Learn how to maximize your online presence
Richard Bexon of Investing Costa Rica dissects the topics of Costa Rica’s ever expanding hospitality and tourism industry, real-estate, and online advertising, with a veteran of web advertising in the tourism sector of Costa Rica–yours truly, Jelena Radic of K Lab Digital.
Understanding the Costa Rican Market
Costa Rica, known for its stunning landscapes and warm hospitality, presents a unique set of opportunities and challenges for advertisers. The demand for travel to Costa Rica is on a steady rise, with a noticeable year-over-year increase, signaling a robust market for investors and businesses.
Q: Markets had a good comeback in late 2023 and Real Estate seems to either have flat-lined or declined in most areas of the world. How is online demand looking this year compared to last?
If we are talking about the travel industry specifically, the demand in Costa Rica is still high. December – January this year has surpassed demand from the last peak season by 15%- 20% on average.
80% of demand comes from North America, where users from US are dominating search trends, and are followed by Canada, and UK.
Destination trends are very interesting, search terms that had almost no visibility several years ago have gained 75% YoY growth, and continue an upward trend:
Competition is strong, and getting stronger every day as hotels and rental management companies are getting more savvy on using advertising tools.
On the side of the advertising industry, it’s a fast-paced environment that introduces new technologies every year, so keeping up with these changes is a challenge for someone that doesn’t have a dedicated resource. More specifically Google is still trying to catch up with new privacy laws, and resolve appropriate user tracking. And backbone of the underlying technology for over a decade was tracking users with cookies, and that technology is ‘going away’.
At the same time, they are trying to incorporate trends like ML and AI into their advertising platform and the biggest challenge here is to educate the business owners on how to appropriately do that.
Q: Where do you find most people waste money in online advertising?
Running campaigns without having proper conversion setup. With the current Machine Learning (ML) and automation that advertising platforms have, this feedback loop is extremely important. Campaigns have a ‘learning’ period where it’s important that they get information about which users are submitting inquiries/booking your services. If this setup doesn’t exist or it has false data, the campaign struggles to deliver quality traffic.
Knowing your audience, and then properly setting up targeting of your audience is another one where a lot of budget can be wasted if this is not dialed in correctly.
Website/Landing pages that are not optimized, or other parts of the sales funnel that have technical issues can have a big impact and have the business bleed money in unexpected places. (Consistent QA helps ID these spots, especially if there are changes made to the website).
Q: What should people understand about online advertising in Costa Rica’s hospitality and tourism sectors?
Average internet user in this age and time is much more educated about Costa Rica and its destinations than four, five years ago. Big OTAs have done a lot of leg work, starting in 2018, when even smaller properties started signing up with Booking or Expedia and getting visibility on these travel search (instant booking) engines. OTAs also helped users understand Costa Rica better, its destinations, or specific brands, and pricing became more transparent.
Now, there is a big shift in volume of keywords that used to be considered niche and they have thousands of monthly searches. Being present on OTA platform has its own set of headaches (cancellation policies are big one for the hosts) as well as disputes, but it IS easy for the non-technical people to set it up. And while it may look like a lot less headache at first, long term being visible on third-party booking platforms only limits your brand.
Building your site with a good content (read good SEO strategy) will help you long term establish your brand outside of these platforms, on SERPs, and complemented with advertising on search engines and social media at the same time helps you with building brand awareness and trust.
Q: What is a decent budget to have an impact on Google Ads vs Facebook?
When talking about a search platform like Google, it depends a little bit on the business industry and your competition, as eventually you do bid against the others for a limited amount of searches and space on the front page. There are other strategies you can use where a small budget can make an impact, but you do have to have good tracking for it to work. Social media platforms are a bit easier and can handle any type of budget, but you need to dial in your targeting go after your specific audience, otherwise you’re potentially wasting money there as well.
Q: How does advertising on Facebook differ from Google Ads? Which one is better?
They do slightly different things so they can be used to compliment each other. Either can be better or worse, depending on how you use or misuse them.
Google Ads is placing your ads directly above ‘organic results’ of a relevant user query, by matching keywords from your campaign to the search terms users input in Google search tool. Competition plays a strong role here, as you do need to outbid others if the phrase is relevant to you business. In 2024, organic search results for competitive keywords barely make it above the fold (if at all). Ads now look exactly the same as organic results, with the exception of a tiny label in gray letters “sponsored”, whereas five or ten years ago, ads were visually much more distinct.
There are other campaign models Google provides (display, video, shopping), but their bread and butter has always been the search engine and keyword model.
On the other hand, Facebook is geared toward audience and data mining of their habits, which got both platforms in trouble several times, but for now the platform offer
When you work with a new client, what steps do you go through?
Onboarding process, where I try to learn as much as possible about their business and what’s important to them, and I analyze how much presence they have in the online space. From there, I ask to do an audit of the current setup. I always find some opportunities to improve their funnel or tracking during th eaudit. Different businesses have different needs, and for me it’s important to have a person inside the business that I can work with and agree on the short term goals, discuss mid-term and long-term goals, and build a backlog and timeline for strategies and tactics we agreed to work on and deploy.
Q: What services do you offer, and what type of clients are you looking for?
Website setup, SEO, paid advertising, via PPC or paid social. The type of client that listens to my recommendations and feedback, and basically trusts me to manage his business online in whatever capacity we agreed on.
Q: Many of our listeners are investing in vacation rentals, hotels, etc. What pieces of advice would you give them when it comes to marketing a property?
If you have no experience in marketing, and are just starting–if you have time to do it yourself–just follow your gut. In general terms, learn who your ideal guest is (where is your property located, what kind of crowd that location caters to in general, and then more specifically what kind of property it is) and craft all your marketing materials catering to them. Word of mouth is the best way to advertise your business long-term, and that means that your clients need to have great/impeccable service. Your best bet is to focus on that 80% of the time, and do anything else 20%.
In terms of learning different platforms, do what is most comfortable to you at first (like social media, or OTAs), until you learn the ropes, and then expand to the other platforms.
If you do have a budget for advertising, first setup your tracking, double and triple check the funnel, then start spending the money. Obviously, if you have a budget for advertising, leave some room for having it managed by a specialist.
Tips for Growing Your Online Presence
Understanding Your Audience
Understanding your audience and the market dynamics is number one thing to address when you’re starting to develop online presence.
☑ The single main goal of any type of marketing is to become the first brand the prospect recalls when they get into the buying mode.
☑ Most efforts should go into marketing to prospects who are not in the buying mode (which is 95% of the market).
☑ Understanding the customer is the holy grail of marketing and it’s also a journey that never ends.
Online advertising, when done correctly, can significantly boost business visibility and customer engagement. Whereas inadequate tracking setups can lead to ineffective campaigns and wasted budgets.
Leverage SEO and PPC for Long-Term Success
The complementary nature of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is something you should try to maximize when planning your marketing efforts. While PPC offers immediate visibility, SEO builds a lasting foundation for organic traffic. A balanced approach, focusing on both immediate impact and long-term visibility, is key to a successful online presence.
Use Retargeting and Audience Engagement
Retargeting emerges as a crucial strategy, allowing businesses to remain top-of-mind for potential customers who are not yet ready to make a purchase. This approach, along with engaging content and consistent communication, helps build trust and brand recognition over time.
Interested in learning more about online advertising in Costa Rica’s hospitality?
For those interested in exploring investment opportunities or seeking guidance on property investments in Costa Rica, reach out to Richard Bexon or start by subscribing to his podcast which is a great online resource for informed decision-making. And if you need help with online presence of your brand, you can get in touch here .