In addition to the core placements for each of the PPC auctions, top bidders will now get an additional boost to performance via additional placements to feature your brand and product and drive even more impressions, clicks and leads to the top bidders in each respective auction.

• Home Page + Newsletter Auction performance boosters 👉 Branded banner + newsletter logo sponsor
• Department Auction performance boosters:  👉 Nav bar and related articles, categories and profiles
• Category Auctions performance boosters 👉 Related comparisons, alternatives, articles and profiles

Today we rolled out a full redesign of the UI and functionality of the software recommendations quiz giving it not only an entirely new look and feel but it now fully integrates AI to help hoteliers save time and make better decisions.

✨ New AI Features

• AI Powered Fit Score: The quiz is now powered by the same AI Fit score algorithm as the Tech Stack Audit tool analyzing millions of data points in seconds to determine each product's fit for a specific hotel.
• AI Content Summarization: AI scans, analyzes and summarizes thousands of reviews, expert recommendations and content to serve up summaries for hoteliers with snippets, citations and sentiment analysis serving as the ultimate tech tools research assistant. 
• AI Topic & Sentiment Analysis: Drill deeper into each recommendation with topic and sentiment analysis to find out what real users from the leading hotel companies mention most about each recommendation while also being able to make more accurate comparisons between products along key buying criteria including: functionality, integrations, support, value/ROI and ease of use.

Today we rolled out a native app in the Zapier App Store to make it easier and more reliable to sync data from leads you generate and accept via the HTR Lead Inbox directly into your own tools.

Check out the tutorial

How it Works

1. In your dashboard go to Leads > CRM Forwarding
2. Click the activate button on the Zapier tile
3. Accept invitation to the private Zapier app 

That's it! You can now integrate any of your tools with one click!

Popular Automation Use Cases

Once you activate the Zapier integration, you can setup any automations you want. Some popular ones include:

• 💌 CRM. Add leads as contacts and create an opportunity

• 🎯 Lead Nurturing. Add leads to an MQL nurture sequence

• 📈 Reporting. Add lead details to a Google Sheet

• 🔔 Notifications. Send a Slack message to your team for new leads

One of the most common requests that we've received from clients since launching the live PPC Auction is the ability to get a forecast of potential clicks and coaching tips to maximize click volumes so we've been hard at working building just that and are excited to roll out the new missed clicks forecast.  Click here to learn how to use the missed clicks forecast to optimize your ppc campaigns

We're excited to announce a new way to generate even more visibility and leads via HotelTechReport through the all new, live PPC Auction 🚀.  The live PPC Auction will be available in select categories at launch and will open up a scalable new ad format to drive clicks to your website in autopilot.

Learn more

As we all know, there is no one best overall solution for all hotels in any category but rather there are better solutions (and worse solutions) for each individual hotel based on key attributes and buyer preferences.  

For this reason, HTR has been taking steps to continuously serve personalized results to users beginning with segment based rankings and Site Personalization is the next step in the evolution of providing a personalized buyer experience to each user as they browse the site based on attributes like their hotel size, location, PMS and more.

TL;DR

• HTR automatically identifies each hotelier's location based on IP address and stores this info via the new personalization settings which can be found on each category page (see below)
• Hoteliers can then add to their personalization settings additional info like their property size and PMS to further personalize their results
• Each hotelier's personalization attributes get saved and not only do the recommendations on the page they're on get personalized--but these settings get stored globally site wide so anywhere the user goes on the site they will automatically have results personalized to them
• Vendors can generate more (and better fit) leads by (a) improving segment based rankings and (b) configuring Lead Targeting settings (aka. Tell the HTR App what types of leads are best fit for you that you want to connect with)

Issues We Heard From Hoteliers

1. "It's tedious to continue applying the same filters on each new page"
2. "The default recommendations show vendors that sometimes don't even service my region"
3. "I reached out to a vendor that for a price quote or demo but they told me they don't service my region"

Issues We Heard From Vendors

1. "We're getting leads from regions that we don't service.  We don't want to ignore these requests but we also don't want to accept them because we don't service the region"

How This Feature Solves These Problems

The default sort is now set to personalization so that results show more relevant matches for users which not only takes segment based reputation into account but it also prioritizes vendors who are actively connecting with similar hotels  to improve the hotelier experience by reducing no response rates by increasing the probability that hoteliers reach out to vendors who are actively connecting with hotels in their region.

Tip to Generate More Leads from Your Target Segments

When you are logged into your vendor account you can now see your Lead Targeting Settings on category pages, make sure your Lead Targeting Settings match the types of leads that you want to connect with to generate more (and better fit) leads.

Since HTR launched the lead program back in 2019 we've heard one question time and time again which is, why are all leads priced the same? Today we're excited to announce that the lead program is moving to a demand based pricing model.

What is Demand Based Pricing?

Demand based pricing is a strategy where prices for products or services are adjusted in real-time based on various factors such as demand, availability, and market conditions. This model allows for more flexibility and responsiveness, ensuring that vendors have access to the most competitive pricing at any given moment.

How Does it Work?

With the new demand based pricing model, the cost of leads will be determined based on demand. For example, a 500+ room opportunity in the United States may cost more than a similar opportunity in India (assuming that there is higher demand for opportunities in the United States).  Lead pricing will gradually evolve over time to better fit market demand and reach equilibrium pricing where leads from segments that are less in demand will decrease in price and leads from segments in high demand will increase.

Access Real-Time Pricing

Vendors can access real-time pricing information directly from their vendor dashboard. This allows for greater transparency and enables vendors to make informed decisions about which leads to pursue based on demand and market pricing.

Stability and Predictability

To ensure stability and predictability, lead pricing is capped so that it will not change by more than 5% week over week for each segment. This constraint helps ensure pricing transparency as well as prevent rapid fluctuations in pricing giving vendors time to adjust their strategies to find the most cost-effective market segments based on real-time market conditions.

Benefits of Demand Based Pricing

• Competitive Pricing: Vendors can take advantage of real-time pricing to secure leads at the most competitive rates.  Low demand segments will get leads at large discounts encouraging more vendors to connect with these hotel tech buyers and improve the marketplace experience.
• Flexibility: The demand based pricing model allows for greater flexibility, enabling vendors to adapt to changing market conditions.
• Transparency: Vendors have access to real-time pricing information, promoting transparency and trust in the lead procurement process.
• Stability: With pricing changes limited to 5% week over week, vendors can expect a level of stability and predictability in lead pricing.

Conclusion

The shift to a demand based pricing model will enhance the overall experience for vendors over time by makings leads in low demand segments more accessible via decreased pricing and leads in high demand segments more accurately aligned to lead value.  This will in turn improve marketplace dynamics by encouraging more connections to hotel tech buyers that may be neglected in the market in a flat priced world. If you have any questions or need assistance navigating the new pricing model, please don't hesitate to reach out.

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.