Why Travel Marketers are Prioritizing CTV for the Busy Season Ahead

Author: Peter Jones, Head of Local Sales, Premion.

Despite rising fuel prices, the travel rebound is back in full force for U.S. leisure travelers. In March, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened an average of 2 million travelers at airport security checkpoints a day. With a robust spring and summer travel outlook, U.S. travel bookings are experiencing high demand with spring bookings pacing 49% higher in the northern hemisphere than this time last year, and 26% higher than pre-pandemic 2019, according to AirDNA data. Furthermore, a March 2022 Harris Poll finds that the majority (85%) of adults are planning to travel this summer and many are taking even more vacation time than they did last year.

In preparation for the busy travel season ahead, travel marketers are embracing CTV advertising to reach highly engaged streaming audiences. In 2022, 84% of U.S. households are projected to be CTV households and the average time spent per day streaming on a connected device will be more than half of the average time spent watching television, according to eMarketer*.

With recent privacy changes and cookie-based targeting going away, more travel marketers are turning to streaming TV as an effective brand-building and performance marketing channel to reach travel enthusiasts. According to MRI-Simmons March 2022 Cord Evolution study, 86% of travel intenders are OTT viewers and 77% have watched ad-supported OTT in the past 12 months. Among the report’s notable findings:

• 77% of those likely to travel in the U.S. in the next 12 months, and 78% of those likely to travel abroad in the next 12 months, watch ad-supported OTT.
• 83% of ad-supported OTT viewers who are travel intenders love doing research on a location before they go on vacation.
• 49% of all U.S. travel intenders cannot be reached via traditional TV or cable.

Streaming TV advertising provides travel and tourism brands with the best of digital marketing capabilities and the quality viewing experience of television. Furthermore, travel marketers are embracing the precision targeting and dynamic ad insertion capabilities to tailor messages and target viewers by location, such as zip codes, dayparts, and by consumer behaviors and interests.

And now, Premion is taking audience-driven targeting to the next level. We’re enabling travel marketers to unlock the next level of targeting by reaching consumers based on the personalities and lifestyles that align with their brand with our new Audience First packages. Specifically, we’ve curated key audience personas based on — not only direct interest — but also adjacent interests and behaviors. For example, with our Audience First Travel Buffs & Sightseers package, marketers can reach not only consumers interested in travel and tourism, but those with similar interests, such as hotel reward holders, or those that shop for travel accessories online. Similarly, for travel brands focused on a specific buyer-lifestyle, such as outdoor enthusiasts, luxury shoppers or the millennial minded, our Audience First packages can reach those consumer personas as well.

Beyond the advancements in targeting capabilities, the ability to deliver closed-loop attribution makes streaming TV advertising a priority channel for travel marketers that are increasingly focused on driving outcomes. With advanced destination attribution through our Arrivalist partnership, travel marketers can understand where their visitors are coming from, how far they’ve traveled, how long they stay, how often they repeat their visit and more. A recent Premion CTV campaign for Travel Wisconsin, measured by Arrivalist, generated a 122.8% Arrival Lift in Wisconsin destinations post-ad exposure, meaning that those viewers exposed to the Premion campaign were 2.2 times more likely to visit Wisconsin than those unexposed.  80% of the attributed arrivals occurred within the first six months of the campaign.

Travel marketers need a trusted streaming TV advertising partner that can execute locally in reaching the right consumers at the household-level, track conversions, and reduce wasted impressions. Premion is a proven partner in driving measurable outcomes for many travel brands and we’ve successfully executed a multitude of campaigns for hundreds of travel and tourism brands.

Download “A Marketers Guide: The New Rules Ahead for Streaming TV Advertising” for more insights on driving CTV advertising success.

Read us on MediaPost here.

*eMarketer, Connected TV Households, February 2022; eMarketer, Average Time Spent per Day with TV, January 2022; eMarketer, Average Time Spent per Day with Other Connected Devices, January 2022. Copyright © 2022 Insider Intelligence Inc. All Rights Reserved