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Webinar: Going the extra mile. How travel businesses can discover visitor segments and personalize for every user journey
Tuesday, April 8th 2014
Carol Savage,Marketing Director at Exodus Travel
Matt Pollock,Travel lead at Qubit
Sergio Iacobucci,Travel Strategist at Qubit
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Agenda: • Introduction to travel personalization
• Our latest research: Travel vs Retail
• Best practice: 7 ways to personalize on the travel path to purchase
• Q&A
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Introduction: Personalization for travel businesses;
the what, why, and how?
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What is personalization?
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Understanding and segmenting your visitors
The Dreamers The Lookers The BookersTend to browse
destinations with no set holiday in mind
Starting to look at accommodation, flights, and deals.
They know where and when they’re going –
now it’s about the extras.
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Why personalize?
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40% of customers don’t know where they want to go when they start lookingSo where are you going to send them?
Travolution November 2013
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Users will visit 22 different websites before booking a holiday.
Even when they’ve found the right holiday at the right price, 50% will continue the search.
Travolution November 2013
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The potential for ancillary revenue is huge
2007 saw $2.5 billion in ancillary puchases.
In 2011, it was $22.7 billion.
Ideaworks
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How would I personalize?
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Convert
Engage
Attract
Retain
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Our latest industry research: Travel vs Retail
How travel professionals need to think differently to engage, convert, and retain customers.
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We already know this...
Conversion rates are lower:Qubit’s travel clients see an average conversion rate of 0.75%, whereas retail sees an average of 5.29%
Average order values are typically higher:Qubit’s travel clients see an average order value over 10 times greater than that of retail
Paths to purchase take longer:Travel purchases take double the time compared to retail; 13.2 days compared to 6.5.
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#1 Mobile is a bigger opportunity for travel
• Travel customers are twice as likely to browse on a mobile than retail customers.
• Mobile and tablet conversion rates are 15 times and 10 times lower than retail.
Action: Use hyperlocal targeting to serve
location based offers.
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#2 Media mix differs greatly for travel
Action: Use an advanced
attribution model to value upper funnel
activity
• PPC has a much bigger impact for travel, approx. 50% higher than for retail.
• For travel, affiliate traffic is a much smaller percentage yet have the highest conversion rate.
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#3 Site search is crucial for travel
Action: Make your search bar prominent & use filters
to boost use.
• Travel users spend an average of 7 seconds per search pageview.
• Only 24% of retail sessions use search, compared to 99% of travel
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#4 Cart abandonment is a big opportunity
Action: Use a site abandonment tool to
catch leaving users
• Over 25% of travel visits look at the basket, compared with 7.38% in retail
• Nearly 90% of travel visitors leave before confirmation, compared with 28.4% in retail
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#5 First impressions are important
• Travel users see fewer pages on their first visit but more in later sessions.
• On first visits, travel visitors convert half as often as retail.
Action: Target new visitors with incentives to return.
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#6 Travel users repeat purchase faster
Action: Merchandize based on personalized information.
• Travel visitors tend to make associated purchases
• Very few visitors purchase more than once over a 2 month period
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Download our whitepaper:
bit.ly/qubitresearch-travel
• Featuring more detailed data behind our insights
• Online examples from travel websites
• Key actions you can implement today
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Best practice:7 ways to personalize the travel path to purchase!
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#1Hyperlocal
landing pages that look like home
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Use hyperlocal targeting to a granular level: city, country, & more
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#2Target them with future forecasts
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Local weather impacts decisions for that last minute deal
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#3Push them to engage with your content
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Push users to engaging content and third party reviews
Destination guides Customer reviews
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#4Retarget them with what they were already looking for
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Remind users of their last search with a homepage takeover
Before: their interested product After: retargeted homepage
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#5Get them there with urgency
messages
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Create a sense of urgency in visitors with low stock alerts
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#6Upsell them at the basket with
ancillary products
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Upsell helpful add-ons at the checkout to boost AOV
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#7Nudge them to your best functionality
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Remind users of helpful functionality with a pointer nudge
- Wishlists / Save for later
- Filters
Pointer nudges etc.
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AND:Don’t ignore their devices, mobile is
an opportunity
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Use mobile to make it easier to re-engage in the future
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Dreamers
• Wishlist prompts
• Content engagement
• Inspired searches
• Flexibility messaging
• Functionality pointers
• Video engagement
• Search based recommendations
• USP messaging
Lookers
• Retargeting with recent searches
• Hyperlocal targeting
• The importance of customer reviews
• Map pointers
Bookers
• Weather forecasting for last minute deals
• Urgency messaging
• Upselling at the basket with ancillary purchases
• Cart abandonment catching
• Offer retargeting
• Countdown timers
• Value proposition for the price sensitive
Different segments respond to different solutions
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Thank you
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