Skift Take
The Priceline Group continues to put up strong growth numbers despite its large size. Its massive advertising budget combined with improving conversion and growing inventory position the company to take further share of online and offline bookings.
The Priceline Group’s fourth quarter and full-year 2016 financial results were excellent across the board and that's why the stock is up six percent to an all-time high as of this writing.
We looked at five key metrics that shed light on the trends at the company. These include revenue, online advertising expense, operating margin, gross bookings, and total properties.
Online Advertising Expense Continues to Outpace Revenue Growth
Digital advertising, and Google specifically, has been a headwind for the travel industry. For more on this trend, please see our Research Report that launched this week.
For Priceline, performance advertising includes search engine keyword purchases (mostly Google), referrals from metasearch and travel research websites, affiliate programs, and banner, pop-up and other Internet and mobile advertisements. Brand advertising primarily is fr
