Beginning December 1, 2025 HTR will be migrating the Legacy Static Site Takeover format to the New Dynamic Auction Format.  

Comparison of Old vs New Site Takeover Formats

	OLD FORMAT	NEW FORMAT
Ad placement	Exit intent modal (site wide)	Exit intent modal (site wide)
Ad format	Static. Pre-reserve exclusive placement for static 2-week intervals 4-6 months in advance (example)	Dynamic. Bid for placement in the real time PPC auction  (examples)
Example
# of Advertisers	1x advertiser	3 advertisers
Ad type	Promote a piece of content (ebook or webinar)	Promote a product
Pricing	$4,000 per 2-week interval	Real time PPC auction starting @ $6/click
Availability	Reserve 4-6 months in advance	Activate in real time

What challenges does the new auction format solve?

1. Performance based: The old static format was priced based on 2-week reservations which meant one advertiser could pay the same fee who achieved 2x the results and vice versa (since it was a static fee per period).  The new PPC auction ad format changes this entirely by making the ads entirely performance based so you don't pay for impressions or visibility but instead you pay for results (aka interested hoteliers clicking through).
2. Higher intent: The old format promoted content vs the new format promotes products which means the clicks are higher intent clicks (aka more valuable clicks)
3. Full automated process: The old format required companies to submit a piece of content to promote, after which HTR would produce a campaign and send a draft to go through revisions which added work for clients.  The new format promotes products which we already has all of the content you need which eliminates the need for back and forth, campaign production or revisions and means you can set campaigns live instantly with zero effort required.
4. Last minute inventory: Since the old static site takeover had fixed reservations and was limited to a single advertiser, it meant that in order to reserve a campaign you had to purchase and reserve it 4-6 months ahead of time.  Now with the new format, advertisers can activate a campaign in real time via the PPC dashboard and start generating clicks. 
5. More opportunities for advertisers: Since the old static format could only promote a single piece of content with fixed 2-week reservations, it meant there were less than two dozen slots for advertisers many of which got reserved by a single advertiser.  
6. Market based pricing: Compared to the previously static priced legacy site takeover ad campaigns reserved in 2-week increments, the new live auction format unlocks real time pricing based on supply and demand in the market in real time.

What if my company has already reserved a legacy static Site Takeover for after the December 1st migration to the new format? 

For companies who have reserved static/exclusive site takeover campaigns starting December 1, 2025 these campaigns will be converted into PPC credits for you to utilize in the live auction at the dollar value of the legacy site takeover campaigns ($4k per 2-week campaign interval).  Our team will be reaching out to all companies with existing reservations to notify you about the change and confirm that the equivalent credits have been added to your account so that you can utilize them to run Site Takeover Campaigns via the new live auction format.

This month we rolled out updates that enable you to promote more than just point solutions via the PPC auction.  

TL;DR: Department Auction Updates

• Platform vs Point Solution.  You can now toggle on Platform Promotion in the department auctions to advertise your full suite of products across department pages—perfect for vendors offering an integrated tech stack.
• New Featured Products Accordion.  Department auctions now have a new featured products accordion placement to highlight the top 6 bidders in the auction.
• Top Bidder Visibility. The top bidder in each department auction now gets enhanced visibility with an expanded state that shows large product imagery, product capabilities and more to drive even more visibility, brand awareness, clicks and performance.

In addition to these department auction updates, the Newsletter Auction now has its own tab in the PPC dashboard to make it easier to find and manage your newsletter campaigns.

Ever wish it was easier to monitor how your PPC campaigns are pacing relative to your target budget?

The new budget pacer will monitor and forecast your month end spend pace and compare it to your budget.

• Pacing behind? The Budget Utilization Alert will appear to let you know that your campaign is forecasted to under deliver (ie. based on current bids you won't be able to deploy your full budget)
• Pacing ahead? The Low Budget Alert will appear to give you a forecast of what you'd need to increase your monthly budget to in order to prevent your budget from running out mid-month and your campaigns getting disabled

Budget pacing alerts instantly do the math on the fly for you so you can just monitor your dashboard to quickly check in on how your campaigns are pacing relative to your budget and gives you actionable tips of how to optimize your bids and budget to generate the most amount of clicks and leads.

Since launching the new dynamic PPC auction for the Home Page + Newsletter placement (Jan '25 Update) , we have had lots of vendors inquiring about just advertising in one or the other.  

As such, we have decided to split these into two distinct auctions allowing advertisers to be able to bid on each separately.

If you had an active bid in the Home Page + Newsletter auction your settings (bid amount and tracking link) have been applied across both of the new auctions to ensure that you continue generating visibility across each.

In addition to splitting out the auctions to make each available individually for enhanced targeting, the Weekly Newsletter is now available for fixed price sponsorships.  Single sends and discounted 4x packs are available which you can learn more about below.

Learn more:

👉 Home Page Auction

👉 Weekly Newsletter Auction

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

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Today we rolled out a redesigned home screen to enable you to get a more holistic view of the opportunities to drive more visibility and leads on your account.

What's New?

1. Membership Status: See your current membership status and what tiers are available to upgrade your presence
   
2. Account Health Meter: Keep a pulse on your overall account health and drill down into detail to see a prioritized list of the most important things you can do to drive more visibility, leads and ROI
3. PPC Tracker: Monitor your PPC campaign performance with day-by-day click volume metrics and a trailing 30d click counter
4. Campaign Launcher: Get an overview of the campaign formats that are available to launch to HTR's audience and drill down into sample campaigns and live availability

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