Advertisers aren\u2019t feeling the direct blow of generative AI on traffic the way publishers are. But they see what\u2019s coming. Tripadvisor, for one, is already adjusting its strategy as the foundation of search starts to shift.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not going full Dotdash Meredith \u2013 the publisher has openly braced for a future without Google traffic \u2013 but a recalibration is clearly underway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGoogle\u2019s AI mode in search is going to eat large chunks of search,\u201d said Matthew Dacey, CMO at Tripadvisor. \u201cIt\u2019s going to happen fast as they [Google] push it and more people subsequently adopt it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far that change hasn\u2019t landed with full force on the travel firm. According to Statisita, monthly visits hovered between 146 million and 169 million in early 2023. By February 2025, that number had dropped to around 120 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yes, some of that dip chimes with the rollout of AI Overviews \u2013 Google\u2019s move to surface answers directly in search results. But the story behind Tripadvisor\u2019s traffic shift is bigger than any one feature. In fact, it\u2019s part of a longer arc: the way people find information is changing. Tripadvisor, like everyone else, is learning how to meet them there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Dacey, that starts with repositioning Tripadvisor not just as a utility but as a daily habit \u2013 something people turn to regularly, whether they\u2019re browsing, planning or already en route to a holiday. Less search, more morning ritual.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Delivering on that vision comes down to three things: improving the app experience, refreshing the membership program and moving Tripadvisor higher up the funnel \u2013 turning the service into a starting point, not just a step along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If it works, the hope is that it will drive more logged-in behavior, particularly on the app.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now we have over 100 million active member accounts but not many of them are using the app,\u201d said Dacey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where AI comes in. Tripadvisor is building features to anticipate what travelers need before they ask, using the details they share when they begin planning or booking a trip. With that context, the app can push personalized recommendations at just the right moment.<\/p>\n
Or as Dacey put it:\u00a0 \u201cAll of our push notifications that go out can be those questions that travellers might be asking and served to them using AI based on the user-generated content on our site. It\u2019s contextual information for exactly what\u2019s on someone\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
A new brand campaign is meant to help land that message. Launching this month, it will mark Tripadvisor\u2019s 25th anniversary while cementing the brand as a direct planning destination \u2013 not just a Google link to the results.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I\u2019d describe what we\u2019re doing is two things: how do we try and be more direct with people and then on the other hand it\u2019s about how we show up where people actually are,\u201d he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of those places is Perplexity. Tripadvisor\u2019s partnership with the AI search startup, announced earlier this year, lets Perplexity tap into behavioral and preference data that traditional search engines typically can\u2019t access. In return, Tripadvisor\u2019s curated hotel lists appear within Perplexity\u2019s summaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Six months in, Dacey said the results are promising \u2013 though he didn\u2019t share details. Tripadvisor has said the deal is bringing in more high-intent users, particularly those ready to book.<\/p>\n
Eventually, this partnership will expand to include restaurants and experiences. The playbook: generate revenue, drive qualified traffic and carve out a presence in AI-powered discovery environments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat tends to work in these environments is longer queries so we\u2019re in a good position at Tripadvisor because longer queries for specific use cases will always find their way to interesting content,\u201d said Dacey. \u201cThe question for us then is how do we get credit for that and how we translate that influence into something tangible on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n
That optimism points to a larger dynamic. Brands like Tripadvisor may be better positioned than publishers in the AI era. For one, they\u2019re not monetizing pageviews the same way. They can afford to lose some traffic without losing revenue. And unlike publishers, they can shift ad dollars \u2013 moving spend into performance or partnership to make up for what\u2019s lost in search.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say CMOs like Dacey aren\u2019t concerned. They are. But they also have more options.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, advertisers are going to feel second-order effects of traffic from search going down like CPCs going up but it\u2019s not comparable to publishers who view that traffic as their lifeblood,\u201d said Tim Hussain, co-founder of AI consulting firm Signal42. \u201cA CMO can always reallocate that money into other channels and escape it \u2013 well to a point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advertisers aren\u2019t feeling the direct blow of generative AI on traffic the way publishers are. But they see…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,4360,24808,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-28925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-preview","11":"tag-revolutionbrandmarketingcontentful","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114776089752138229","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}