.png)
HOSTELWORLD
Success through automation
When Hostelworld became the first accommodation platform in the UK to harness the power and efficiency of dynamic product ads, it not only increased bookings—it more than doubled its return on ad investment.
Dynamic product ads have allowed Hostelworld to automatically personalise ads for its customers, helping it get more bookings at a lower cost. Just 2 weeks after launching its ongoing dynamic product ad campaign in July 2015, the company was experiencing extremely impressive results compared to its previous static campaigns:
3X lower cost per acquisition
44% higher click-through rate
2.5X higher return on ad investment
​
Launched in 1999, Hostelworld is the leading global hostel accommodation platform. The vast majority of its 18–34 millennial audience uses Facebook to keep in touch while travelling, so the company began scaling its Facebook advertising spend in 2015.
Link ads were having an immediate positive impact on its bottom line, so Hostelworld decided to up the ante by investing in Facebook’s dynamic product ads. The goal was simple: increase bookings by showing people the products they were most likely to be interested in.
Dynamic product ads are highly efficient at reaching the right audience because they automatically promote the most relevant products from a brand’s entire catalogue, across any device. Hostelworld adapted its database of over 30k properties across 180 countries into a catalogue format, which allowed it to automatically create and serve custom carousel ads without any manual configuration. In this way, prospective hostellers could be shown dynamic ads for hostels they’d already viewed. The ads included the hostels’ most compelling prices and offers, plus messages describing Hostelworld’s unique selling points.
By reaching people when they’re primed and ready to make a purchase, dynamic product ads can easily and efficiently turn them into customers.