Since the rollout of Instant Connect last year, the majority of vendors on the platform have migrated to accepting leads in real-time based on targeting criteria reducing their time-to-followup and cutting their CPL in half.  With vendors now migrated to the Instant Connect system, we've had several requests for the ability to automatically decline leads that don't match your criteria which is why today we're rolling out the new Auto-Decline feature.  Here's how it works:

1. Enable Instant Connect in a category and set your targeting criteria
2. Scroll to the bottom of the settings 
3. Select 'yes' if you would like to automatically decline leads that do not match your targeting criteria. 

A couple things to note:

1. Once you enable auto-decline, you'll no longer get notifications about leads that don't match your lead targeting criteria
2. Once you decline a lead you won't be able to go back and change your mind (so make sure to only auto-decline segments that you absolutely cannot service)

Several clients have requested updates to the room count ranges for leads and we have adjusted them as follows.  Please check your Instant Connect settings to ensure that you are accepting leads in your desired ranges.

Auto-reload is a feature that automatically tops up your lead credit balance when it drops too low to make sure you don't miss leads that fit your criteria due to insufficient balance.

While auto-reload is an optional feature, if you choose not to enable it you do so knowing that it comes with the following risks: 

1. Extra work and monitoring: Your team will need to manually monitor your balance closely on a daily basis to make sure you have sufficient to accept incoming leads
2. You may miss leads: If a lead comes in that fits your Instant Connect criteria but your account has insufficient balance, you will miss the lead even if you have Instant Connect enabled for that segment.

Historically the way HTR has been structured is that in order to become discoverable in a category and generate leads, you needed to have a product listing/dedicated profile in that category.  If the product could be purchased as a standalone product then you would list is as such, and if it was a module/add-on for another core product--then you would list it as an add-on profile.

The problem with this is that in many cases it doesn't make sense to have to create (and manage) an entirely new profile for add-ons since in reality, many times these are just modules with premium capabilities and functionality of another core product suite.

That's why as of next month, HTR will be transitioning from add-ons -> Modules, here's how it works...

UPDATE: This change went live on May 6, 2022 Learn more

If you currently have add-on profiles your reviews will be migrated to the core product and your modules will be created automatically so there is nothing that you need to do, it will all be handled for you.

The new sub-category pages signal a shift in perspective where there is no longer an emphasis on a 'one size fits all' approach.

Instead the UX of the site is built around buyer persona segmentation and filtering tools to help buyers find the best fit for them based on their property/ies characteristics including: hotel size, property type, location and even PMS.

By putting the power in the hands of users to find their perfect fit based on data in the platform with similar property characteristics to theirs, there is no longer an attempt to make a one size fits all recommendations and as such--the default sort is no longer entirely rankings based (until a user applies their property attribute filters) and now serves as a way for Premium Members to gain added visibility on the site.

The default sort gives all members (any plan/tier) preferred placement and boosted visibility via the default sort and then sorts by HT Score.  

These new placements in the default sort are just one more way, beyond the already existing boosted visibility placements, to give members even more visibility and benefits to drive more leads.

Members will also now receive preferred priority visibility via collections product tiles in organic content produced by HTR (or guest posts submitted by our contributor network) that relate to your category or categories to drive you even more visibility in high intent content to make sure that your brand and products surface as many times as possible throughout the buying journey for your related topics and categories on the site.  View example contributor post with related member inclusion.

Special Thank You to Premium Members

By supporting the HTR platform as members you share in our vision and enable us to continue to develop educational content, tools and campaigns that strive towards our mission of empowering hoteliers to leverage their greatest asset, technology.  Together we help raise awareness that great technology is essential to staying competitive and running a modern hospitality business.  

While we are a community and an industry organization of sorts, we are also a marketing platform and place strong emphasis on performance and value for our members which is why membership is priced to ensure that if our members get even just a single lead each year that they wouldn't have otherwise, it will not only justify their investment but it will guarantee a positive ROI with additional leads, awareness and benefits all generating exponential ROI making sure that HTR is your marketing team's best investment.

With this change, users still have the opportunity to sort and filter by key attributes including the HT Score--but this default sort aims to add even more value and visibility for members at no additional cost to generate an even stronger ROI out of your membership.

Loving partner recommendations and showing love to your top partners on HTR? Ever wish there was a way for your top partners to promote you to their customers and vice versa? Well...now you can! Introducing the all new Favorite Partners Feature.

How it Works

1. Step 1: Favorite up to 5 of your top integration partners
2. Step 2: Upload a quick pitch about why you recommend their product and specifically why its a great fit for users of your product
3. Step 3: They'll get notified when you favorite them and you'll get notified if they favorite you back
4. Step 4: 24-hours after one of the partners who have favorited you leaves a review, a notification will go out recommending you as a popular product that is recommended for their company's users

Two Important Things to Keep in Mind

• Default favorites.  Until you customize your favorites for each of your products, by default favorites will be generated based on your verified integration partners.
• Favorites by product.  Each one of your products has its own favorites so make sure to customize relevant favorites for each product
• Multi-product reviews.  If a user leaves a review about multiple of your products, the favorites email logic will select only one of those products to send the favorites email about (so the user doesn't receive multiple duplicative emails)

One of the additions to the New Lead Inbox is additional data fields that were commonly requested by vendors.  The following fields have been added to the CRM Forwarding feature so if you have Lead Followup Automation setup (highly recommended) then make sure to add these new fields to your parser to make sure they get mapped into your CRM and other tools.

1. PMS data
2. Phone #
3. Multi-property intel
4. Estimated deal size

* Please note that while recommended, this is optional and your integration will continue to work regardless of whether you add these new fields or not.

Introducing, the all new redesigned lead inbox with a new clean design, enriched leads, premium member discounts, deal size calculations, a customizable metrics calculator and more.

1. Redesigned and simplified inbox design
2. Enriched lead details (phone number, PMS data, multi-prop)
3. Dynamically calculate lead deal size calculations and company metrics like ROI and estimated revenue based on your company's internal metrics
4. Premium Members now get 50% off all leads
5. Added targeting to reveal lead PMS data prior to accepting

1. Redesigned and simplified inbox design

2. Enriched lead details with phone number, PMS and multi-property

Please note that if you have CRM forwarding turned on it will continue to work with the new form fields.  If you have Zapier followup automation setup to map fields and automate followup, you can now add the new fields to your integration.

3. Deal sizes and customizable metrics calculator

Dynamically calculate lead deal size calculations and company metrics like ROI and estimated revenue based on your company's internal metrics.  Learn more about how lead metrics and calculations work

4. Member discount increased from 30%-->50%

The 20% increases nearly doubles the previous discount amount available to members of 30% and is included for all members (on any plan) and doesn't require any plan upgrades or increases 🙌

5. Added targeting to reveal lead PMS data prior to accepting