sascon market focus – travel - neil hardy

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SASCON 201119th May 2011

Neil Hardy – Head Of E Commerce

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Our Goal

•To be the UK’s leading independent online travel agency offering the widest choice and very best deals in the market at the lowest prices.

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Aims & Objectives

• To increase the number of online customers booking holidays per year.

• To continuously improve Natural Search’s success. – (Success will be measured by the increase in traffic Year on Year.)

• To configure website analytics tracking. • To improve online conversion rate.

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Marketplace

• Another tough trading year for 2011 to date however seeing some ‘shoots’ in sales

• Number of factors that put pressure on business– Economic Impact– Sporting Impact– Weather Impact– Natural Disaster Impact– Competitors Impact

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Audience Profile 2010 v 2011

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Travel Trends 2011 v 2010

• Visitors up 27% and Pages up 51% YOY to end May

• Some interesting search trends are emerging.– All Inclusive Holidays up 227%– Cheap Holidays up 80%– Canary Islands up 54%– Majorca up 22%– Disneyland Paris up 60%– UK up 38%

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Natural Search Tactics

• Revise keyword list– Reduced down from over 50 to a more

manageable list of around 25 keywords.

• Identify the seasonal terms – mainly destination themed terms– approach of working 5-6 months in advance

and focus key date trends

• Niche destinations– Less competition

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Overall Natural Search Results – Visits YOY

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Non Brand Natural Search Results – Visits YOY

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Paid Search Strategy

• Direct response– Focus on ROI as opposed to brand exposure

• Continuously test– New destinations, resorts

• Flexible budgets– Capitalise on bad weather in the UK– Media coverage– Exchange rates

• Be prepared!

11.

Paid Search Results – ROI YOY

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Social Media

• Established Facebook and Twitter presence– 6,245 Likes on

Facebook– 2,114 followers on

Twitter

• Actively engaging with fans

• Building up strong membership across platforms

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Engaging Interactions

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Social Media Results

Competition• Ran competition on Facebook to win a 32” LCD TV• Aim to increase number of fans and create a viral campaign• 2,113 entries with email addresses for cross marketingFacebook Advertising• Branding and awareness campaign• Target users who have a interest in Travel and The

Co-operative Travel• 29m Impressions served and 6k clicks driven to

Facebook page

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Social Media - Our Learning's

• Don’t be corporate - give your brand a personality

• They like to hear about the latest travel news

• They like to ask us questions• They like to ask us about holiday enquires• They like interesting and engaging content • They like competitions and exclusive deals• Respond to both positive and negative

comments• The right answer is better than a fast answer

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Conversion Optimisation

• Focused on search result page first as this was weakest from eDigital survey of 2000 users.– cheapest one didn’t stand

out on the page.– Prices include pence and

can be difficult read– Hotel star rating was low

contrast (yellow on orange)– Hotel/location names in all

lowercase letters is not intuitive.

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Conversion Optimisation

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Conversion Optimisation Results

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What’s Next?

•2011…–Mobile Application & Templates–Mobile Search Campaigns–Video content–Personalised Content on Episerver•(via keyword, location, history, etc)

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Thank You