Case Study: hotel.de AG

Search Click-through-Rate up 20%: hotel.de Google+ success with Social Extensions

• Click-through-Rate up 20% • Increasing number of visitors on Google+: 20%–30% monthly uplift

Case Study: hotel.de AG

hotel.de, a leading hotel reservation service was among the first companies in Germany to create a Google+ page and use social extensions for their AdWords search campaigns. The Click-through-Rate on the search ads with social extensions became 20% higher than for those ads without Social Extensions. Today, 27% of all hotel reservations in the German-speaking region are made online resulting in a 7.6 b Euro turnover. Founded in 2001, hotel.de AG is currently among the three market leaders of the hotel reservation business sector. The target groups, business and private customers, can choose out of a worldwide selection of more than 210.000 rooms. In its anniversary year in 2011, the company spent a low double-digit million figure on online advertising. In order to find new customers on the web, hotel.de runs AdWords ads in Google Search and banners in the Google Display Network.

Google makes the web work for hotel.de I am very satisfied, since social extensions have raised our clickthrough-rate. That in turn helps with the Quality Score. And I think Google+ is a valuable alternative to other social platforms because it is more structured. Markus Wagner, Director Marketing, hotel.de AG

More information about Social extensions

http://www.google.com/ ads/innovations/ socialextensions.html

and about Google+ www.google.com/+/ business/

Almost immediately after having implemented social extensions in February 2012, there was a strong impact. Markus Wagner, Director Marketing at hotel.de, points to the month of July as the best example for this: “Social extensions counted for 85% of all ad impressions. The click-through-rate of ads with social extensions was 20% higher than for ads without those +1 annotations.“ In concrete terms, the difference was 5.3% to 4.4%. “And we see signs that the conversion rate is higher but are unable to trace this exclusively to social extensions.“

The connection between Google+ and Social Extensions leads users to comment, and enhances branding The Google+ Page is doing very well. Seven months after its creation, it has more than 4,400 users, thanks to great editorial content, comments and users recommending the Google+ Page to others. There are two editorial main themes, travel recommendations and tips, such as those provided during the Olympic Games in London or info about hotel.de’s 24/7 hotline. The most popular article to date is an infog raphic about St Valentine’s Day. “We are seeing an average 20% to 30% monthly uplift of followers,“ reports Markus Wagner. “A big part of the secret behind the uplift is the connection of Google+ and the social extensions.“ They lead users directly to posts. “With Google+ and the social extensions we have a far more intense contact with users,“ says hotel.de’s marketing director. “And we notice that these users come more often than others, therefore enhancing our branding.“ Also, more visitors come to the company homepage. “I am very satisfied, since social extensions have raised our click-through-rate. That in turn helps with the Quality Score. And I think Google+ is a valuable alternative to other social platforms because it is more structured.“