Travelers are taking trips again. International tourism ended 2023 at 88% of pre-pandemic levels, according to the World Tourism Organization, an agency of the United Nations. During the pandemic, the travel industry experienced significant challenges and we created solutions to help advertisers navigate a time of deep economic uncertainty. As the needs of travelers and advertisers shift with the industry rebound and technological innovations, we’re evolving to ensure businesses are ahead of these changes.
Giving companies the tools to build thriving digital businesses is crucial now more than ever. With upcoming changes, like third-party cookies getting phased out, we need to transition to more durable strategies to help grow your business. Our travel commissions-based solutions require third-party-cookies and stay-specific information to accurately determine when a particular customer has stayed at a hotel to properly compute commissions. In light of industry changes, we’ll sunset both Commissions (per Stay) and Commissions (per Conversions) bid strategies for Hotel Ads in October 2024.
To make this update as simple as possible, we’ve introduced target Return on Ads Spend (tROAS) for Hotel campaigns and expanded our Performance Max for travel goals solution. tROAS for hotel campaigns brings improved bidding accuracy against your performance goals, with additional product improvements to come later this year. Additionally, in 2023, we launched Performance Max for travel goals. Now, we’re expanding this solution to include Hotel campaigns with tROAS across all of the Performance Max inventory. Powered by Google AI, your business has a greater opportunity to stretch your budget and achieve your performance goals.
You can continue using Commissions bid strategies until the sunset date while exploring the benefits of tROAS for Hotel campaigns or Performance Max for travel goals. After that, Commission bid strategies will gradually transition as follows:
- Starting now, February 2024, Commissions (per Stay) will no longer accept new allowlist requests.
- Starting April 30, 2024, Commissions (per Stay) and Commissions (per Conversions) will no longer be available bid strategies within Google Ads.
- Campaigns that have active Commission-based bid strategies will continue to serve until the sunset date.
- Starting October 31, 2024, campaigns with Commissions (per Stay) and Commissions (per Conversions) will no longer be available. You will continue to have access to historical reporting data for the campaigns in question.
- We highly recommend that you shift bid strategies before this date to ensure your campaigns continue to serve normally.
A bidding strategy anchored in AI will make it easier for you to market at the speed of consumers. And in an ever-evolving privacy environment, it will bring you one step closer to meeting people’s expectations and multiplying your results.
To help set you up for success, we will continue to provide you with guidance along the way.
Michael Trauttmansdorff, Director of Product Management for Travel Ads