Snapchat now offers Dynamic Ads for Travel

Snapchat has released an easy and automated way for businesses to reach travelers. The new product is called Dynamic Ads for Travel.

The new ad features. According to Snapchat’s announcement, the new ads will include the following components:

• Customized catalogs built to meet the needs of travel advertisers
• Advanced audience targeting based on intent
• Locally relevant delivery based on destination popularity

Good news for travel brands. Dynamic Ads for Travel, originally developed for companies such as Booking.com, allows advertisers and businesses to upload catalogs or feeds and show targeted ads to serve users based on their travel preferences and intent. 

The announcement comes just months after many pandemic-related restrictions on masks and testing are being lifted, allowing tourism a chance to bounce back to pre-2020 levels. 

Audience targeting uses machine learning and product ranking to serve ads to users who haven’t been to the advertisers website previously. While locally relevant targeting dynamically retargets users who have been to your website or app with listings they may be interested in. 

Early results. Booking.com recently adopted the new strategy, serving ads with locally relevant listings of properties users had already viewed. The results were 20x lower cost per purchase, 1.3 times higher swipe rate, and 10.7 million impressions. 

What Snapchat says. Snap head of U.S. verticals Sharon Silverstein said in a statement, “As the summer vacation season approaches, travel businesses are looking to optimize reach and drive conversions. Snapchatters are a particularly salient audience for the industry, with many eager and more likely to travel than users of other platforms. Dynamic Travel Ads are driving impressive results for our partners, and we look forward to unlocking them for more businesses as the travel industry enters its busiest season.”

Official Snapchat documentation. Read the complete ad setup guidelines here.

Why we care. When it comes to advertising dollars spent, Snapchat trails behind industry giants such as Facebook and Instagram. But Snapchat is gaining momentum, with most of its users falling into Gen Z and millennial age groups. And with those groups being the most diverse travelers, Snapchat is a great place to advertise airline and hotel deals, new destinations, and popular hotspots.