International hotel chain leveraging Kenshoo Social and Kenshoo SmartPath in addition to the already deployed Kenshoo Search software.
LONDON – Accor has signed a new, expanded contract with Kenshoo, enabling the hotel group to use Kenshoo Social to manage its social media advertising globally. Accor will also adopt Kenshoo SmartPath for dynamic conversion attribution modelling to analyse the contribution of different digital marketing channels on hotel bookings and optimise advertising spend.
Accor, whose hotel brands include ibis, Novotel, Mercure, Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Adagio and HotelF1, operates over 3,500 hotels in 92 countries. The company already uses Kenshoo Search for managing global paid search advertising campaigns to drive increases of 149% in revenues year-on-year, as Daniel Morgan, Head of Search Engine Marketing at Accor, says:
“We’ve been using Kenshoo Search since 2011 and have seen impressive results and massive increases in revenues. We’ve been optimising paid search spend using a combination of our own and Kenshoo’s attribution tracking technology – which gave us interesting insights, such as the fact that people who’ve viewed our ads are also more likely to go on and book hotel rooms when they subsequently see Accor in emails, maps, or on affiliate sites.
“We’re now starting to use Kenshoo Social to manage social ad campaigns and Kenshoo SmartPath to help us optimise our digital marketing spend even better by accounting for how different channels like search, social, and email influence bookings.”
Accor reviewed a number of tools for managing social advertising and selected Kenshoo Social because of its global scalability, effectiveness at measuring and optimising social advertising campaigns, and ability to report on cross-channel attribution under one interface.
“Tracking the effect of our social advertising – whether it directly or indirectly results in bookings – in combination with other channels such as search and email is extremely important to us. Kenshoo Social, in combination with Kenshoo SmartPath, will give us an accurate way of doing this and making best use of our spend,” explains Daniel Morgan.
Kenshoo SmartPath is the first form of algorithmic conversion attribution designed to improve digital marketing bid optimisation. Instead of relying on static attribution models such as first or last click, SmartPath uses machine learning technology to dynamically create a unique model to assign value for each interaction in any conversion path – based on customer data, market changes, and media mix effectiveness.
Yossi Synett, Director of Analytics from Kenshoo, explains: “Kenshoo SmartPath gives Accor a high level of accuracy in the way it measures the impact of different interactions when somebody books a hotel room through a cross-channel conversion path. For example, our sophisticated mathematical modelling process takes account of issues such as customer loyalty – has the user already stayed at an Accor hotel and does this affect the value assigned to a search or social ad when they book again? Another factor is causality – does someone click on an Accor search ad because they have already viewed a Facebook ad and, if so, how does this reflect on the value to be assigned to these interactions if it leads to a hotel booking? SmartPath answers these questions in real-time and Kenshoo updates bids accordingly.”
Rob Coyne, Managing Director of EMEA for Kenshoo, adds: “It’s very satisfying when customers such as Accor are driven to invest further in Kenshoo technology after seeing real benefits from the products they are already using. It shows the value we’re continuing to deliver and is a testament to our focus on client excellence. Accor is quite an innovative company and Dan and his team are highly-regarded partners helping drive the Kenshoo platform forward.”
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
