Some of the most successful advertising campaigns take advantage of location: Get the message in front of people when they’re literally in a position to buy, and there’s a good chance that they will.
That strategy goes without saying, but it bears repeating with the Labor Day weekend right around the corner. Labor Day is one of the busiest travel times of the year, which means a bumper crop of potential customers for some businesses – if they know how to capitalize on that movement. Busy travel times also are an opportunity for those providing local Internet access.
Here’s an example: You’re in New Orleans for Labor Day. In your hotel room the first evening, you power up your laptop, smartphone or tablet to check the news back home or just browse around. Which would you be more interested in: banner ads for Vonage and BMW, or banner ads for Brennan’s and The Maison?
Most likely the latter two. Even if you regularly vacation in New Orleans and already know those places, you’re still going to be more interested in a band or dish where you are at that moment, than changing your phone provider or buying a car.
Businesses can capitalize on those kinds of location-based interests by getting their advertising in front of travelers. A hotel room is ideal for facilitating that outreach, which is why they’re always filled with local magazines, coupon books and other advertising vehicles.
The Internet creates additional, potentially more effective opportunities for businesses to connect with customers. Research shows that when vacationers use a smartphone or tablet, 62 percent of the time, they’re looking for local restaurants and attractions. Most of the time, they’re connected to their hotel’s Wi-Fi network rather than using cellular. Put all of those habits together, and it’s clear that hotel Wi-Fi networks are an ideal way to connect businesses with potential customers.
AdVantage Networks’ Monetization Platform (AMP) enables those connections. Hotel operators can use AMP to give local businesses access to their guests at the times when they’re most receptive to advertising. AMP uses industry-standard router/proxy technologies, HTML and browser security models to detect third-party ads and replace them with local businesses’ ads.
With AMP, hotels can offer advertisers access to specific domains, such as espn.com, or specific content categories, such as all nightclubs or just jazz joints. This granularity wrings the most efficiency out of each advertising dollar, as well as increases the effectiveness of each ad campaign.
This targeting doesn’t undermine the customer experience. For example, it doesn’t change a Web page’s formatting or modify any of the content. All users see is the page they wanted and an ad that’s relevant to them.
By using AMP to enable highly targeted, highly relevant advertising, hotels also gain an additional revenue stream to help fund upgrades to their Wi-Fi networks. That’s important because surveys show that both consumers and business travelers are increasingly focused on the coverage and speed of in-room Wi-Fi. AMP helps hotels meet those expectations, and it helps local businesses reach potential customers when they’re most receptive to advertising.
Advantage Networks Blog 