The Ultimate Travel Marketing Psychographic Targeting Toolkit
Of all marketing spaces, the travel and hospitality vertical has some of the richest data at scale. The reasons are obvious. Many humans are nomadic in nature, a phenomenon dramatically perpetuated by global, easy, low cost, high tech and accessible transportation and lodging.
An exciting feature of growing data sets is easy accessibility to psychographic targeting for marketing via mainstream social channels: Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and others. Each channel offers its own features for layering data (using “AND” and “OR” operators) and exclusions. Facebook remains the most robust platform for psychographic layers.
This travel and hospitality toolkit provides most mainstream and some off-the-beaten-path data objects, easily available to marketers in different combinations via Facebook, Twitter and Google data. Google, of course, includes YouTube. The data offered herein, dependent on which channel marketers utilize, can be used for:
SO, strap in for a tour of travel and hospitality psychographic layers available in Facebook, Twitter and Google. We’ll also share some layering examples in Facebook, which offer a glimpse into even deeper targeting power.
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Travel Marketing Psychographic Targeting Toolkit
Slide 1 - Introduction
This post chronicles multi-channel persona targeting for travel industry marketing. We’ll focus on Facebook, Twitter, Google and a sampling of boutique data partners.
Competitive Targeting Data
Slide 2 - Introduction
We’ll shred various angles to turn competitors’ customers into YOUR new customers.
World of Data
Slide 3 - Introduction
The world of data is always changing. Partnerships come and go. Some data objects are available in most countries. Others are regional data-partner specific. Geographic data differences are normalizing as a result of Facebook creating more branded complex behavioral data objects. The net result is cooler, more comprehensive targeting in more channels.
Some ground rules: The following words are interchangeable:
- Audience, segment, target, users, customers, psychographics
- Traits, qualities, personality, persona, attributes, signals, social graph
- Likelihood, proclivity, affinity, portend, tendency, indicator, suggests, shows
- Object, preset, chunk, inventory
- In-market, shoppers, buyers
Psychographic "Roots" & "Qualifiers"
Slide 4 - Introduction
Think about the targeting herein as travel marketing psychographic “roots” and “qualifiers”. We root personas in one or more large segment targeting audience blocks (in the millions). Starting with a large, often complex data object leaves headroom scale for qualifiers, which layer affinities on targets. In Facebook, roots and qualifiers can be layered on top of each other using the “AND” operator to form dual-root personas.
Toolkit Table of Contents
Slide 5 - Introduction
We’ll start with Facebook (FB) roots and qualifiers, after which we’ll delve into Twitter, Google and boutique data providers.
Frequent Travelers
Slide 6 - Facebook
The mother of all FB travel behavioral targeting roots is frequent travelers.
Business Travelers
Slide 7 - Facebook
24.2 million people travel for business.
International Business Travelers
Slide 8 - Facebook
FB thin slices international business travelers, forming a powerful smaller root segment. 1.2 million is a large enough audience on which to layer qualifiers.
US Business Travelers
Slide 9 - Facebook
Here’s the US business travelers psychographic root, a segment formed from American gold.
Casino Vacations
Slide 10 - Facebook
Interesting to note just how many folks dig casinos enough that FB cites their predilection.
Commuters
Slide 11 - Facebook
FB indexes commuters in the travel behavior bucket. Commuting does portend portability.
Cruises (Behavior)
Slide 12 - Facebook
Cruises are a major travel persona root.
Currently Traveling
Slide 13 - Facebook
It’s easy to know where users are traveling in FB’s geographic targeting tool. This 28.1-million-person segment offers zoomed-out perspective on human movement. FB’s currently traveling behavior is an anthropological data point.
Family Vacations
Slide 14 - Facebook
The family vacations audience is smaller than some would expect, but still plenty large to make targeting sunshine!
Frequent International Travelers
Slide 15 - Facebook
So many people are frequent international travelers. 119 million globetrotters rock FB data.
Frequent Flyers
Slide 16 - Facebook
Of our travelers, 3 million do so often by plane.
Leisure Travelers
Slide 17 - Facebook
Nearly 39 million FB users are algorithmically fingered as leisure travelers.
International Personal Travelers
Slide 18 - Facebook
Which psychographic signals FB identifies to flag personal international travel traits are subject to conjecture. There are 12 million reasons to test for yourself.
US Personal Travelers
Slide 19 - Facebook
And then there’s the 30 million US personal travelers. Giddy up with your personal marketing wares!
Returned From Trip
Slide 20 - Facebook
Target FB users who returned from a trip one or two weeks ago. Use creativity to succeed with this zoomed-out audience, users recently affected (perhaps) by a travel experience. Latency of return is an interesting variable.
Timeshares
Slide 21 - Facebook
RCI is probably wondering what happens to users losing value in so many timeshare properties. Well, there’s a chunk of users here ripe for the poaching for sharing economy competitors like Airbnb.
Used Travel App
Slide 22 - Facebook
Target FB users who used a travel app one or two weeks ago. Use ingenuity marketing with this zoomed-out audience. Layer with other roots and qualifiers. Consider latency of app usage, an intriguing psychographic variable.
Facebook Purchase Behaviors
Slide 23 - Facebook
Useful buckets of FB travel affinities are filed under the purchase behavior top-level category. Think of the power! We know with certainty these targeting roots involve BUYING and MONEY. Obviously when root behaviors include money data, audiences have commercial (leads and sales) potential.
Travel Supplies
Slide 24 - Facebook
15 million FB users purchase travel supplies. Layered with other roots and qualifiers, marketers can easily zero in on which segments would purchase various travel supply subcategories.
Upscale Travel and Services
Slide 25 - Facebook
Cha-ching! Upscale means money may be less of a concern for FB users who want better and best. At 21 million people, the upscale travel and services audience is a pay dirt psychographic root!
Facebook Hobbies & Activities Travel Roots
Slide 26 - Facebook
A suite of large travel-related hobbies and activities roots mash in activity that FB users are inclined to DO. Think of the depth! FB knows these users are not only interested, but engaged. When root behaviors portend ACTION, audiences have a greater propensity to actually DO things. Some segments are so large, obviously many users overlap FB’s travel and purchase behaviors. Hobbies and activities roots provide an alternative psychographic lens on travel segmentation.
Adventure Travel
Slide 27 - Facebook
This 355-million-person army of potential adventurers is a stunner. From the Great Barrier Reef and rock climbing to Canadian fishing guides and parasailing, STRAP IN. Adventure is ingrained in these wayfarers’ algorithmic DNA. Adventure travel is a massive root on which multiple other roots and qualifiers can be layered whilst retaining scale.
Air Travel
Slide 28 - Facebook
The air travel hobbies and activities root is giant, likely containing FB’s 3 million frequent flyers. This audience is an awesome place to do major market branding, coordinated with other data and channels (TV, psychographic email, Google intenders, Twitter competitive air segments, etc.). Air travel is a groovy retargeting filter, given its scale. Use other data and channels as the first hop (top of funnel) to set the table for air travel retargeting. Use air travel top of funnel to begin layered persona construction (Top of funnel = hop 1, filtered retargeting/remarketing = hop 2).
Car Rentals
Slide 29 - Facebook
Car rental data in FB is SO useful as a retargeting filter for first-hop Twitter travel intender data. Two hops (top of funnel and filtered retargeting) allow marketers to concatenate destination market with car rental mojo. Â
Also, run geo-specific RLSA search campaigns second hop to FB car rentals audiences. Again, we combine destination prediction and geo searches.
Yep! BE a psychographic targeting layers ARTIST.
Beaches
Slide 30 - Facebook
Suntan lotion to sunglasses, all the world’s a beach. Again, the beaches audience is so massive it works as both top of funnel and a retargeting/remarketing filter.
Cruises (Interest)
Slide 31 - Facebook
Search interest for “cruise ships” has been on gradual decline over the past 5 years, even in light of seasonal trends. FB has data with which cruise purveyors can mass brand a rebound. Market to these users sorted by income, adventure and regional qualifiers. Also layer with air travel and/or adventure audiences for integrated air/cruise travel products.
Ecotourism
Slide 32 - Facebook
As in most other areas of human culture, meshing with our earthly environment is a large human driver. Mashup with recycling, wilderness, native and cultural qualifiers to form fabulously focused personas. Also, most any 280-million-person segment is good for filtered retargeting at scale. Â
Hotels
Slide 33 - Facebook
Hotels is one fat travel segment, at a girth of over 426 million FB users. Slice ‘em. dice ‘em. Mold this segment as a mass or uber-targeted multi-layer persona stack.
Lakes
Slide 34 - Facebook
254 million FB users have a sweet spot for lakes.
Mountains
Slide 35 - Facebook
This psychographic segment is magnificent, like a mountain, another massive view of travelers’ affinities.
Nature
Slide 36 - Facebook
Nature is the largest broad-view segment and a powerful root with which to target nature travelers.
Theme Parks
Slide 37 - Facebook
Market to mouse lovers and roller coaster junkies. The theme parks segment has so much data that adding more layers can target users at scale.
Tourism
Slide 38 - Facebook
Tourism is another audience that is generally interested in travel and just may be amenable to a destination suggestion. Layer with qualifying destination intent, one hop (top of funnel) or two (inter- and intra-filtered retargeting).
Vacations
Slide 39 - Facebook
Last, but not least, within hobbies and activities is the broad vacations targeting object. As always, layer and filter on the retargeting/remarketing hop.
Qualifier Layers Filter Personas
Slide 40 - Facebook
Secondary layers are called qualifiers. Facebook is the most versatile of the mainstream social channels, offering marketers four layers using the “AND” operator and one exclusion layer. Twitter is more rigid with a rather inflexible layering metaphor, which offers semi-useful “AND” layers plus exclusion (practical for clever marketers). Google provides interesting target layers, though difficult to use. Some DMPs holding boutique data partnerships provide cool layering (The Trade Desk, DoubleClick, BlueKai, etc.)
Facebook Layers
Slide 41 - Facebook
Let’s construct some personas using Facebook layers. Hey, we all love the Flaming Lips, right? Right! We’ll use FL because the audience is not as large as, say, the Rolling Stones. Sometimes layered inventory is more expensive. Yep! Layers usually sport a higher eCPC/eCPM; however, tipped with groovy vertical creative, high conversion can justify an investment in small segments.
Flaming Lips Lovers
Slide 42 - Facebook
Here’s your American Flaming Lips lovers. It’s a small segment. Let’s layer!
Flaming Lips Lovers + Income
Slide 43 - Facebook
These American FL lovers earn $100K+.
Film Festival Fans
Slide 44 - Facebook
Exclusion is powerful. Film festival marketers might not want to market to encumbered parents.
Snowboard Enthusiasts
Slide 45 - Facebook
Colorado-loving, high-earning snowboard enthusiasts are an interesting micro persona.
Creativity & Psychographic Qualifiers
Slide 46 - Facebook
In any psychographic targeting channel there is a cornucopia of qualifying interests as deep as your marketing wit. For travel qualifiers, think about signals ranging from travel magazines…
Opera Halls
Slide 47 - Facebook
…to international opera halls and artists.
Oktoberfest
Slide 48 - Facebook
Some beer-drinking, sausage-slamming va-va-VOOM! Filter psychographic roots down to YOUR right-size travel audience…
Relaxation
Slide 49 - Facebook
…or specific relaxation modes.
Red Light
Slide 50 - Facebook
Red Light peccadillo psychographic layers sure portend…cough…certain interests.
Yelp
Slide 51 - Facebook
Target all sorts of food affinities.
Orchestra
Slide 52 - Facebook
Coordinate layers with editorial calendars to capitalize on timed events, subcategories and other cultural signals.
Multi-Channel Psychographic Qualifiers
Slide 53 - Facebook
Multi-channel psychographic qualifiers are like #beautiful air shows. Give me my first cup of coffee in the morning, babe, and sky’s the LIMIT!
Twitter Travel Interests
Slide 54 - Twitter
Twitter is gorgeous and infuriating all at once. Twitter’s partnerships offer unique travel data objects, unavailable in other channels. Â
Twitter Layering Capabilities
Slide 55 - Twitter
The problem is Twitter does not offer much layering using the “AND” operator, save roots and qualifiers like handset and gender. Crafty marketers use Twitter’s exclusion layer to include qualities. For instance, a Twitter user who does NOT earn a range of income DOES earn whatever ranges were NOT excluded. That’s a handful, and it’s why accomplishing positive psychographic layers using exclusion is for crafty marketers. Â Â
Twitter Stock
Slide 56 - Twitter
Twitter’s smaller community size and arcane layering may be one reason Twitter stock is iffy…
Twitter Survival
Slide 57 - Twitter
…raising questions as to Twitter’s ultimate survival as a freestanding business. If Twitter sells to a larger channel that does allow layers, Twitter data could become more effective. Still, don’t be scared away by rants as to Twitter’s potential demise. Twitter is a delightful channel for creative psychographic targeting.
Travel News & General Info
Slide 58 - Twitter
This bucket is large for Twitter, as you’ll see. It’s Twitter’s version of lumping travelers together. It should be pretty obvious now Twitter is not nearly the targeting player as Facebook or Google. These numbers are small. Dramatically lower scale is because a) Facebook users outnumber Twitter’s at 1.79 billion to 317 million, and b) Twitter does not seem to have as sophisticated a social graph to categorize and subcategorize users.
Still, 2-4 million users is nothing to wave a stick at and these generalized psychographic targets are fertile for mass travel branding.
Adventure Travel
Slide 59 - Twitter
Audiences are smaller than FB. That’s fine. There’s little in the way of layers to diminish scale. Here’s the adventure travel crowd.
Africa
Slide 60 - Twitter
This African travel object, like a number of Twitter travel targeting objects, is a preset unique to Twitter. Small Twitter segments are cool because smaller audiences cost less to dominate. Google (therefore YouTube) does have intender data.
Air Travel
Slide 61 - Twitter
Air travel is a large part of the ubiquitous international air-travel-lovers segment.
Asia
Slide 62 - Twitter
Asia is another focused niche unique to Twitter preset data objects. We can hack Asia affinities in FB’s interest bucket, but there’s no FB preset. Google does have intender data.
Australia & New Zealand
Slide 63 - Twitter
Twitter’s a great channel for marketing to AU and NZ interests.
Bed and Breakfasts
Slide 64 - Twitter
Bed and breakfasts is a cozy little Twitter travel audience.
Business Travel
Slide 65 - Twitter
Business travel is a smaller audience in Twitter than in FB. Still, Twitter business travel users are in-channel. I’m one of those in-channel Twitter business travelers so you can target me.
Camping
Slide 66 - Twitter
Camping is another smallish, albeit potentially valuable, Twitter audience. It’s kind of a no-brainer to amplify your camping content to Twitter camping audiences for such a relatively small investment.
Caribbean
Slide 67 - Twitter
Remember all those FB beach lovers? These folks are likely overlaps with strong Caribbean travel psychographic traits.
Canada
Slide 68 - Twitter
These Twitter users may be scampering north after the latest American election. These community members have a predilection for getting north in North America.
Cruises
Slide 69 - Twitter
As expected, Twitter has its niche cruises psychographic audience.
Eastern Europe
Slide 70 - Twitter
Eastern Europe travel psychographics are substantial enough to register among Twitter’s psychographic targeting options.
Europe
Slide 71 - Twitter
Europe is a Twitter travel targeting option, but smaller for the explicit interest than some countries.
France
Slide 72 - Twitter
It’s interesting to note Twitter travel targeting for France alone is greater than Twitter’s social graph for Europe interests.
Greece
Slide 73 - Twitter
Greece Twitter targeting interests weigh in at a reasonably high number for Twitter.
Hawaii
Slide 74 - Twitter
Aloha to Twitter’s Hawaii travel segment.
Honeymoons & Getaways
Slide 75 - Twitter
Here’s a cute couple Twitter travel segment: Honeymoons and getaways.
Hotels
Slide 76 - Twitter
Again, a baby version of Facebook’s huge-ass hotels segment is represented in Twitter travel psychographics.
United Kingdom
Slide 77 - Twitter
UK Twitter travel interests.
Italy
Slide 78 - Twitter
Target Italy-traveling Twitter users.
Japan
Slide 79 - Twitter
Here’s Japan travel interests.
Las Vegas
Slide 80 - Twitter
Viva Las Vegas Twitter psychographic travel interests!
Regional Interest Psychographics
Slide 81 - Twitter
Bucketed together, here’s Twitter regional interest psychographics. There are some uses for this catchall segment, including generalized international travel products and services like insurance, luggage, aggregators, etc.
Luxury Travel
Slide 82 - Twitter
A palpable Twitter luxury travel segment can be an enticing target for publications such as Condé Nast to upper-crust business class services.
Mexico & Central America
Slide 83 - Twitter
Speak Spanish travel to Twitter Mexico and Central America travel interest segment users. This is truly a micro audience.
National Parks
Slide 84 - Twitter
National parks Twitter travel interests.
South America
Slide 85 - Twitter
South America Twitter travel interests.
Theme Parks
Slide 86 - Twitter
Put on your mouse ears and rock the dolphin show. Here are your theme park tweeple.
Traveling with Kids
Slide 87 - Twitter
Kids in tow, whilst traveling they tweet!
Destination + Travel Affinities
Slide 88 - Twitter
Somewhat larger audiences can be had by bucketing destination and various other travel affinities.
Airline Affinities
Slide 89 - Twitter
Twitter is unique among mainstream social channels for explicit, preset airline behavior targeting. Acxiom airline partner data is only available in Twitter among mainstream social channels. These segments are otherwise available via DMPs with Acxiom as a partner.
Business Travel
Slide 90 - Twitter
Twitter also partners with Datalogix to bring travel marketers a notable chunk of business traveler interests. This is another segment often accessed via DMP layers and specially available in Twitter at this time.
Frequent Flyers
Slide 91 - Twitter
Here’s more Datalogix psychographic travelers data objects. One happening feature of Datalogix in Twitter is occasional in-stream clarity as to data latency. Four years is a long time to track household tendencies.
Hotel Loyalty
Slide 92 - Twitter
Acxiom hotel brand affinity segments are unique to Twitter among mainstream social psychographic targeting. These audiences are money when used well. Target users other brands have cultivated.
More Travel Behaviors
Slide 93 - Twitter
Twitter is your best shot at Acxiom category and subcategory travel psychographics, from exotic and leisure cats to domestic and international subcats. Though small, these Acxiom and Datalogix segments transcend Twitter as a channel. These users just happen to be in Twitter for the sake of Twitter targeting. This is super duper data.
Travel & Entertainment
Slide 94 - Twitter
The Twitter category and subcategory Datalogix and Acxiom partner data party continues. Integrate these psychographic targets with deeper FB data (more layers) or broader, mass FB data plays.
In Market
Slide 95 - Twitter
“In-market” is not-so-secret code for shoppers. When a channel provides in-market targeting, that’s like shopping intent in a search keyword.
Travel Services
Slide 96 - Twitter
Specifically target Orbitz, Expedia, Kayak, Priceline and other Twitter travel bookers, likely online travel shoppers and category interests alike. Â Acxiom provides data which is highly useable for marketers.
Seasonal
Slide 97 - Twitter
Tax refund vacationers and road-trip families audiences surface seasonal travel psychographics.
Lifestyles
Slide 98 - Twitter
Larger Datalogix business and leisure travelers audiences round out Twitter psychographic travel object inventory.
Niche Twitter Profiles
Slide 99 - Twitter
Twitter does not have enough data or a platform to filter psychographic audiences as “AND” operator layers. That said, keep in mind targeting Twitter users who are like followers (probably include actual followers) of highly focused niche Twitter profiles.
Travel Publications
Slide 100 - Twitter
Players range from major publications on Twitter to various influencers.
Travel Psychographic Targeting Creativity
Slide 101 - Twitter
Psychographic targeting creativity is limited only by a marketer’s guile.
Google Affinities
Slide 102 - Google
Lots of social psychographic marketers don’t think about Google as a go-to channel. Great! More Google targeting for AIMCLEAR clients.
Like Facebook, Google affinity and in-market audiences can be layered, and with exclusions. Also similar to Facebook, remarketing (Google’s brand KW for retargeting within Google) can be filtered by more psychographic attributes (filtered display retargeting) or search (RLSA).
Affinities
Slide 103 - Google
From AdWords: Video campaign affinity audiences Google lets us target.
Google In-Market
Slide 104 - Google
From AdWords: Video campaign in-market data portends location intent, category and subcategory with colorful segmentation.
In-Market Travelers
Slide 105 - Google
Here are your air travelers by class, cruise aficionados and bus/rail travelers.
In-Market Car Rentals & Hotels
Slide 106 - Google
Target quirky (from a data perspective) psychographics like size of rental car and number of hotel stars.
In-Market - Asia-Pacific
Slide 107 - Google
From AdWords: Google’s in-market destination intent list is useful if these trip locations are what a marketer is selling. Here’s Asia-Pacific…
In-Market - Europe
Slide 108 - Google
In-Market - Latin America
Slide 109 - Google
In-Market - Middle East & Africa
Slide 110 - Google
…the Middle East and Africa…
In-Market - North America
Slide 111 - Google
YouTube Qualifiers
Slide 112 - Google
Google/YouTube qualifiers are so potent some can be considered psychographic roots…
YouTube Qualifiers Continued
Slide 113 - Google
…which provide marketers with unambiguous psychographic insights as to what makes audiences tick.
Creative Targeting Roots & Qualifiers
Slide 114 - Google
In any channel, let your jocularity follow creative targeting roots and qualifiers.
Boutique Data
Slide 115 - Boutique Data
Whereas Facebook, Twitter and Google (including YouTube) are easily accessible to nearly every marketer, boutique data via partnerships requires access to a DMP like BlueKai or DoubleClick. Data is typically more expensive via these less-mainstream channels. Many companies have built their own DMPs, entering into data-partner deals. AIMCLEAR will not maintain explicit coverage of all existing and emergent travel data partners. We will, as follows, whet your appetite with representative data and a pathway for researching if there’s special data for your specific marketing application.
Facebook and Twitter have data partners, including Acxiom and Datalogix. That said, FB’s so-called partner data does not include full libraries from each partner. Acxiom can unlock data in FB Ads accounts once a relationship is negotiated directly with Acxiom, say for psychographic email targeting. Â
DMPs & Data Partners
Slide 116 - Boutique Data
Oracle has been buying cool data partners for the last few years. Its Little Blue Book gives a fantastic overview and detail of niche data purveyors. Â
Little Blue Book
Slide 117 - Boutique Data
You can download the Little Blue Book for yourself.
Little Blue Book TOC
Slide 118 - Boutique Data
The table of contents is an education in boutique data partners, available in combination and layering capabilities via various DMPs.
Little Blue Book Info
Slide 119 - Boutique Data
The Little Blue Book shows each data provider’s focus areas, data sources, refresh rates, etc. Â
Destination Intent
Slide 120 - Boutique Data
Many a splendid data object is available for pushing ad units into web, mobile web and in-app. Boutique partners are particularly rich in destination intent. Â
Big Spenders
Slide 121 - Boutique Data
Layer big spending on any segment for additional persona clarity.
Hotels
Slide 122 - Boutique Data
These roots and qualifiers are partially available to Facebook interest bucket wildcard hackers. However, various data partners hold special segments unavailable in mainstream social targeting. Also, take note that sometimes multiple data partners have essentially the same data.
Hotels & Lodging
Slide 123 - Boutique Data
Additional travel personalities are revealed via niche data partners…
Hotel Enthusiast
Slide 124 - Boutique Data
…including cutthroat competitive segments. Bam!
Hilton
Slide 125 - Boutique Data
Major brand customers are sitting ducks…
Holiday Inn
Slide 126 - Boutique Data
…for shrewd competitive psychographic travel targeting.
Buying the Psychographic List
Slide 127 - Boutique Data
Finally, remember that anytime a marketer uses affinity, in-market, interests and other psychographic targeting objects, data can be captured by segmented cookies set on the destination page, be that content, landing page, etc. In Facebook and YouTube, build internal engagement lists of users who engage…even if they do NOT visit your website (engagement retargeting).
Either way, marketers essentially purchase data from the channel partner. Building segmented cookie pools of audiences is powerful, especially because:
- Inexpensive retargeting STILL has the original targeting — which was perhaps expensive — attached; therefore, we don’t need to pay a premium to the referring channel again.
- It’s easy to re-filter using next touch for cookied users with FB retargeting and/or Google remarketing.
Travel Marketing Psychographic Targeting Resource
Slide 128 - Boutique Data
Check back often as this toolkit of psychographic travel roots in Facebook, Google and Twitter is a maintained resource. Contact AIMCLEAR for support in filtering these audiences or do it yourself! Either way, HAPPY TARGETING!