OTA Availability NOW Impacting 3-Pack and Local

As of the beginning of April 2016, Google is now looking at your OTA (Online Travel Agency) availability to help determine the 3-Pack, Local and Maps placement. 

Click here to read the full article.  This is a new placement signal, in additional to all the other 200+ signals that Google uses to determine where to list your business in their search results.  This new change is having a huge impact on Inns that used to be listed in the 3-Pack and no longer are because they don’t participate in an OTA and their competitors do.

If you want to learn more about what this means to your business, we invite you to Join Acorn University and plan to attend this very important webinar on Tuesday, May 10th.  

Need more information?  Contact Annie@acorn-is.com with questions or if you wish to become an Acorn University student.  Private consultations are available upon request at our normal billing rates.

Note: MarketWatch clients will be learning more about this new change in your next MarketWatch report / review meeting.

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TripAdvisor Announcement

On March 16, 2016 TripAdvisor changed over their website presence from http:// to https:// 

For those inns that participate (IE: Pay) for a business listing, I do hope you have upgraded your Google Analytics to be able to track bookings from this paid listing.  

As of March 16th, you need to be aware that your tracking has probably disappeared.  You will need to make a change in your TA account for the tracking to continue.  

Click here to read the full article, or you may contact MarkHall@acorn-is.com to update your TA Account for you. 

And remember, when you get your renewal phone call from TripAdvisor, where the rep says they are going to raise your business listing rates by XX%, if you don’t have any of your own booking data from your business listing in your Google Analytics account, such as seen below, you are going to have a really hard time justifying the increase or negotiating it down.

If you don't have this type of Revenue data in your Google Analytics,
continue reading the next section below, to learn how to get it.

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Booking Tracking - It’s NOT about Traffic Anymore!

With the most recent changes in OTAs (Online Travel Agents) impacting Local Placement, and TripAdvisor’s updates to their tracking data, it’s imperative that you have your Google Analytics upgraded to the latest version of Universal Analytics, including E-Commerce tracking. 

Without this data you have NO IDEA where your bookings are coming from.  You must have this data to make the right marketing renewal decisions, and for a valid reference should you wish to negotiate any increases you feel are unfair. 

If you haven’t read our latest article on Traffic vs. Bookings, I encourage you to do so, and then contact Markhall@acorn-is.com to get upgraded. 

Finally, though we have thoroughly tested, and proven that the following companies do support the new Universal Analytics with E-Commerce Tracking, Webervations currently does not support the E-Commerce tracking piece. 

• Rezovations
• Think Reservations
• RezNexus

I know we have many Innkeepers still using Webervations, who don’t want to change companies, so I’ve personally reached out to Adam Strickland, Lead Support Specialist at Webervations, and we have started a petition to have this feature prioritized. 

If you use Webervations, I encourage you to Click Here to support getting E-Commerce tracking added to their legacy Webervations system so you can KNOW the last place your guest was before they came to your site and clicked on Webervations and made a booking.

Click Here to Sign the Webervations Online Petition

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Calling all our Acorn IS Select Registry Members

With the most recent changes in Google’s Universal Analytics and E-Commerce Revenue Tracking that now allow you to easily monitor your actual bookings, we recognize that our Select Registry Members have specific needs when it comes to tracking your revenue booked online. 

Select Registry (SR) not only provides a SR Website and Blog for online referrals, but they also publish a high-end print guidebook that SR Inn goers are given.  

We are currently in the planning stages of developing a SR Member Inn Town Hall Webinar to be held in the next month or two.  In advance of the webinar we will sending out a link for our SR Members to complete a quick survey, so we can better assist you in your specialized revenue tracking needs and requirements.

We welcome and encourage your participation and feedback!

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Inn2WitCartoons (A Bit of Wit for Innkeepers)

Are you receiving our Weekly Hump Day cartoons? Here is a bit of background on this new inventive way to help Innkeepers "keep up" with one marketing task each week. These cartoons are designed to create awareness on one marketing topic each week, through a bit of humor. If you are not automatically receiving our weekly cartoons, and you would like to, please email Annie@acorn-is.com and request you be added to the mailing list.

Finally, if you belong to a Regional or State membership groups, and want to share any of these cartoons with your members, please do! Just include a “Inn2Wit cartoons created by Acorn Internet Services, Inc.” tag line and link back to www.acorn-is.com

Click Here to check out all the Inn2WitCartoons

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Latest Acorn IS Blog Posts

Want to Automatically Receive our Blog Posts? Click Here

OTA Availability NOW Impacting Google’s 3-Pack and Local Listings
Posted on April 24, 2016 [Read]

Alert: TripAdvisor Business Listing Clients
Posted on April 20, 2016 [Read]

Responsive Design is Google’s recommended design pattern.

Don't know what Responsive is? Watch this video.

If you have been considering a new site, it's past time to move to a Responsive design! Click here to learn more about our Responsive Web Design options.