-to-Cart behavior is usually more valuable than View-Product behavior.
How recently the funnel behavior occurred (1-30 days ago) can impact performance.
Traffic sources can vary in performance.
Take this example: A $2000 TV is more likely to have multiple visits over a longer time period before purchase than a $3 impulse buy.
Different product sets for different funnels with different bid by supply options and look back windows allow you to optimize which combinations of product set/funnel behavior/lookback window/supply options performs best for you.