The document discusses strategies for travel apps like Expedia to enhance user engagement and revenue, emphasizing effective onboarding, personalized push notifications, and managing cart abandonment. Key insights include the importance of user retention, with high abandonment rates and the need for targeted re-engagement tactics for uninstalled apps. Finally, it highlights leveraging customer data to improve app experience and increase conversion rates.

1. How Can
Monetize Their App Better?

2. Our travel app customers have
increased revenue by 2x
using these proven techniques.
Expedia can too.

3. Expedia is one of the world’s largest online travel platforms.

4. For Android

5. Today’s users have more
options than ever when it
comes to booking travel.
To survive, travel apps
must find new ways to
monetize their app across
each stage of the user
journey.

6. Engaging
Users Across
the App
Lifecycle
Improve Engagement by
Understanding How Users
Move Between Mobile and
Desktop
Improve the Onboarding
Experience
Increase Engagement
Across the Entire User
Journey
Boost Mobile App
Conversions (Including
Recapturing Abandoned
Carts)
Track and Reduce
App Uninstalls (And
Increase Reinstalls)

7. 1. Onboarding New Users
The average travel app loses
64% of users after just 30
days. This number climbs to
76% after 60 days, and 82%
by 90 days.
Learn how to successfully
onboard new users in our free
guide: The Art of Onboarding
Mobile App Users
Common Reasons Why Users Drop Out

8. How Expedia Currently
Onboards New Users
As soon as a user opens the app, the
user is asked to enable push
notifications and location services.
After these messages, the user is taken
to the home screen. The home screen
has buttons for Hotels, Flights, Cars, and
Activities.

9. Onboarding Suggestions
User onboarding messaging should highlight the
value your app offers to users.
Once that value is clear, more users will opt in to
push notifications and enable location access.

10. Check out the Trip Advisor onboarding flow:

11. 2. How Expedia currently engages users:

12. Engagement Suggestions
• Send hotel deals to users who have
booked airfare, but not
accommodations
• Reference a user's local airport to
suggest enticing getaways or limited-
time deals
• Include images and rich media to get
users excited about new destinations
Push notifications are the single most
effective way to get users to return and
transact on your app.

13. User Trend: Browse on Mobile, Purchase on Desktop
Conversion rate for mobile bookings is currently
only 10%
Users prefer large screens to book tickets, since
they can use more tabs to compare prices and
travel times
We’ve seen that users browse deals on travel apps,
but prefer to finalize purchases on desktop. App-
only discounts can effectively re-engage mobile
users, and can be easily tracked using our device
crossover feature.

14. Transactional Messages
Transactional push notifications provide users
with helpful information in real-time.
• Send flight check-in reminders 24 hours before
take off
• Provide flight status, baggage claim, or gate
change updates as they happen
• Offer hotel check-in details
• Suggest top-rated restaurants and attractions
nearby
Personalized messages increase the app’s
utility and improve user retention.

15. Expedia’s Cart
Abandonment Messages
A cart abandonment
message is sent to users
the next day.

16. Why Use Abandoned
Cart Messages?
Online travel agencies (OTAs)
see the worst abandoned cart
rates at 89%, followed by the
airline industry at 75%. Hotels,
cruises, and car rentals aren’t
doing much better – floating just
under 65% abandonment rates.
75%
68%
TRAVEL
RETAIL
Cart Abandonment Rates: Travel VS. Retail

17. Shopping Cart Abandonment
Message Best Practices
Integrate multiple systems for a frictionless
experience with webhooks.
For example: a customer adds a ticket to their cart,
but moves to another tab to compare prices.
A webhook could automatically send this data to the
travel portal’s call center, and the customer would get
a call after 10 minutes. A customer service
representative can clear doubts, answer questions,
and even notify them of a limited-time only discount.

18. 3. How Expedia Handles Uninstalls
Once the app is uninstalled, users don’t
receive a targeted ‘We miss you’ email.
Instead, Expedia sends emails with
promotions and discounts to uninstalled
users.

19. Reactivating Uninstalls
Uninstall rates for travel apps is as high as 20% on iOS and 33% on Android.
Common reasons users uninstall an app:
Poor
User
Experience
Privacy
Concerns
Poor
Onboarding
Flow
Poor
Engagement
Strategy

20. What’s the last action users typically take before
uninstalling your app?
• Send current users following that path a special
offer to re-engage them.
• Send an email to lost users to understand why they
uninstalled. Our customer Ixigo saw a 12.5%
response rate to uninstall feedback emails.
• Send app only discount codes to users through SMS
and email.
Powering Win Backs

21. Engage in data-driven
marketing to better
understand how users are
interacting with the app
Get real-time customer
insights to engage users in
a timely manner
Scale personalization to
engage users effectively
and efficiently
Trigger messages based on
action or inaction to prompt
users to complete a desired
action
Improve
Customer
Experience
Key Takeaways
1
23
4

22. 4,000+ customers include:
Check out these retention-boosting
Push Notification Templates for
Travel Apps
About Us:
CleverTap is a leading mobile
marketing platform that provides
businesses with actionable
behavioral analytics. Target and
engage mobile users with a
personalized app experience for
increased retention, lifetime
value, and ROI.