HOTELMARKETING.COM

Room Key surpasses 4 million monthly visitors, grows at 20% monthly

September 19, 2012 | Online Travel

Room Key is growing at a remarkable pace, reaching over 4 million unique visitors in July, and largely the result of an exit traffic strategy in which partners display a pop-under window showing properties on the founders’ sites consistent with search results on RoomKey.com.

This strategy effectively made Room Key a meta-search engine. It also meant that approximately 90% of Room Key traffic came from the founding brands’ sites. On average, less than 2% of Room Key visitors come from paid or natural search. Room Key sends about the same amount back to the partners’ sites (i.e., when a Room Key shopper clicks on booking buttons). Consumers that did not return to a partner site most often returned to a traditional search engine.

In May, the site’s “beta” tag was removed, reviews from sites like TripAdvisor were more tightly integrated into the hotel information pages and, most importantly, the partnership with Travelocity’s Partner Network, res99.com. With the Res99 addition, Room Key became more of a hybrid in that it shows inventory from the founding partners and Travelocity. The good news is that it increased consumer choices (i.e., more inventory). The challenge is that it eroded the flow back to the partner sites: Res99 captured 7.4% of Room Key booking-driven transfers in its first month, which increased to 11.4% in June.

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