The founders of Airbnb set out to make easy travel accommodations a reality. Their site is a community marketplace for people to post, browse, and book unique accommodations around the world. To acquire customers, Airbnb needed to reach and educate users about how the service worked on a global scale. Working with Google, Airbnb used visual Google display ad formats to showcase their unique rental accommodations. Plus, Google's targeting technologies placed Airbnb ads in front of the right consumers around the world.
Approach
Remarketing with compelling Google display ads
Use striking images of actual rental accommodations to bring them to life
Use TrueView ads on YouTube to educate users about Airbnb's unique service
Goals
Acquire customers for Airbnb's unique online marketplace
Attract, engage, and inspire an audience beyond budget travelers
Increase awareness about Airbnb amongst consumers in target cities and countries
Results
In one year, the website increased the number of nights booked from 800,000 to 2 million
Google Display Network and TrueView video ads helped fuel Airbnb's rapid global growth
We find that pictures of properties sell properties - the Google Display Network allows us to put forth these incredible photos and that's why GDN has been so successful for us.
- Nathan Blecharczyk, CTO & Co-Founder, Airbnb
