ioh webinar sept 2014 complete for pdf

Increasing Direct Bookings Tips & Best Practices Sept 16th 2014

Frank Reeves Founder, CEO

@AvvioTweets

About Us

+£10m p/m Hotel Direct Bookings

11 years In Partnership

Our Mandate:

DELIVER GROWTH IN DIRECT BOOKINGS FOR CLIENTS

350 Live Clients (UK, IRL)

Who do we work with?

The rising costs of customer acquisition

‘Since 2009, customer acquisition costs, i.e., all

sales, marketing and distribution, have outpaced

hotel revenue growth’

Hospitality Asset Managers Association, August 2014

The rising costs of customer acquisition

•  Distribution costs have risen twice as quickly as hotel revenue.

•  If current trends are maintained, the hotel industry is severely

exposed if (or when) volumes slow down – so action needs to be taken

now to reduce distribution costs.

•  Brands more reliant on commissionable/third-party bookings will

struggle for profitability.

•  Funds should be spent on enhancing the direct brand.

How?

Agenda

Part 1 Growing Direct Business

Traffic

Website

Booking Engine

Part 2 The Changing Landscape

Mobile

Payments

Part 3 Tips, Takeaways, Q&A

Part 1

Growing Direct Business

@AvvioTweets

Direct Business

£

Traffic

Website Booking Engine

Direct Business

£

Traffic

Website Booking Engine

Traffic

What are the primary sources of traffic for hotels?

Organic Traffic Unpaid search engine listings 40%

Paid Traffic Google Ads, Meta Search etc. 30%

Direct Direct browser, auto-complete etc. 15%

Referral Listings, representation etc. 10%

Other Email, Affiliate Campaign etc. 5%

Organic Traffic

SEO Best Practices for Hotels

Content is King

•  Content is main focus for SEO

•  Growing depth of relevant/interesting content key to online visibility

•  Social Sharing of Good Quality content

Engagement – Healthy User Signals

•  High Click Through Rate (CTR)

•  Lower Bounce Rates

•  Longer Time On Site

Technical Performance

•  Speed: fast load times essential

•  Content keywords: relevance and expansion

•  Presence of meta tags: such as <title> and <description>

Speed

57% of hotel shoppers will wait 3 seconds or less before abandoning

because of speed alone

Less than 1 second

1 second

2 seconds

3 seconds

More than 4 seconds

Expectation

Abandonment Threshold

5%

2%

15%

8%

30%

16%

33%

31%

14%

43%

PhoCusWright Travel Site Performance study

Paid Traffic

Pay Per Click (PPC) Best Practices for Hotels

Use Cost of Acquisition (COA) Approach •  Understand total cost of direct bookings

•  Aim for 10% Cost of Acquisition from PPC Channel

•  Traffic Budget = Conversion Rate x ABV x COA - ie. 2% x £200 x 10% =£0.40

•  Channels: Google, Bing, Facebook, Affiliate Marketing, Twitter etc.

Meta Search •  Cheaper than OTAs

•  Expensive traffic, Conversion is essential

•  Channels: Trivago, TripAdvisor, Google HPA, Kayak, Hotels Combined, Kelkoo etc.

Mirror Marketing http://www.tnooz.com/article/online-travel-agencies-mirror-marketing-PPC/

•  OTAs driving up cost of brand name traffic by 30%+

•  Ensure position 1 for brand name

•  Use Book Direct & Promote Benefits

Direct Business

£

Traffic

Website Booking Engine

April 10th 2014

Website

Is Booking.com the most persuasive Website in the World?

Website

Book Direct Benefits

•  Best Rate Guarantee, Benefits, Selling Techniques, Active not Passive

Full Screen Imagery: focus on visual sell

•  Use TripAdvisor reviews to reinforce positives through images

A/B Testing

Responsive Design

•  Mobile first, Universal Analytics

Special Offers that Deep-Link to improve conversion

Web Design Best Practices for Hotels

Book Direct Benefits

A/B Testing

A/B Testing

Goal Increase of 44.14%

Heatmap Testing

Responsive Design

Direct Business

£

Traffic

Website Booking Engine

Booking Abandonment

98%

Selling Techniques & Book Direct Benefits

Benefits – Guarantee – Urgency - Value

Booking Conversion Funnel

Understand Lost Business

Price Only Test

A/B Testing through Booking Engine

Price + Value Test

A/B Testing through Booking Engine

Goal Increase of 70.36%

•  A/B Testing

•  Heat-Mapping

•  Market Segmentation testing

•  Booking Engine Design

•  Rate Effectiveness & Optimization

•  Display: image size, book now etc.

•  Sales messaging

•  Personalisation

•  How many Rooms/Rates

•  Booking Path

•  Optimized Navigation

Multi-Variate Testing

Conversion Optimisation

Direct Business

£

Traffic

Website Booking Engine

Part 2

The Changing Landscape

@AvvioTweets

Mobile is Growing, Desktop declining

Growth on queries in

Q4 2013 in the Hotels category 12% -6%

Desktop Queries *

+46% Smartphone Queries *

+64% Tablet Searches *

* Year on year within the same period

Mobile - Google Report

Mobile – Our Data Set

50% Traffic coming from Mobile

Tablet traffic 30% higher

than Smartphone

9am - 5pm 4x more bookings than 8pm-10pm

pro-rata, overall traffic higher

in evenings driven by mobile

46days Lead in on Mobile vs. 61 on desktop

69% Conversion on Tablet vs. 31% on Mobile

compared to desktop conversion

87% Email now opened on Mobile

overall open rates are definitely dropping

Payments

Part 3

Tips, Takeaways, Q&A

@AvvioTweets

Tips and Take-Aways

1. Visitors

•  40% Organic Traffic •  30% traffic from PPC •  Cost of Acquisition approach to PPC. 10% Channel •  MetaSearch Channels •  Speed: Apdex.org or Pingdom)

2. Website

•  Book Direct Benefits & Selling Techniques •  A/B Testing •  Imagery & Responsive Design

3. Booking Engine

•  Conversion Optimisation •  Conversion Funnel, KPIs & Abandonment •  A/B Testing •  Book Direct Benefits & Selling Techniques

4. Mobile

•  Now 50% of Traffic •  Consider PPC & Email •  Both a conversion and a research/influence channel •  Payments

Thank You

@AvvioTweets

e frank@avvio.com

t 078 24428400

w www.avvio.com