Respondents also said they planned on using more video ads on Facebook and Instagram this year. Digital video and social were growth areas for travel marketers in general, and that growth of digital video budgets is driven by social platforms, according to our forecasts.
“We use paid social for our travel clients to drive those lower-funnel metrics,” said Doug Grumet, senior vice president of media at AMP Agency, for our "US Travel Digital Ad Spending 2019" report. “Can we improve our cost-per-acquisition or our cost-per-lead, whatever it might be? But then, can we use things like video within Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook to tell a more expansive story or create a connotation or perception of an experience? We see travel brands using social as more of a full-funnel tactic, as opposed to ‘I'm going to rely upon it solely to drive lower-funnel or solely to drive upper-funnel.’”
In our report, we noted that growth in the travel industry is slightly outpacing other verticals due to increased competition and a strong economy. Our latest forecasts show that US travel advertisers will increase their digital ad spending by 21.4% to $10.86 billion this year.