Q: “How did a vacation rental startup like Airbnb convince people to open up their homes to the masses?”
A: “By targeting potential travelers with pretty pictures of other people’s home.”
According to the Google case study, various photos and videos on Airbnb display ad campaign have contributed on more bookings in less than nine months and increased listings more than eightfold over the same time period. Dan Taylor, the head of sales for the Google Display Network stated:
“The fact that they have these great beautiful pictures of so many of their accommodations were something that they wanted to highlight in their ads as a real selling point.”
Taylor says the goal of the campaign was to boost bookings and increase awareness in the online marketplace that matches travelers with those willing to rent a spare room, apartment, or home (or even, depending on your budget, a castle). Moreover, the halo effect of the campaign was to encourage users to list their own crash pad as a rental option too.
Since the ad campaign’s launch early this year, he said, the number of nights booked increased from about 800,000 to more than 2 million and the number of listings climbed from less than 10,000 to more than 80,000. In addition to the photos, the campaign included YouTube videos explaining how the site works and reached a global audience by targeting Web users consuming travel content and retargeting those who had previously visited the site. The successfulness of this “visual campaign” has been proven by the quick growth of the business itself:
According to Christopher Lukezic, the head of communication of Airbnb, user response has been overwhelmingly positive. “Word-of-mouth marketing has been the biggest driver of success for us,” he said.
And, Lukezic added, as the company pursues international growth, display advertising is performing especially well. “We’ve started to reach a level where the display is working really well for us,” he said. “From a marketing perspective, it’s the right thing at the right time.”