Travel marketers may have best luck with most trafficked sites

In some retail categories it makes sense for marketers to target consumers on smaller, niche websites; not so for travel. Travel is one of the categories in which it makes much more sense to stick with highly trafficked websites rather than niche sites skewed to a very specific group of consumers. According to a new report from Hitwise the more than one-third of all travel traffic surfed to the Top 10 Websites in the category (month of December).

by Kristina Knight

What is also clear is that travel continues to have a strong showing, making this category a good place for online marketers to place their ads.

According to Hitwise most travel consumers spent just under 9 minutes on-site during the month of December 2008. Also, mapping sites continue to hold some of the best postions. MapQuest, Google Maps and Yahoo Maps were all in the top five for market share. Trip planning hubs such as Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Priceline also continue do well; these four hubs were in the top ten for market share.

Search continues to bring in much of the online traffic, which is good for travel hubs and online marketers; for travel hubs, it continues to be important to invest in paid search campaigns. Online marketers need to know this so that they don't place too many eggs in a single basket. Rather than focusing on one mapping site or one travel hub, for instance, this research indicates that an overall campaign placing ads across the most popular travel hubs is the best way to increase the ROI of a campaign.