Expedia Inc
spent a record $5.3 billion on marketing in 2017 - a figure that seemingly troubled investors amid its
full year financial results last week
.
The outlay equates to more than half of the entire group's revenue (52.7%) and is a jump of 21% on its marketing spend in 2016 ($4.4 billion).
The last time marketing was more than half of total income was in 2015, when a $3.4 billion spend figure accounted for a 50.7% share.
A point to note: rival online travel giant
Priceline Group
has so far spent around $4 billion on sales and marketing (up to September 2017), so it and Expedia Inc are on-track to exceed a combined $10.5 billion+ over the course of 2017.
Expedia says its sales and marketing efforts increased again due to playing in "higher cost channels" as it looks to expand further globally. HomeAway, in particular, increased its marketing spend in the last quarter of 2017 and is heading deeper into the performance marketing world alongside its traditional brand activity.
Chief financial officer, Alan Pickerill, speaking on the investor call last week, says: "As we invest aggressively in supply, we also expect to utilize higher cost performance-based channels to drive demand across our global growth brands causing sales and marketing expense to grow faster than revenue."
No let up on spend
The company says it will continue to spend heavily in marketing, with CEO Mark Okerstrom claiming that its global ambitions require substantial investment to attract new customers.
Still, he adds: "When we launch in new markets, for example, we're starting from scratch in a way in the sense that we don't have repeat customers. We don't have brand recognition in those countries.
"And so, we have to make investments to get traffic in the store to please those customers to getting - get them coming back to us. And over time, the goal obviously is to build a repeat customer base, so that that particular point of sale can start to see at least better overall efficiencies, if not, leverage."
The continued use of marketing dollars to get customers in the front door across its portfolio of brands does appear to have eased the concerns of analysts, with some questioning why there are "no positive results" on the investment.
In a note on SeekingAlpha
, Gary Alexander highlights how marketing investment now often won't be realised for another two or three quarters.
He adds: "So it may be the case that Expedia's above-expected marketing expenses borne this quarter will correspondingly produce above-expected bookings and revenue growth in Q2 or Q3 of this year.
"But without solid evidence to back this claim, investors have to take management's word on faith - which is something the market doesn't have too much of right now."