Please enjoy the presentation from Chris Jackson, GCommerce Solutions President, on upcoming travel trends, why they matter, and how they will impact you. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments to sales@gcommercesolutions.com.
3. RISING COST PER ACQUISITION.
• HAMA Study
• Economic Outlook
• How to Combat
4. PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS.
• Research – What can you capture & where can you get it from?
• Strategize – Offers; Timing; Targeting; Messaging
• Execute & Adjust – Data Integration; A/B Testing; Automate
5. PERSONALIZATION.
• Segment of One is the Holy Grail to efficiency & performance
• CRM, PMS and Social Insight must be integrated into all your marketing
from email marketing, website content, display retargeting and social
advertising – It’s the Future!
• Relevancy of content, experience and timing is critical to maximizing
conversion & loyalty – Can’t be superficial!
6. PROGRAMMATIC AD BUYING.
• Used for Automating Paid Search, Display Advertising & Social
Advertising Campaigns
• Real Time Bidding & Budget Appropriation
• Campaign Simulations
• Media Mix Modeling
• 3rd Party Data Integration
7. MICRO - MOMENTS.
• Micro-Moments refer to the Instants when people turn on their devices for
assistance
• Google Travel & OTA’s are primed to capture these micro-moments
• How can your property capitalize and capture consumers in these micro-
moments?
HAMA STUDY
During economic recovery, costs typically rise at a slower pace than revenues – concerns this wasn’t happening, so HAMA decided to perform a study on 468 brand and independent properties
- Showed costs are outpacing revenue growth and CPA for Independent Properties ranged from 15% to 25% (compare to Air & Car CPA)
- Why is this happening?
1) Value chain being eaten by new entrants and disruption caused by Meta Mediaries;
2) Competition & Marketing Costs are increasing (refer to Google Metrics)
3) Consumer buying journeys have become more complex and non-linear
**THIS IS UNSUSTAINABLE, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK**
ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
STR, PWC and ALIS all show that demand growth is decelerating and occupancy won’t lead the way as it has, but rather ADR growth will have to lead the way to success in 2016/17
How to Combat Rising CPA
Phenomenal growth won’t hide rising CPA any longer, so it is critical to understand and manage your CPA, which are primarily driven by S&M Costs and Commissions
1) Measure it holistically – have to bring all together to understand the whole picture – the path from discovery to booking and all the costs of influence along the way
2) Have to measure it on an attribution model
3) Need to measure it from both a online and offline perspective, as well as mix of paid media, indirect and direct S&M costs and commissions
4) It is really important to understand which of your marketing activities is generating awareness, driving assisted conversions and direct conversions, and those that are inefficient and unproductive.
5) Gain back control of your inventory and pricing (from the OTA’s), It takes a smart investment in efficient marketing and revenue management.
6) Then you can understand the appropriate media mix to find efficiencies in your marketing and essentially manage and drive down your CPA
Using predictive analytics, you can accurately predict customer behavior and buying patterns, and as a result predict demand.
For predictive analytics to be effective you may have to make changes to your business, its operational processes and your corporate culture. Everyone needs to be on board – there is no room for a silo mentality when collecting and analyzing data.
Revenue Management Software – IDEA’s / Duetto / Rainmaker
- Understand real time and future demand to best determine pricing, offers and timing
nSight – Brings data aggregation from OTA’s & Wholesale Travel Sites to understand real time demand, feeder markets and customer persona. nSight brings search, booking and rate dynamics into one future view so Marketing and Revenue Management can act together
- Hyper target your marketing campaigns: The Song Remains the Same When it Comes to Marketing…Right Message, Right Person, Right Time. Predictive Analytics makes this possible.
Marketing Campaign Modeling & Simulations – Media Mix / Budget Appropriation /
Collective and shared data is far more powerful and useful than a single data report on a single hotel. Consider who you can partner with – airlines, golf clubs, spas, retail providers and your local tourism marketing board are all contenders.
You will loose to your competitors if you don’t perform personalization in your marketing.
You have to create experiences that meet the ever-growing expectations of your customers.
In five years, this level of personalization will be the new normal, especially for younger generations, who are used to relying on technology to solve many of their problems— wherever, whenever and however they want.
Personalization Takeaway – Getting zip code used to be the most critical piece of profile info to get (last minute offer example). Getting birthday and/or anniversary is more important – Celebitory Travel: Book earlier; spend more/buy up – use automation for email and social advertising.
Have some discretion and don’t overwhelm and don’t be stupid in your marketing; i.e. retargeting a visitor on your website who already purchased. Personalization is only valuable when its an option and the control is in the hands of your customer.
Programmatic ad buying tools/software include: DoubleClick; Adobe Media Optimizer, Kenshoo; Marin
Allows you to find efficiencies in your marketing campaigns faster than human analysis and adjustment can. Adjustments on campaign bids and budget appropriation happen 1000’s of times per day.
Billions of times per day, consumers turn to their search engine browser on their phone for “I want to know”, “I want to go”, “I want to do”, and “I want to buy” moments.
The key for success or for your property to capture these micro moments is you have to be targeted in your marketing for when you will be present or not in these micro moments in order to be highly relevant to consumers in order to be efficient with your marketing dollars. You have to be mobile friendly not only on your website, but your booking engine. And lastly, you need to deliver the consumer to highly relevant content/offers (don’t drive them to your mobile home page) and make it easy for them to buy.
The OTA’s and big brands with their user friendly Apps which can even recognize a returning customer with consumer profile and choice of payment info make it easy to win these micro moments through ease of purchase.
How can your property make it easier to purchase? Have you ever considered letting a mobile visitor reserve their stay with just two pieces of info like name and email address. Then via email confirmation provide them 24 or 48 hours to complete purchase with required info? Finger print technology is another idea for easy purchase in micro moments.