How Tripadvisor Is Turning Creators Into a Travel Search Engine w/ Kristin Tormey

0:00Being able to break through means really taking the time to understand who your audience is, who you're talking to, what niche communities they're a part of, what their affinities are, what they really love to do on their free time, and then aligning yourself with those goals but not losing your brain in the process.

0:19Hey, Kristin, welcome to the show. How are you? Happy to be here. Long-time listener, first-time caller. love it today we you know we discuss about what is going on right with uh you know gen z millennials in terms of how they search things when it comes to travels and you know how things are changing and so i'm very curious right it's it's a it's a topic that i that i care about it's travel itself it's something that i you know love as as a thing so i'm very curious uh you know to learn more about that today before we get started though christian we always ask our guests to present themselves.

0:53And we do, you know, in a way that is called the map, basically it's divided in three main areas, right? So the mission, what do you aim to achieve with your work? Achievements, anything that you are very proud could be your life, your job or both. And the last one is the purpose. So in addition to the mission, right, that is what do you aim to achieve? The purpose is why do you do what you do? Cool. Love it. So I am the head of paid media over at TripAdvisor Groups that oversees paid media, social strategy, affiliate influencers, content partnerships for both TripAdvisor and Vider as brands. And prior to coming to TripAdvisor Group, I was at Wendy's for eight years.

1:27So kind of looking at the collective of my full career, I have always been at these kind of challenger brands. And I don't know if it's that I am a little sister and that challenger mentality is kind of ingrained in my DNA, but I love being at a brand who maybe doesn't have the competitive spend that some of the other big guys have or the ability to be on those big stages, but it is almost a forcing function for us to consistently be as innovative as possible. So bringing our partners to the table with that, bringing our internal agencies to the table with that. I think just kind of looking at the collective of my career, being where we are today at TripAdvisor, at Viator, and looking at Wendy's have always been in a space where we've really been able to kind of challenge the status quo and what our expectations have been of our brands within the marketplace, which has been super exciting.

2:12Very nice. Amazing. And, you know, I don't know if there's anything else that you want to add in terms of, you know, either like anything that you work on lately that you are proud of, something like that for you is a case study, something that you want to share with us? Yeah, totally. I think knowing, here we are talking about creators today, being able to kind of see where the creator economy has evolved from the beginning of the career to now, it just consistently evolves alongside the consumer. So being at TripAdvisor, which is inherently more of a search brand, a search platform, when you think about trip planning, being able to partner with creators to get that immersive content out into the space, into certain social platforms, search platforms.

2:52The way that consumers evaluate travel these days and just in general is they want to be able to be immersed in what they're really purchasing. When they go to Rome in the summer, what is a restaurant like? What is a nightlife like? What are people wearing? What are they talking about? And through the way that the creator economy and search together have kind of converged, it gives brands a really nice opportunity to be able to consistently meet the consumer where they are, which we're super excited about at TripAdvisor. You know, let's get into that, right? Because I've been myself an SEO expert for many, many years.

3:23I do not understand the importance of SEO. And it's very interesting, right, how it changed in the past years. Going from merely like a keyboard-based type of search that sometimes was not really giving you what you were looking for. And also the customization, right, that sometimes you need. As you said, maybe you're going to go to another city. some will do for the food scene. Some others will do for where should I buy my clothes? What are those non-touristic experiences that I should know about, right? And so these days, we're seeing, especially younger generation, they go on social media and they look for this thing, right?

3:59Like, so what to do, you know, for the weekend in New York City and yada, yada. So first of all, like, tell me a bit more how, you know, this type of search is changing and how TripAdvisor is adapting, right? Again, going from this typical keyword base to more experiential and tailored on a need of a traveler or even someone that is in their own city that want to look for something special to do. Yeah. So at the TripAdvisor group, we have over 400 ,000 bookable experiences across Vieter and TripAdvisor. So when you think about that, you think about content. It isn't necessarily a tangible good.

4:35So when we're talking about how to get that experience and the knowledge of that experience, the awareness of it out into the marketplace, creators in different capacities have been super helpful in order to partner with and to get that to the consumer. So we look at affiliate creators. Right now, we're working very closely with TikTok on an initiative called TikTok Go, where we're able to partner with them through an affiliate network and to get our experiences out into a space where it adds value to the consumer experience. When you think about social in general, media consumption, man, it is super congested for any brand to be able to break through.

5:06But then taking that into account, being able to have that kind of thumb stopping power, have a consumer actually engage in it when they're in a mindset of unplugging is super challenging. So we've leveraged our partnerships with creators from an affiliate perspective to be able to kind of provide that more immersive content on the ground. What is that wine tour like in Napa? Here's how I experienced while you're on TikTok, being able to kind of swipe up, book that experience right within the platform is really meeting the consumer where they are. And then we think more broadly about creators and more education about our brands.

5:37It isn't so much that direct one-to-one search, but all these things in totality come together to be able to show our consumer who we are today. When you think about TripAdvisor, you know, yeah, it advises you on your trips. But did you know that you could book over 400 ,000 experiences, things to do in cities that you're going to? Maybe not. So how do we get that to the consumer? One, it's through education on some of those more turnkey opportunities like affiliate influencers, but two, it's more of those kind of broader social creator partnerships that really allow the consumer to see one, the value of the product that we bring to the table, but two, who our brand is and what we're about.

6:10So looking at kind of how we've partnered across the board, different capacities through each and not everything is the same when we think about creators. I think we've come to a really interesting space within the creator marketplace where it isn't so much of send the brief out, do the work, post the post, there it's done. It really is more of a brand collaboration and creators have turned into brands themselves, which is a totally different way of approaching the market. And we're going to go in all these, right, about the collaboration in a second. I would love to hear a bit more about how do you balance.

6:42Like on the podcast, we talk many times about how do you balance, you know, brand guidelines and living the freedom, right, of the tone of voice and so on. So I would love to get in there. You mentioned TikTok, right? I do remember when that was announced. and I do remember that when I was personally looking at, you know, Do You In, right, they did Chinese TikTok. They, for many years already, right, they deployed this way for local businesses to show menu, opening hours, reviews, right? Something that is working very well in China and Indonesia and a few other, you know, Asian countries. While in the US, I noticed that it's taken a bit more, right, for this implementation.

7:19Why do you think that is the case? Like, I think that it's very useful, right, for people to have everything in one place, but I noticed that it's taken a bit more in the US. So I'm curious based on your experience, like what is working and what do you think that maybe the US is missing in terms of geolocation? And then if you, of course, have any other information about also like Europe and other areas, that would be great. But I'm still finding that there are a bit of manual actions of people to do that could be easily integrated. So I'm just curious about your experience so far with that. No, it's a great plush.

7:49I think really it probably mostly depends on where the audience is and their behaviors. If you think about the US audience where we've gotten to with more of those CPG brands, being able to access something like a TikTok shop or some of those less so tangible goods are a little bit, they're starting to be more in the mindset of the consumer of, oh, I see this person in this space and maybe I can click on it and maybe I can book it, book that exact same experience that they had booked themselves on Fyodor. But I don't know if that's something that was as quickly adopted as it was in Asian markets.

8:17But now that it's definitely coming here kind of full throttle into the US market, which is super exciting. I mean, right now we're partnering with TikTok, but there are other brands that are also exploring it that we're looking into. So I think across the board, just being able to, you talked a little bit about search and how we've started to evolve that. And before it was, all right, so a little bit more of an analog experience. What would I do in this space? Let me read through all the details. And now it truly is, let me see what it's like. And if I like it, and if I'm going to do it myself.

8:43And I think that's really how the user has, because we have so much video content that we're consuming every day, our mindset is just completely shifted. We're kind of in this space as a society where we want to be unplugged. There's cottage core, there's analog core, but we film it. So we still have this like appetite for community to be able to see it. You see so much content of people on a rainy day sitting next to a window reading a book, but they filmed the whole thing. And there's something about community there that that seems like it's still that through line. So when we think about creators for travel, it's kind of similar.

9:14You're unplugging when you're traveling, but you still want to share what you've done. And so when we think about a TikTok go, that's a really good opportunity to say, when I was in this space, I did this experience. I booked it on Viator. Viator is the first experience partner to launch with TikTok Ghost. That was a really cool opportunity to be able to see the audience start to move in that direction. And we're still building, still working through that. But it's been really exciting, I think, to your point on kind of different marketplaces and how they've reacted to different things and when they have that appetite for the product.

9:44It does feel like it's starting to really come into the US space now, whereas to your point, more in Asia previously, where we really saw that kind of skyrocket in that market too. And, you know, still on the searches, right, I'm also very curious to understand how are you currently analyzing things, right? Because when it comes to SEO and keyword based, I don't want to say that it's easy, but it's easier in terms that you can use search console, right, from Google, Google Analytics and similar, where you see all the keywords, all the queries, right, that actually brought to the website, you can kind of group them by keywords, you can understand in terms of, you know, where are in this sales cycle, right?

10:18Are they just looking for something? Are they comparing prices and so on? and that is again a lot of can happen especially when you have like i'm pretty sure like millions of users and and and tens of thousands different keywords but it's somehow again you know keyword based text based when it comes to the new way of searching right that sometimes it's audio search sometimes it's ai so meaning that i go to chat gpt cloud you name it and i say do for me like create a itinerary for me and so on how are you currently looking at all these and kind of remove the noise and understanding what people are really looking for, because there is so much happening.

10:53So I'm curious how you do that. No, it's a great point. It's interesting because we've also evolved from a space maybe five, 10 years ago, where we looked at platforms like TikTok, Meta, Google as kind of this tool, this partner in trafficking our message to the consumer. Where now they're more kind of one-to-one with us where time spent is what we're up against across the board. Everyone wants the most time spent on their platform because high level that feels like, okay if somebody's spending as much time as possible on a meta platform on tiktok that means they trust our brand and they're probably more likely to convert because we have that trust so that has been where trip advisor and byter have also been i think just brand agnostic industry agnostic where a lot of brands have been in the past is how do we have that kind of share of time across the board and how do we keep the consumer within our platform for as long as possible so that's one thing is our competitive landscape has totally shifted so your point on the noise, we're all looking for as much time spent with the consumer as possible to in order for them to convert.

11:52So that's where you see opportunities like TikTok go come up and other opportunities across the board where it feels more. OK, so how do we keep that time spent here, but also still drive that conversion? I think when we're looking to our partners and we're looking to go to market, our biggest touchstones are really how do we provide value? How do we meet the consumer where they are in their mindset? And how do you get your team's heads out of the boardroom. How do you think about the traveler, the travelers who we need to think about most, it really should be 100 % of our focus. Because if we're trying to solve things for inside of our four walls, we'll start to lose the traveler and you'll kind of feel that latitude between you and them.

12:28So I think just it sounds easy and it sounds like more of a soft skill, but to implement that every single day of, okay, well, is what we're doing driving value for the traveler? Is it meeting them where they are in their mindset? Because to that point, search has evolved so much, the way the consumers view whether or not they're going to book something, they want to be immersed. They want to see what that experience is like. They want to see what people are talking about, what they're wearing, how they're going shopping for wherever they're going. It kind of becomes more of a chain reaction after they're able to start to get bought into, oh yeah, I do want to have this water skiing experience in Lake Como and here's how I can book it.

13:04So all of that to say there's so much noise. And as long as brands can kind of keep to those three touchstones of that value, being able to really understand what we're up against in the marketplace, that's how we really start to break through. Hey, if your brand is ready to grow, we are here to help. At the Influencer Marketing Factory, we run full-service influencer campaigns that actually move the needle. We handle everything, creator identification, campaign strategy, contract, shipping, logistics, you name it. We have supported brands of every size, from world-recognized Fortune 500 companies to ambitious DTC startups.

13:38And with our in-depth ROI tracking, you always know what's working and why. Just visit the influencermicronifactory.com to learn more and get started. And, you know, you said even before we were talking about filming great experiences and going to the public and saying like, this was my experience. You know, you can book it here and so on and so on. Big part of that is, you know, storytelling, of course, and also shareability. do you think that is changing these days or the or the basics and the foundations of both storytelling and shareability online are because you know there are trends right that come and go but i'm curious if you're saying is there anything that is impacting in a in a in a great way how people talk about their experience how they share online or do you think that it's kind of it's staying the same and then it's more about you know the second phase that is okay i heard about your story and now it's about the conversion part that you were saying before right yeah Yeah, no, it's so interesting because it is definitely much more difficult to break through nowadays.

14:38When I was at Wendy's at the beginning of my career, what, eight or so, 10 years ago, breaking through with a voice that had a distinct tonality and a distinct character that no one else had done yet was a little bit easier once we were able to establish that voice. Because then people started to know us for who we were. They had an expectation for who our brand was. Wendy truly was and is the creator and the influencer. And how she shows up is one to one. one of one. And now that brands have really started to kind of find more of a tonality, find more of a voice, put their community management at the focal point of how they're showing up, it becomes more difficult to try to differentiate yourself across the board.

15:15So I think as we're looking at now and that storytelling element is really rooting ourselves in the audience. So last year, we did a lot of work on the TripAdvisor side to be able to say, who is our audience and who is our growth audience? So who do we work with today that knows us super well and uses leverages us for reviews, trip planning tools within our AI trip planner on TripAdvisor, or is able to book experiences in hotels through the site, they know all those things. They know all of that value. Where a younger generation might not know all of that value. They might look at us as, oh yeah, they advise you on your trips, but I could probably find it on TikTok.

15:47So we have to kind of start to think through, all right, so what do we know about these audiences? We think about someone who loves to travel. It's not a monolith. A lot of people like to travel, but they're also interested in a lot of other things. I think over the last few years, we saw people booking travel for concerts, experiences. It's really that experience led trip enthusiast that we're looking at. But then there's also things within the US within their current environment that they might be able to book on those platforms. So when we think about it, being able to break through means really taking the time to understand who your audience is, who you're talking to, what thing, what niche communities they're a part of, of what their affinities are, what they really love to do on their free time, and then aligning yourself with those goals, but not losing your brain in the process.

16:30We've done a lot of that work on TripAdvisor within the last year. And last year, we were named one of the top 10 brands resonating with Gen Z, where two years prior, we were named one of the top 10 brands resonating with Boomers, both super important audiences to us. But to be able to say, man, we've just spanned across multiple generations for one brand and had to kind of redefine ourselves to a younger audience while still keeping that value with a different audience, that's really how we're able to continue to be rooted within who our brand is, who our audience is. That's how we've been able to break through.

16:58And there's more to come. We're definitely in the beginning of our journey with that. But I think building that momentum and seeing those wins for the team has been confidence building and helps us continue to push our brands forward. So I'm very curious, you know, because you mentioned something important. You said not lose your brand, right? Because we noticed this, right? There are certain brands out there, companies that to, I say this all the time, to win over a new segment, they change their identity, maybe for one week to go viral, you know, on TikTok or whatever. And then they lose their identity.

17:27They confuse their base customers that maybe are the one giving the money just again, to win over and to, you know, win to a new type of segment that might not be actually there. So how do you, again, not lose that? And secondly, you said that you were able to, again, travelers can be anyone, right? Young people, older people, someone that goes for a specific thing and then they, let's say, they go to a place for a concert and then because they're going there, they expand and they go for something else. Others instead are saying, I'm going to go there and once I'm there, I'm going to find, you know, on TripAdvisor things that I can do while I'm there.

18:01So there is a lot, right? So can you tell me a bit more like, again, how do you really don't lose your brand identity and how can you still segment people understanding exactly what to give them without confusing someone that is maybe a boomer and someone that is like a teenager with different type of messaging? And how can you really convey that to, again, some different type of people out there? Yeah, personalization is key. So partnering with our CRM partners for those audiences, once we kind of know a little bit more about them, how do we continue to dig in deeper and give them more content or relevant opportunities for them to be able to book with us as they travel?

18:35I think across all of TripAdvisor and Viter, as we're thinking about how we go to market, it, we still, it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier, we still have to be rooted in who our brands are, how we don't lose sight of those things. A lot of it is patience, which is definitely hard. I think for any of us marketers where we're up against these goals that hit weekly, monthly, quarterly, what did, what did everyone do for me lately? Kind of vibe. Are the dollars that we're spending in the marketplace, are they returning to us a hundred percent or more ROAS? So when we're thinking about that, being able to kind of do a little bit of both, have a portfolio of what are some things that we know are meeting the consumer already at that bottom of the funnel experience.

19:12So you mentioned at the top of the conversation, a little bit of some more of those price comparison platforms. How are we leveraging those? How is that fitting within our media mix? And then as we look to creators, how are they helping us with our storytelling? How are we aligning not just travel creators? Yes, we absolutely love the travel creator, but how do we align with other creators across the board who want to also experience things that might be in the city that they live in, but it also might be in cities that they're traveling to. And so how do we help enable that? So I think it's, again, like such a soft skill, but being able to really remain rooted and remind yourself and your team every single day of like, well, what are we really here to do for the consumer?

19:49Yes, there's a ton of noise surrounding all of us of what does that return on investment look like? Where is our spend? How are we making sure that we're actually hitting those goals for the year that Wall Street has for us? Yes, super important, but then how are we then alongside that building that relationship with those consumers? And that a lot of that is the creative work and the partners that we have both internally and agency side who help us keep that consumer in mind of, all right, so the older generation might be here, whereas millennials, Gen X, Gen Z, Gen Z is still viewed as like such a young generation, but they make up more than 30 % of the workforce.

20:24And Gen Alpha is hot on the heels of being able to have buying power in this industry. So how do we not lose sight of that as well? And travelers truly could be of any age. A lot of people travel and a lot of people want to try experiences in cities that they're in. So how do we continue to meet them there? It's really just not losing sight of those core values in our core brand as we continue to push stuff forward because when brands start to lose who they are in search of clout or in search of a short fleeting moment, those short fleeting moments are, they've never been shorter. And they live in niche communities across platforms that you might see them and you might not.

20:59And that might be a win for a brand in a day, but it also might've been a win for a minute. And then the next one, you're up against it. So it's very getting caught in that virality, need for virality. I mean, coming from Wendy's, man, I felt that. And being able to not lose sight of who your brand is throughout it, that's the only way you're able to kind of continue to survive. And because of that, right? So trying to fight back this constant, being on the treadmill of the next trend, the next virality, right? I've been talking with other brands, both here on the podcast and also privately. But they're telling me how they're trying to move away from this one-off collaboration that are very transactional to more of, like when they get a day, what were the ambassadors, right?

21:39You work with them for at least one year. You do have a plan. There is not just a one-off activation. It goes throughout the year, maybe with some seasonality here and there, of course, depending on the locations and so on. But I wanted to ask you, are you going towards also that type of direction where you try to identify those that are extremely like, you know, a good fit with your brand and you prefer to continue working with them? Or do you, are you still on more on the one-off? Is it a mix? I'm hearing a lot of different things these days. It's absolutely a mix. I would say right now where we've been, we've, last year we've created, we kind of fostered these relationships with a few different creators.

22:16So Taryn and Tiffany is a duo that we absolutely love to work with. They went to Paris, they've done some events or activations for us within New York. Chris and Nala. So Chris and his dog Nala, they travel a ton and we've partnered with them multiple times. But I think the benefit of having kind of that ambassador community within the mix of your creator strategy is that those creators as a brand get to know your brand and you get to know theirs. So it becomes even easier as you move things forward. And that's also for even bigger kind of higher talent relationships. We worked with Demi Lovato multiple times last year on the TripAdvisor side and being able to have those kind of longer term relationships just allows you to go to market together in a much more seamless way.

22:57So that's definitely part of our mix. But then again, we have we take we've been partnering with TikTok on their CCAS program. So creator content at scale, familiar with that. So that's one two words. How do we make sure that whatever is in our brief really shares a little bit about our brand, not just, hey, we have this experience, go do it and post it. That's not it. Like it has to be a little bit more of the introspective work of who is our brand? Are you interested in aligning with us as a brand yourself? And then how would you want to take that to market? And we also want to make sure we want to align with you as well.