• by Stephen Taylor , Columnist, November 22, 2016

According to eMarketer, native advertising is already a $16-billion business and is expected to more than double, to $33.5 billion by 2020. And it makes sense: Native ads, unlike traditional banner ads, consist of high-quality content that integrates with the website they’re displayed on by looking and feeling like they are part of the page. They’re not intrusive and they’re relevant to the other content on the page. 

And yet, for most travel marketers, native ads just never really seemed like an option because the transactions involved and the creative process were still manual. Most native campaigns are dependent on the creation of numerous custom templates tailored for each platform and publisher, a straining process for both advertisers and publishers. The effort required to scale these campaigns can test even the most diligent campaign timelines and budgets. 

But that may change for travel advertisers. Earlier this year, DoubleClick, the digital marketing company owned by Google, launched a new native programmatic offer. When served programmatically, native ads can be done at scale; bidding for the user and automatically assembling and distributing the ads over a diverse number of websites. DoubleClick promises to allow advertisers to run multiple native campaigns by uploading all of the ad components (creative, copy, headline, etc.) and then letting Google do its thing, adjusting them to fit the dimensions and context of individual publisher sites and apps. 

It’s still too early to tell if this offer will take off like wildfire, but the early results are pretty encouraging. DoubleClick just completed early testing with a few hand-picked brands like Hilton and the San Francisco Travel Association. The SF Travel test from earlier this summer drove 1,600% more bookings than their previous direct response  campaign, all while decreasing cost per acquisition by 92%.

Also, the travelers who were targeted with native ads spent a good amount of time in San Francisco, staying for three or more days to perhaps visit Alcatraz, shop, or go to any number of Michelin-star restaurants in the Bay Area. This is all great news, especially considering that the perceived “money hump” was what drove SF Travel to look for out-of-the-box solutions in the first place. The results are encouraging enough that DoubleClick is now expanding the program to an open beta for travel brands.

We all (travel advertisers, marketers, agencies) know that today’s mobile experiences are not matched by the advertising experiences. To a consumer who is used to large buttons, easy scrolling and limited text areas, banner ads can stand out as a nuisance. And this is where native ads could come in, in the form of engaging and informative content served in a way that is friction-free for the user.