Metasearch parity solved: Increase bookings by 33%

Price Match on Meta is a game-changing new feature within the Triptease Data Marketing Platform that allows hoteliers to discount the direct price for each individual meta customer at just the right time and by just enough to make the direct price the best choice for that specific guest.

When you’re being undercut by a major OTA like Expedia or Booking.com (who would typically inspire a higher level of brand trust from customers than smaller ‘random.coms’) or when your being undercut by an amount that wouldn’t cost a fortune to resolve, these are the key metasearch issues that you need to fix in the moment that they’re happening.

This new feature is available as part of the Triptease Data Marketing Platform, and early access customers like Azimut Hotels have already seen a conversion rate increase of 368% plus a 33% increase in bookings.

Why is the competition so fierce on metasearch?

Metasearch is the fastest growing channel for hotels. As the graph below shows, even in 2020 when most hoteliers were still struggling through the pandemic, metasearch still saw an increase in booking value towards the end of the year. 2021 brought incredible summer ‘revenge travel’ peaks, while the past year has seen a return to normality - meaning full throttle bookings all year round.

Why is metasearch growing so fast? Because it’s a really low funnel channel. This is the place where you have high-intent customers looking specifically for your hotel, and on specific dates. They are very close to booking. They may have just seen your hotel on an OTA and are looking for more detail, or they could be searching for your hotel and are about to be pulled away to an OTA website to book. Metasearch results are the crucial point where you can shift high intent guests away from booking on an OTA to booking on your direct channel - if you have the best price.

Unfortunately, OTAs are well aware of the opportunity presented in metasearch. More OTAs than ever are competing here for your customers’ attention. Meta didn’t used to look like this. The hotel below has 31 different OTAs participating in metasearch!

The competition for clicks is fierce. That means you’re more likely to be undercut by an OTA on metasearch and your cost-per-click is going to skyrocket. In fact, from January 2022 to September 2023 cost-per-click grew from $2.20 to $4.20. That’s a 90% increase!

Hotels need to work harder than ever before to be successful on metasearch…

Even with the landscape becoming more challenging, there are still proactive steps a hotelier can take to ensure that metasearch drives direct bookings for their hotel. The best place to start is with your parity, because on metasearch there is nowhere for an undercut rate to hide.

Meta guests are incredibly price sensitive - they are literally looking at prices for your hotel in a nice comparison table. Even if a customer does click to visit your direct site having seen you being undercut (which costs you money), they are significantly less likely to go on to convert. And with more OTAs in metasearch that means more undercutting.

You’re probably already doing some of the following to tackle price undercutting on metasearch:

• Making test bookings
• Closely monitoring your parity
• Turning off wholesalers who are leaking rates
• Working with OTAs market managers to shut down undercuts
• Offering member rates
• Providing book direct discounts on the booking engine
• Personalizing the onsite experience for your customers (this can increase your metasearch performance by 118%)
• Displaying a Price Check Message on your website
• Using smart metasearch bidding to avoid bidding when your direct doesn’t have good prices, and bidding more when you do

Looking for more tips to improve your metasearch strategy? Download the ultimate guide to hotel metasearch today.

… but you’ll probably still lose the booking

All the items in the list above are critically important! Improving parity increases the performance of all your marketing channels and drives direct bookings.

But unfortunately on metasearch all those important activities come too late. These are the things a hotelier should do after the guest has already seen direct undercut. At this point on metasearch the damage is done. If they’ve seen the direct price undercut in metasearch you’ve probably already lost the booking because that guest knows it’s cheaper to book elsewhere.

Remove the highest impact undercuts from metasearch before a guest ever sees them

Triptease data has shown that hotels across all regions are typically undercut over 50% of the time on metasearch. However when we look at major OTAs such as Booking.com and Expedia, 50% of those undercuts are only 5% cheaper, while 25% are just 2% cheaper than the direct price. What does that mean in practical terms? You could eliminate a huge number of metasearch undercuts and win those bookings direct by offering only a very small discount.

With Price Match on Meta you select which OTAs you’d like to price match and the range of discounts you’d be happy to provide. Triptease then applies the appropriate discount percentage to ensure that you only ever discount by the minimum amount required to win that booking. The hotelier stays in full control of their prices, but metasearch undercutting is no longer an issue. Sound good? Talk to the Triptease team today to get this feature set up for your hotel.

Not undercut on metasearch? Stop offering a bigger discount than you need to

If you’re a hotel in the incredibly fortunate position of finding that you are rarely undercut on metasearch, thats probably because you’re discounting the direct rate more than you need to. With Price Match on Meta, Triptease automatically applies the smallest possible discount to ensure you win the booking - no blanket discounts offering a cheaper rate than you need to give. That means more direct bookings but also massively increased direct revenue for your hotel.

Early access customers have already seen incredible results

Triptease Hotels who were invited to join our early access feature launch are seeing extremely encouraging results. Azimut Hotels saw a 368% conversion rate increase for Hotel Cologne and a 33% increase in bookings for Hotel Frankfurt, while Hotel Munich increased metasearch bookings from 0 to 9 after going live with Price Match on Meta.

Gulzina Almas-kyzy, Azimut Management Europe GmbH, said “Price Match is a great feature. We have seen very good results since it launched. Conversion rate improved and increased in the past two months. I'm very curious to see the future development of Price Match and the growth of our direct booking share.”

Book your Price Match on Meta demo today

Price Match on Meta is available as part of the Triptease Data Marketing Platform. Fill out the form below to book a demo and find out how to increase your direct bookings with full funnel hotel marketing solutions, powered by your unique price, market and customer data.