The Top 5 Mobile Destinations for Travel Advertisers

How are travel brands spending on digital? For the majority of the category, desktop display is still a top priority in their digital advertising strategies. Display advertising consumed nearly sixty percent of the category’s digital spend during Q4 2017.

Looking at mobile web, the channel accounted for over $21M of the travel category’s digital advertising spend in Q4. Which publishers are top brands like Marriott, Enterprise, and NBC Universal Parks & Resorts targeting on mobile? Here are the top five mobile display sites for the travel category in Q4.

1. TripAdvisor

It’s not surprising at all that the top mobile site in Q4 for the travel category was a trip planning site. Nearly twelve percent of mobile spend from the category went to the publisher, returning 4.7% of impressions. The top three advertisers on TripAdvisor during Q4 included Choice Hotels International, NBC Universal Parks & Resorts, and MGM Resorts International. The site sold the majority of its inventory direct.

2. Expedia

Eleven percent of the travel category’s mobile display spend went to travel booking site Expedia. Brands including Tourism Ireland, Aeromexico, SmartFares.com, Visit Mexico, and Enterprise Holdings made up the top five advertisers by spend for the site during Q4. Expedia also sold over ninety percent of its mobile web inventory direct, with the remaining share being filled by Google AdX, Index Exchange, the Trade Desk, and Exponential.

3. Hotels.com (Expedia, Inc.)

Following Expedia’s namesake site, another property brought in just over five percent of the travel category’s mobile display spend. Hotels.com sold the majority of their impressions directly, targeting the travel and financial services categories as their top buyers. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau, and Tourism Ireland made up the top three mobile spenders for the site, sweeping up over 22% of Hotels.com’s Q4 impressions.

4. Accuweather

Does looking at winter weather conditions make you lust for a trip to the tropics? For Accuweather, travel may be the fourth top category for the site, but it’s the fourth top publisher for the category’s mobile advertisers. Led by Meliá Hotels International, NBC Universal Parks & Resorts, and Marriott International, travel brands land in the site’s top 10-50 advertisers rankings. Impressions were sold primarily through indirect partners, with direct buys representing only twenty percent of the site’s impression share in Q4.