Digital marketing is making strides with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By Maxime Laurent, Director of Ad Management, Cendyn

This article was originally published in the latest AccomNews print edition. [Read it here.]

AI is infiltrating every aspect of life and business. With so much buzz around AI, it can be hard to identify where to most effectively use the technology and where to start implementing it in your hotel.

AI has the ability to process vast amounts of data – and from a marketing perspective, it can be used to power and facilitate personalised digital and real-world experiences, driving customer engagement and revenue. Like any technology, finding a use for AI which drives a tangible return on investment is key.

By using AI to elevate the brand experience, as well as make substantial time and cost savings, marketing departments can:

1. Find more guests, by tapping into lookalike guest profiles and automated tailored messages.
2. Streamline the booking processes with intuitive packages and enhanced call centres.
3. Grow revenue, providing personalised and tailored promotions and offers.

By maximising the use of data across the right channels, hoteliers can better connect with their guests through their marketing. Understanding how AI is transforming hotel marketing – including using AI-powered tools such as Google Performance Max (PMax), and partnerships with conversational technology providers like PolyAI – is the first step to deciding how your property should engage with the technology.

We’ve looked at some of the sure-fire practical ways to see immediate results that drive revenue.

1.AI as an enabler for hotel marketing teams

Through automation and predictive analytics, AI has emerged as a crucial enabler for hospitality. AI-powered tools to streamline tasks such as booking management and customer service, but it’s in marketing where the digital technology really shines.

Ai analyses customer data – both on a user-by-user basis in real-time and as a large volume – providing actionable insights which marketers can use to understand their audience better and optimise marketing campaigns. For example, AI can recommend the best times to post content, the most engaging formats, and the optimal channels for distribution. Something that would otherwise take months of trial-and-error by a marketing team can now be refined in days or weeks.

Automation streamlines repetitive tasks, allowing marketers to focus more on strategy and creativity. AI can automate email marketing, social media posting, and bidding for online ads, ensuring campaigns run smoothly and efficiently. AI can also adapt content by creating tailored messages for different segments of the audience, in order to increase engagement and conversion rates.

2.AI-optimised video content

Personalisation is a key area where AI excels. The technology analyses customer data tailoring words, pictures and videos to engage with customers on an individual basis: creating personalised travel itineraries, recommending content based on browsing behaviour, and customising offers to maximise engagement and conversion.

YouTube is a great example of AI in action. Its AI algorithms not only recommend ‘next watch’ content, but channels can use third-party AI-generative tools to create content (which YouTube requires is tagged as AI-generated). Generating videos with different backgrounds and other elements, tailored to individual preferences, has helped video streaming platforms maximise engagement, driving higher viewer satisfaction and loyalty – the key objectives for most marketing campaigns! For hoteliers, YouTube’s reach makes it a must-use platform to find and connect with both new and existing customers, before driving them to your own website.

3.AI-powered hotel advertising with Google

Google PMax is a prime example of how AI can drive better ad performance and revenue growth. PMax campaigns leverage AI to optimise ad placement across Google’s vast inventory, ensuring ads reach the right audience at the right time. Paired with the Cendyn Digital Marketing Platform (DMP), it’s even more powerful and easy to activate. Campaigns executed with PMax utilise Google’s AI algorithms to enhance visibility and profitability, combining metasearch and paid search strategies.

This comprehensive approach to marketing efforts ensures more efficient results, helping campaigns reach a broader audience that aligns with the target customer while driving sustained success. The results speak for themselves:

• Over 30 percent in website traffic
• Over 6 percent clicks
• x31 ROAS

(Figures based on Cendyn clients, H1 2024)

4.AI in hotel search engine marketing

AI is helping digital marketing make bigger strides in the market, including:

• AI-aided keyword research

Hotels obtain deeper insights into search patterns and user intent. Google’s BARD analyses vast datasets to identify high-performing keywords, including brand-specific terms. This capability allows marketers to craft more effective SEO strategies, ensuring higher visibility and engagement. AI also helps predict emerging trends – enabling your hotel to stay a step ahead of your competition by tapping in early to changes in customer behaviour.

• Voice search optimisation

With the continued growth in smart speakers and assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant, hoteliers need to optimise campaigns for this channel. How a potential customer types a query is likely to be different to how they articulate it when ‘chatting’ to their voice tool.

AI analyses voice search queries to understand how users phrase questions, allowing campaign content to be shaped to best respond to the variations of voice. This helps your hotel remain relevant and easily discoverable in voice search results.

• Repairing technical errors

Broken links are, at best, a cause of frustration for website users, and at worst, can drive people away from your site in frustration. For hoteliers, AI can also be instrumental in identifying and repairing technical errors on websites – such as broken links, duplicate content, slow loadings times, and gaps in data. By ensuring your website operates smoothly across multiple devices and operating systems, AI improves the user experience, with the added bonus of boosting your SEO ranking, leading to higher visibility and engagement.

Always evolving – the latest in AI

The integration of AI in digital marketing is an ongoing evolution, with new advancements emerging all the time. In the first half of 2024, notable tools such as Expedia Group’s Romie travel assistant and Google’s Gemini Advanced itinerary-building feature were unveiled, promising to enhance travel planning.

Romie, integrated into Expedia’s range of booking platforms, uses natural language processing to assist trip planning, while Gemini Advanced offers personalised holiday plans by synthesising information from multiple sources. Both include recommendations on hotels and areas to stay within a guest’s destination, providing a new marketing channel for hoteliers.

As AI continues to evolve, hoteliers need to stay on top of the latest developments to maintain a competitive edge and capture an increasingly tech-savvy audience. At Cendyn, we are committed to leveraging AI technologies to work with guest data, helping our hotel partners find customers, secure bookings, and drive growth via enhanced customer engagement. By continuously integrating AI solutions, we ensure our clients remain at the forefront of the digital marketing landscape.

Explore our solutions including our Revenue Growth package which features AI tools such as Google PMax.