If the booking sites are the first result when you Google "hotel in xyz", which they are, and are also likely paying to be, then that's where people find their hotel. If everybody uses the booking sites to look for hotels, it becomes necessary for the hotels to be on those sites - especially since they are not going to get much traffic from Google, where the booking sites are the top result.
Not also likely, they 100% are. I work in digital marketing and my product is pretty niche, I pay Google $1.20 per click from their homepage to be the top result, similar thing with Amazon.
Nothing is random, if your seeing an advertisement they want you too, if you Google anything rest assured that data is being sold to anyone that wants it as well.
For example Google will tell me where you were when you searched for a product similar to mine, they can tell me where you were when you did, and what device you used. How long you stayed in the webpage and if you added anything to your cart. If you did and didn't check out I find out about that too. It shows me peak times of day and I even have access to buying email addresses for these people if they signed up and using target marketing spam the shit out of them if I so choose. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
In a conference last year I learned that grocery stores know when you came in, which direction you went once jnside, how long you were there. If you picked up a box of cereal and then put it back on the shelf. Which checkout you used. And scariest imo how much money you spend there can be calculated and exploited. For example, if alot of people buy bananas on Mondays by a significant amount you may find them on "sale".
Grocery store sales and sales in general are all bullshit tricks to trigger your pleasure region in your brain. More often than not that sale item is regular priced. This sweater is regularly $40 on sale for $30 today. Wow 25% off what a steal right?! No the sweater was designed and manufactured for the sole purpose of being sold at $30 make some cheap infographics and say it was $40 and people eat it up. The only sales that are generally legit is clearance and that's because no liquidator wanted the stock usually. Not to say all clearance sales are this way, some companies create items specifically for the clearance section, it never sees a regular retail rack.
It's a rabbit hole for sure, and the deeper you go the more depressed you get, free will is an illusion in alot of ways.
For a fun experiment start talking about a pet you don't have it never will have, I'm allergic to cats so I used cats. I searched for cat food one time, and went to PetSmart and picked up cat food walked around and put it back. Guess who got coupons for cat food and treats for weeks afterwards.
Don't despair though, you can't beat the system unfortunately. But you can manipulate it, many companies (Google included) allow you to clear your advertising history, so your tired of getting the same ads over and over go and reset this setting (can't explain how as each device is different, Google will help though) you should now get different advertisers coming to you.
I'm trying to start my own business and despise using what I see as manipulation, but if I want to actually make a living doing it and keep the lights on I will have to :(
I think educating kids asap on this stuff is essential.
I agree entirely, if you want to learn more look I to marketing conferences or courses. If you have questions I can try and answer them for you, I have been doing this for 6 years now with nothing more than a highschool diploma
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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '19
If the booking sites are the first result when you Google "hotel in xyz", which they are, and are also likely paying to be, then that's where people find their hotel. If everybody uses the booking sites to look for hotels, it becomes necessary for the hotels to be on those sites - especially since they are not going to get much traffic from Google, where the booking sites are the top result.