Celebrating our partner: Blastness

Joining the Microsoft Advertising Partner Program comes with many benefits, including recognition for your hard work and achievements. The Microsoft Advertising Partner Celebration is a bi-annual event that highlights the exceptional and innovative work of our partners. This event is open to all enrolled Partner tier members worldwide and presents them with three awards. Participate in the next round of the Microsoft Advertising Partner Celebration from April 1 – 30, 2024!

This half, we received some remarkable nominations from our global partner community. We are thrilled to announce the winners below!

We had the opportunity to speak with Matteo Pagni (Web Advertising Manager), Giorgio Agamben (Web Advertising Analyst), Rocco Aceti (Web Advertising Coordinator), Alberto Palumbo (Web Advertising Specialist), Gianmarco Graziani (Business Intelligence Analyst), and Martina Cipollaro De L’Ero (Web Advertising Support) of the Blastness tea

About Blastness

Blastness was established in 2004 in Italy at the dawn of the digitization of the tourism market and the development of online sales for hotel rooms. We are a one-stop shop for technologies and services aimed at online distribution and revenue management in the hotel industry.

Today, the team is made up of over 150 professionals and the customer base has more than 1,000 independent accommodation facilities including 3, 4 and 5-star hotels. Among many others, the most challenging goal is now internationalization: we have started the process in the UK and in the USA with the aim of becoming a global player and establishing ourselves as a reference point in the digital hotel market.

Their mission and vision

The mission is found in the company name, deriving from blending the ancient Greek “blastos” (to grow, to make grow) and “business”.

We want to help independent hotels maximize their margins. How? By selling rooms directly on official websites (and here’s where advertising comes in handy) at the best possible price, optimizing ocupancy and revenue.

We don't want to be a cost to our customer or just a technology provider, but a partner that helps them improve profits and is paid back with just a small part of their increased revenue. That’s why we develop a tailor-made growth plan for each hotel and provide all the tools necessary to achieve the result.

Success with Microsoft Advertising

Blastness is the Italian leader of web advertising for independent hotels with a history dating back to 2015.

No client’s hotel has an online presence that lacks a proper advertising strategy on Microsoft Advertising. Reaching the relevant share of Internet users who rely on Bing and the Microsoft Network in their daily life is crucial and serves our client with a truly global selling capability. Microsoft Advertising is without doubt one of the main pillars of our advertising activities.

Favorite tools and features

Blastness had an ambitious goal. We’ve wanted all our clients to be visible on the Microsoft Advertising Network, 24/7, in every country. With our money. Blastness works with a commission model risk-free for hotels, where clients get invoiced only for a share of the tracked conversion value. No setup fees, no advertising budget potentially lost, no headaches.

To reach such a bold goal, we've developed a proprietary algorithm for campaigns' management that ran via Microsoft Advertising scripts. With the help of this greatly performing tool, we've been able to dramatically increase the performance of our campaigns and the direct sales of the hotels we advertise for. The continuous search for excellence and the amazing results leads us to integrate such scripts into our proprietary global advertising platform and Bid Management System. Using API connectivity, we can now achieve even brighter results through better integration, faster evolution and more reliable data.

The granularity of our tool and the increasing selling capability of the Microsoft platform itself allowed us to serve our clients with a top-level service, driving a constantly increasing share of the total advertising conversion value.

Biggest win

In the exponentially growing market of direct hotel sales via digital advertising activities, Microsoft platform has shown a faster pace among all players and its share is the most growing among search advertising channels in 2023.

Now every single one of our clients, thanks to our approach and to the extent of the Microsoft Advertising Network, has gained access to a wider audience of potential customers, with a constantly increasing revenue YoY.

In the last 3 years, Blastness growing trend on Microsoft Advertising is in the double digits for every single KPI and during 2023 our Client Center recorded an overall increase of 39% of the total revenue compared to 2022.

Looking ahead

Lodging Campaigns are the next thing we’re looking at. The fast-pacing development of a new way of searching for and booking hotel rooms makes lodging campaigns a must-have for all independent hotels.

We’ve started testing lodging campaigns in March 2023 and the hundred hotels in the project are currently showing the trend we were expecting. The yearly overall ROAS is outstanding, demonstrating once again how the Microsoft platform is not only a market where a retailer needs to be present, but also a well-worth activity!

Making a difference

Our web marketing department is deeply committed to making a tangible impact on the community. Here’s how we’re making a difference:

• Boosting local tourism: By developing targeted marketing campaigns, we highlight the unique attributes of our community's hotels, attractions, and events, significantly boosting local tourism and economic growth.
• Sustainability initiatives: We collaborate with eco-friendly hotels to promote sustainable tourism practices. Our campaigns focus on minimizing environmental impact, attracting a growing segment of eco-conscious travelers, and raising awareness about sustainable choices.
• Educational workshops: We offer digital marketing workshops for small hotel owners, teaching them effective online marketing strategies to compete in the global market. These initiatives empower local businesses and foster a more vibrant, competitive hospitality sector.
• Supporting local causes: Each year, we dedicate a portion of our services pro bono to promote charitable events and causes, helping to raise awareness and funds for local nonprofits that make our community a better place.

Innovative ideas

Innovation is at the heart of our approach to web marketing for hotels. Here are some of the cutting-edge projects we are working on and experimenting with for the development of our new products and services:

• AI-Driven personalization: Our team is analyzing large amounts of data about user behavior to create personalized marketing messages and offers for hotel guests.
• Automated content creation: We're experimenting with GenAI for content creation to produce high-quality text and images for hotel marketing at scale. This technology can help maintain a consistent online presence for our customers, increasing user engagement and direct bookings.
• Predictive analytics: Using GenAI for data analytics, we can predict tourism trends and guest preferences, proactively adapting our marketing strategies. We believe this vision can give our customers a competitive advantage by allowing them to customize their offerings to meet evolving market demands.
• Creative campaigns: GenAI can assist in both brainstorming and delivering innovative marketing campaigns. By analyzing successful trends and generating new ideas, we can develop extraordinary creativity that both captures the imagination of potential guests and differentiates our hotel customers in a crowded market.
• Improved customer service: We have long been exploring and analyzing GenAI-powered chatbots on hotel websites to provide immediate 24/7 customer service. These AI assistants can manage reservations, answer questions, and offer personalized recommendations, improving the customer experience and operational efficiency.

Microsoft Advertising appreciation

In the past 2 years we’ve been helped by Will Bromage, who approached us in WTM London and introduced us to the mighty Cristiano Ventura. Visiting him and Gagan Chopra in your offices in Bellevue was exciting and it fueled our commitment to be increasingly involved with Microsoft Advertising.

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Find more information at https://microsoftadvertising.com/msftadspartnercelebration or by reaching out to partnerwithmsftads@microsoft.com.

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