travel industry - online marketing review

analyzing

traffic building

techniques in

the travel sector

Identifying the

most valuable

traffic building

techniques

email

mobile

online PR

search marketing

online advertising

social media

viral

contents

1. introduction

2. the opinion of the experts

3. primary research

5. market situation

traffic building techniques

7. search engine marketing

11. online PR - 17 social media

21. email

25. mobile

31. online ads - banners

34. viral marketing

36. affiliate marketing

37. conclusion

and recommendations

38. references

message from

the editors

about us We are the GMP team, a group of three marketing and business students at Bucks New University. n the last two months we have worked together on this report about online traffic building in the travel sector.

Marcello Belometti

Giovanni Fila

Phoebe Scott

1 the travel industry

introduction Techniques: the methods to promote a website proposition and therefore to encourage users to visit the website. Traffic building involves online digital media channels including marketing methods such as search optimization, online PR, viral marketing, opt-in e-mail, interactive ads. Traditional offline communication are used, for example personal selling, sales promotion, PR, sponsorship, direct mail, or word of mouth. Continually evolving web analytics tool used in every industry sector make companies able to identify

within the business the range of traffic sources, or search terms by which people find out any site considered.

Timing: marketers and businesses have to ensure that there is sufficient investment in continuous online marketing activities. However, it is important to mention that is the traffic quality, not quantity, that indicates a traffic building campaign success. Thus, traffic quality is high if the website visitors are within the target audience and if they respond in line with the communication objectives.

Traffic building in the travel sector Globally, organic search is the most influential marketing channel for online travel marketing followed by paid search, then good old email marketing, social media, meta search and lastly mobile marketing. There are massive fluctuations across the different verticals within travel and across the size of the organisations. For instance 43% of cruise companies rank email marketing as the most influential marketing channel whereas for hotels it is only 13%.

The report The aim of this report is to analyse and critique the traffic building techniques and strategies used by companies in the travel sector. The report is also a review of real life traffic building marketing strategies adopted by travel brands in the market. Successful and unsuccessful real life applications of traffic building methods will be analysed to provide an overview of the state of the sector. Traffic building The only way for a website to achieve business objectives is to generate traffic. The only way to generate traffic is a successful traffic building strategy. There are three main aspects to be considered when planning traffic building activities:

Targets: marketers should have a specific goal for traffic building in order to achieve wider e-marketing objectives. Typical targets are quantity, quality and cost of traffic: Traffic and traffic referrers are qualitative if the visitors of a website are within the audience targeted and and if they receive the message conveyed convertin to the site outcomes. Bounce visits increase the traffic volume but are not significant in business terms.

Joel Brandon Bravo International consultant, marketing, UK managing director of Travelzoo. United Kingdom “We found that the conversion rates on an iPad are nearly twice that of what they are on an iPhone. Yes, other tablets than the iPad do have a lower entry point, but what Apple has done is help early adopters to see how trustworthy these things can be, and then everyone else follows. You can just see how much quicker the rest of the world follows Apple now.” On the consumers during the economic downturn: “I think everyone has become much more value driven. The consumer can now do everything from check the hotel's own imagery to the imagery of people who have visited it recently and put together their own rich picture of exactly what it is they are buying. Customers have all seen airlines and tour operators suffer and in some cases fail during the recession so they want to know that the people they are booking from are going to deliver, they are going to get them home if it goes wrong and that the deal is everything it presented itself to be in the first place”.

online marketing review 2

the opinion of the experts Tony Ridley International Consultant, Business Intelligence, In-Bound Marketing, Travel Management Security, Director. Melbourne Area, Australia (FROM LINKEDIN) «I own and operate an online marketing company that has a number or clients in the travel industry too.

The best start point, and most economical online marketing opportunity is in-bound marketing. That is, identifying, positioning and converting a motivated and targeted community of buyers for your product or service. Too many businesses are trying to exclusively sell their brand or have buyers seek them out, often through outdated marketing strategies. In-bound or search engine marketing seeks to get your product or

service in front to those that are already searching for a solution or something to buy. This is a great opportunity for businesses of all sizes to get traffic to their offering. Search engine optimisation is part of the solution with in-bound marketing but it also integrated video, articles, social media and the fundamentals of marketing. Immediate sales are not always the case with the travel industry and in-bound sales. The preferred sequence is research, competitive analysis, targeted marketing, optimised content/sites, lead capture, content sharing, sales offerings, content sharing and repeat purchasing».


primary research A ten question survey has been carried out through Facebook. The survey has been posted on travel related groups and on pages of companies in the travel sector such as airlines, hotel companies, travel agents and travel publications. 43 respondents


16-34 39%

25-34 24%

35-44 14%

45-54 12%

55-64 8%

65+ 3%

Laptop 64%

Tablet 16%

Mobile 20%

Which of the following platforms is your favourite when searching travel related content on the Web?

3% 7%

43%

37%

10%

What's your age range?

daily weekly monthly yearly never

How often do you visit travel related websites?


market situation [17] [18]

Market trends The number of both overseas and UK-based holidays fell in 2010, however taking more than one break per year is still the norm for the majority of UK holidaymakers. On the other hand, for the past five years holidays purchased online have consistently increased as a share of the total, both for domestic and overseas breaks. In addition, consumers are increasingly going online, a trend particularly facilitated by the rise of internet-optimised mobile/portable devices. Approximately seven in ten people have broadband access in the UK, rising to over eight in ten among 15-44-year-olds ABs, people with children and pre-/no family life stage members.

These data are confirmed by TGI which conducted a survey about holiday habits in UK: the internet is by far the most used method used to book holidays

Market factors The government has announced that it is aiming for 90% of the UK to have ‘super-

fast’ broadband by 2015, facilitated by the on-going rollout of fibre optic cabling across the UK and an Ofcom ruling in October 2010 that BT must allow rival internet service providers (ISPs) to access its infrastructure. Public funds will go towards creating supply for the areas not serviced by private companies.


Market shares Expedia, Priceline and First Choice Holidays are the top three travel brands online by total unique visitors. EasyJet.com is the most visited airline (although its ranking includes EasyJet holidays), while Travelodge is the hotel brand that commands most visits. Of the major high-street travel agents, TUI Thomson wins out online, with almost 2.2 million visits in May 2011. Expedia, which has been the biggest travel website by total unique visitors across the period, includes Trip Advisor sites (over 5 million unique visitors in May 2011) and hotels.com sites (almost 1 million unique visitors in May 2011). Although First Choice is the highest listed TUI brand it is the Laterooms.com site that commands the biggest slice of its unique visitor count (over 2 million in May 2011). Firstchoice.co.uk saw unique visitors rise over 9% between March 2011 and May 2011, benefiting from media coverage of its switch to purely all-inclusive holidays (announced in mid-April). The number of unique visitors to easyJet.com rose by almost 60% in the February-May 2011 period, driven by the online launch of the easyJet Holidays site in March. Guardian Travel’s huge year-on-year rise

reflects the growing (online) popularity of the newspaper: comScore lists it as the second-most popular in the UK (behind Mail Online) and the fifth most popular worldwide. Guardian Travel accounted for approximately 6% of the 10.3 million total unique visitors it received in May 2011. Budget hotel brand Travelodge leads rival Premier Inn in unique visitor terms, despite the latter being the UK’s market leader by number of hotels and rooms. here below the top 10 online travel agents by total unique visitors:

Demographic segmentation Among people that travelled abroad in the 12 months ended April 2011 interviewed by Mintel, three out of four booked parts or all of a holiday abroad online. Younger adults

are the most likely to book via the internet, older adults are the least likely. As would be expected, a key demographic differentiator between online bookers and non-online bookers is age. Most likely to book via the internet are the 16-24 and 25-34-year-olds, least likely are those aged 65-plus. Search/comparison websites are most likely to be used by ABC1 independent holidaymakers. Online package bookers follow the overall demographic profile for all consumers choosing such holidays, with C2s and people with children more likely than average to make such choices. ABC1 socio-economic groups, Londoners, those that choose independent holidays and high earners are the most likely to book holidays abroad online. Demographics that have little or no impact on booking online include gender and the presence of children in the household.

Online activities on/after holiday

Rank

% change

May 2010-

2011

1 Expedia Inc 18.2

2 Priceline.com 44.8

3 First Choice Holidays 0.4

4 TUI Group -9.5

5 Travelocity -23.9

6 Thomascook.com 0.9

7 Virgin Travel 9.7

8 Travelrepublic.co.uk 15.7

9 Flybe.com 60.5

10 Travelsupermarket 0.3

All online travel

agents 2


search engine marketing [4] [5] [10] [19] [20] [25]

[29]

Search engine resulting pages (SERPS) are of paramount importance in traffic building: more than 95% of visits originating from search engines come from the first resulting page. In addition 46% of daily searches are for info on products and services. Therefore visits are strictly related to the SERP position of a website. Search engine marketing is promoting a website trough search engines using two main techniques: SEO (search engine optimization) PPC (pay per click)

PPC Paid search marketing is similar to traditional advertising: sponsored links are placed above and to the right of natural listings. This technique: • is quick to set up • is highly targeted • doesn’t need a development effort But on the other hand: • it can be very expensive • it doesn’t provide long term ROI • it is likely subject to ad blindness

SEO Search engine optimization makes webpages more understandable and transparent to search engines robot with the goal of gaining position in natural listings. This technique: • guarantees a long term ROi • helps building brand awareness being

more trusted than paid links • improve brand exposure • is cheaper then paid search

But on the other hand: • it requires a great design and

development effort • it takes time to give ROI • results are difficult to quantify

There are 4 main things to consider for a successful search engine optimization campaign: content, accessibility, keywords and link building. These elements work together to build authority among search engine robots

Search engine robots Robots are responsible for crawling into websites to analyse them in order to index and rank them. Website ranking is based mainly on on-page keywords architecture, incoming links and domain authority: if these elements of a website are well optimized, robots will give the site an high trust rank, resulting in a high listing position.

Keywords Keywords or meta-tags are specific tags of

web meta pages. Meta tags are written in HTLM language: users can’t see them easily but search engine robots use them to have clues about what the page is about. Title meta tags: placed at the beginning of a website HTLM page, these keywords are a strong call-to-action on the search engine result pages. Description meta tags: they give a brief description of the website content. Robots use them to provide a short synopsis of the page. Keywords meta tags: they are used by websites designers to make pages more searchable to search engine robots. These keywords must be extremely relevant and strictly connected to the content of the website in order to increase the trust rank of the website. <meta name=“Keywords" content="content="national geographic society, national geographics, nat geo, national geografics, magazine, channel, subscriptions, shop, videos, world music”/>

SEM in the travel sector Online search engines continue to dominate the travel industry with 66% of leisure travellers and 59% of business travellers using them to research travel. Airline websites are the second most frequently visited from search engine listings followed by hotel sites. Type of websites visited from search engine listings by online business and leisure travellers worldwide 2010: - Airline websites: 40% / 40% - Hotel websites: 36% / 36% - Websites of the destination visiting: 32% / 40% - Travel websites (eg TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, Rough Guide): 29% / 31% - Online travel agency: 26% / 25% - Website of a high street travel agent: 16% / 15%

- Car rental website: 14% / 11% - Social networking website: 11% / 10% Globally, companies focus on search marketing changes on the basis of the company size: In companies with a marketing budget of over US$ 1 million, 84% see search as the key, whereas only 44% of small travel companies (those with marketing budgets below US$ 25.000) rank search as the most influential channel. In terms of regional differences, the most influential marketing channels are roughly the same across the world, however there are some minor regional differencres: German marketers love organic search, the British ones are more focused on paid while in Italy marketing efforts are focused mostly on mobile-


URL optimization Links External links are vital for SEO: one of the principal ways for Google to determine the relevance of a page is the number and the quality of links into the page itself. The high quality content of a website generates natural links from external websites but usually those links are not enough to build a significant traffic: a proactive link-building campaign is needed.

Link Building 1. Identify target: a good website should be highly targeted towards a specific market. The content of every page must offer value to visitors: in this case both natural and proactive link-building will be easier due to the

high trustrank of pages. 2. Internal link-building: a dynamic internal link architecture is fundamental to build traffic. A detailed sitemap is useful for both human visitors and crawling robots. Every page should have hyperlinks across the masthead and page footers to increase usability 3. Identify partner sites: creating partnerships with high ranked websites gives the opportunity to request high quality inbound links which will both build traffic from the partner website and improve natural listing position of the webpages involved

Heathman Lodge SEM Heathman Lodge, a specialty hotel located in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.A. They ran an unsuccessful pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign that suffered from using overly broad keywords, lack of testing of PPC ad text and clicks that led visitors to the hotel's homepage instead of to a customized landing page tied to the ad.

Objectives Optimize relevance, conversion rates and ROI rethinking the whole search engine campaign and running a PPC optimization aimed to maximize the low budget available.

Target Northwest region of the U.S.A. Strategy Revamp of the website creating new landing pages tied to the PPC campaign ads. Specifically geotarget the Pacific

Northwest region instead of the less ready-to-convert visitors of the other regions. Focus on one single search engine and test the ads to uncover the best performing one. Tactics The new campaign included two main strategic search areas: keyword management and buying high-performing natural search keywords. 1. keyword management This step was important in driving conversions, but more importantly it helped maintain the limited budget. Successful keywords were identified by looking at clickthrough rate (CTR), cost-per-click and conversions in the form of a booked hotel room. Those that were underperforming and had low CTR or no conversions were weeded out of the effort by pausing or deleting them. For example, general and odd-matched keywords such as "Portland," "Oregon" and "Washington” were removed while more

specific keywords and phrases like, "Vancouver Washington Hotel," which was not a branded-keyword, created more exposure through the paid search effort and more conversions. 2. buying high-performing natural search keywords Buying keywords that are already driving conversions in natural searches at no costs may seem and absurdity but in effect, buying organic keywords that are top inbound channels is effective in many ways: •It allows to have complete control over the search engine results page (as displayed in the image right) because PPC ads appear above organic results and often take up a significant portion of the top of the search page •The strategy protects the brand from competitors (when buying branded keywords) •Not all users click on organic search results



•PPC ads allow the buyer to control the message conveyed. •PPC ads also allow the buyer to control the targeting The Heathman Lodge marketing team took advantage of high-performing branded keywords as they realized that customers weren't going to necessarily book a hotel room on the first visit. If they search the branded keyword of "Heathman Lodge" because they remember the website from a previous visit, having successful natural branded keyword in the PPC campaign puts Heathman Lodge's website in the best position for both organic search results and for paid search.

Results

Both impressions and conversions rose dramatically. Here are some more results 4 months ofter the PPC campaign: •81% increase in return-on-ad-spend •75% increase in hotel reservations •74% decrease in cost-per-click •2,464% return on ad spend •Over the four-month period, the total media spend was $1909, and revenue generated was $41,420

Search Traffic The top queries from search engines driving relatively more/less traffic to heathmanlodge.com in Jan/Feb 2012


online PR [4] [5] [6] [23] [27] [28]

Online public relations are the marketing techniques used to favourable mentions of companies, brands or websites on third-party websites which are likely to be visited by the preferred target audience. Online PR can extend reach and awareness of a brand within an audience and will also generate back links vital to search engine optimisation (SEO). It can also be used to support viral or word-of-mouth marketing activities in other media.

Online PR options Buzz building activities Create noise about a campaign or marketing message • Viral marketing • Social media releases • Web editorials • Influencing bloggers Brand engagement activities Create interaction and dialogue with online customers to understand their

needs and possibly influence them. • Surveys and polls • User generated content • Social media response Search marketing activities Creating backlinks to improve search engine optimization. • Blogs • Feeds • Widgets • Press releases • Content creation Brand protection activities Manage the reputation of a brand tracking online activities and managing potentially negative incidents. • Social media monitoring • PPC and SEO protection • Influencing media owners

Online and offline PR

Four main differences between online and offline PR have been identified. All of them are related to the power of connections and information that the Internet gives to users.

1. Audience connected to the organization In offline PR, communication channel is unidirectional: customers can communicate with companies through a communication funnel with a very narrow end. In online PR, companies and other customers are always one click away.

2. Users connected to each other Customers are part of a broad network and companies and institutions are just part of it. Users can discuss companies’ activities and info can be easily distributed from person to person.

3. Users pull information If traditional media offer just few channels, on the internet the channels of information are many: this makes marketing messages more difficult to be seen

4. Availability of other information If in the past it was difficult for customers to challenge companies’ statements, now the internet gives customers the opportunity to verify messages instantly.


EasyJet PR disaster In 2011 British Airways launched its biggest campaign in 10 years, investing £20m in advertising. Playing on the airline’s motto “To Fly. To Serve” the retro-style campaign looks over BA’s 90-year history and plays on the company’s heritage and good service. The no-frills rival airline EasyJet parodied the BA campaign strapline launching its own campaign with the message “To Fly. To Save”. The adverts appeared on the EasyJet Blog and Facebook page as well as in the main newspapers. In a clear nod to BA, EasyJet's ad copy reads: "When we launched 15 years ago, those four words summed up what we believed in. And they still do. The EasyJet online marketing manager asked users to “let them know what you think” and reaction has been very mixed. WaveMetrix analysis highlighted that, EasyJet’s have backfired, as consumers have rounded on the airline and jumped to the defence of British Airways criticising the “bitchy” poster.

results

More than half of consumers react negatively towards EasyJet: Many criticise EasyJet’s “cheap” and “bitchy” advert and “can’t believe EasyJet felt they could hijack the BA campaign” The Facebook page also becomes a forum for general complaints about the airline: Consumers share complaints about EasyJet’s “rude and aggressive staff”, “hidden charges” and “lack of ethics” More than a third of responses to the post refer to British Airways, with more than three quarters of these defending the brand: Most think “British Airways beats EasyJet hands down” and that “British Airways is a more civilised way to fly”

Tourism Australia

Blog Failure

In 2010 Australia was facing a fall in the numbers of overseas visitors and needed a marketing effort to promote tourism on the island. Tourism chiefs came up with the idea of the simple slogan 'There's Nothing Like Australia' and the new campaign was developed in two phases. In April and May, Australians were invited to share their personal stories of where they live and holiday in Australia, to show the world why they should visit. Australians proved their enthusiasm for promoting their country by uploading nearly 30,000 stories and images to www.nothinglikeaustralia.com. This was one of Australia’s most successful consumer-generated promotions ever. Secondly, the Australian tourism body launched a call for entries via promotions on social networks including Facebook and Twitter; online promotion also included video, banner ads, sponsorships and wraps across News Digital Media, MSN and its partner sites including Grazia and Gourmet Traveller. Unfortunately, the campaign has been mocked by a 'look-alike' website drawing attention to events that shocked the nation.


Although the campaign in itself was well conceived, it lacked of digital execution by Tourism Australia as they didn’t register the variation URLs of their website. Only holding the .com address ensured that nothinglikeaustralia.net was able to be registered by pranksters in the U.S.A. The mock website was registered in the US just minutes after Tourism Australia revealed the new tagline and the first ads making fun of the campaign appeared just two hours after the launch. Making a joke of the Azaria case, which hit the headlines in 1980 when the baby's mother cried out that a dingo had taken her child from the family holiday tent near Ayers Rock, the spoof website declared: “There's nothing like a dingo taking your baby”. Referring to the time when Steve Irwin clutched his baby son Bob in a crocodile enclosure at the Australia Zoo, the website stated: “There's nothing like taking your child to work”. Even the racial riots in the Sydney seaside suburb of Cronulla in 2006 got a mention, a picture of a mob beating up a man being shown alongside the slogan: 'There's nothing like welcoming the new guy.‘ The mocking pictures went viral gaining more visibility than the original campaign. Despite the spoof website has been closed, images search engines still display the fake adverts among the first results in the natural listings.


Royal Caribbean is a cruise line brand based in Miami. Juan Silva, director, strategy and development sales of the Royal Caribbean, realized that the company needed to be more targeted with their communications to avoid overwhelming agents with mail. “We heard from agents that we’re running so many specials, but by the time they see them by fax or email, the promotions are already over. And we needed to quickly deliver critical information such as itinerary changes” Silva said.

Objective: Avoid the communication breakdown due to the storm of messages that the agents receive from all carriers. Create a new communication channel that could deliver information in a better way. In the same time they wanted to provide an easy access to the online tools to allow and help agents book new customers and create loyalty to the company’s two cruise brands, Caribbean and Celebrity Cruise.

Strategy: Deliver instant news and offers and push instant messaging to the desktops of travel agents through a desktop widget.

Tactics: 1.Identify info to be delivered Their primary business goals were to

reduce emails and faxes to agents and support both brands. Therefore they concentrated on the four most often delivered information to agents such as special offers, itinerary, company news, and weather alerts. 2.Develop widget app The technology development team integrated the widget into the existing content management system and trained the Royal Caribbean marketing team to work with the application. The widget is a flash-enabled window allowing special offers and weather and itinerary info to be displayed instantly as they are updated. Users could click on could then click on those links to take them to the complete article or offer on Royal Caribbean’s travel agent portal, CruisingPower.com. The website also hosts an online-booking tool and sales support services. 3.Launch campaign to encourage downloads The widget was promoted both online and offline. Print ads explained the benefits of VIP CruisePass, and Sales force training to encourage reps to promote VIP CruisePass to their prospects and agent customers. Online banner ads on CruisingPower.com aimed at existing users or new agents and a contest that offered the chance to win free cruises and other prizes to the first 1,000 travel agents who downloaded the app.

Royal Caribbean widget


4.Deliver updates that tempt agent interaction Rather than setting an automatic update schedule, the Royal Carribean team manually managed information delivered through VIP CruisePass. They didn’t want to re-create the storm of faxes and emails that agents were already struggling to manage. “We wanted to make sure we were not miss-utilizing VIP CruisePass and constantly sending them information that might be nice to have but is not information they need to have.” Silva said.

Results CruisePass has been very well accepted. The number says that more than 7,000 travel agents download the desktop app in about one year time after a 1,000 downloading after just few weeks. •More than 90% of agents kept it for more than a day • 46% of agents who downloaded the widget have used for an aggregate of 120 min which is reported that is an high number because much of the activity takes users click through to the CruisingPower website. • 54% of users are accessing Royal Caribbean offers page while for the Celebrity Cruises the number of users is about 36%.

Royal Caribbean saw significant savings due to the reduction in fax marketing expenses.


Advantages of social media There are many advantages to online public relations over traditional public relations. Highly measurable: detailed traffic statistics can be seen live by the site administrator. A company is able to see exactly how many people have seen their campaign, an advantage that cannot be done with posters or television commercials. Traffic referrals: a company is also able to

see real-time buzz surrounding social campaigns and get up-to-date views and opinions from their customers. Traffic referrals are a major advantage to this method that gives the opportunity to be able to track traffic sources. Trackable sharing: the opportunity to be aware of who is sharing their campaign though social monitoring of websites such as facebook, twitter and blogs. Blogs now include social sharing tools.


Disadvantages Time consuming: if a company isn’t blogging or tweeting frequently a consumer may develop the impression that they may be treated like a company’s social media website. Negative comments: a user of a social networking site is able to direct messages and feedback to a company that other consumers are able to see. Risk of fraud involved with using social networking sites like twitter: unless a company is verified by the host website a consumer may follow a fake profile that can be very damaging to the brand. Damage is real-time: If a company makes an error there is no time to develop a plan to limit damage and consumers discover errors as they’re happening. Not immediate ROI: It can take a long time for a company to show any improvement in customer service or sales using social media. It is not an immediate method of increasing return of investment.

social media [3] [14] [26] [30]


STRATEGY FOLLOW CREATE ENGAGE

Consumer Relations Your customers and prospects. Communicate relevant content for your customer: tips, company info, etc. Answer questions; respond to comments about your brand.

Crisis Communication Your brand, product and relevant issues. Direct to additional resources, updates, information and explanations Answer questions, respond to comments, raise issues, provide information

Corporate Reputation Management Industry leaders, similar interest groups, news/media Insights, expertise, establish thought leadership. Jump into conversation; be transparent; add value.

Issue Advocacy Those interested in your cause, industry leaders, Media Add value: tips, advice management information, links Know your followers, than them for support, get them involved.

HotelTonight social media marketing

HotelTonight was founded in December 2010 and its based in San Francisco. HotelTonight is a pioneer in mobile commerce: the mobile app for booking same-day hotel deals is one of the most downloaded in the world. HotelTonight is a marketplace to fill last-minute rooms that would otherwise remain empty.

Objective: Hoteltonight officially launched the beta version of its free mobile app for last-minute hotel deals in December 2010 and began marketing the app in January 2011. Their main objective was to combine traditional media tactics with social media marketing and extensive costumer service effort, in order to reach the top Apple app store position in the travel category.

Strategy Focus on what no others are focusing on: the last-minute hotel booking window ant the creation of a mobile-only online travel agency. Take advantage of this pioneering idea to get awareness within a market with a lot of other brands that have multi-hundred million dollar budgets.

Tactics 1.Encourage users to spread the word Sam Shank, CEO, HotelTonight, described that the centre of the marketing strategy was about providing a quality product and customers support in order to

create word of mouth from satisfied users. “The strategy is to make sure everybody has an incredible experience using the app,” he stated. Therefore hotel tonight differentiated itself in different ways such as: •Deals offered •The user experience of the product •The speed of booking compared to competition Another tactic used by the company was to make sure that users had 24hours support to solve any issues when something was wrong in their navigation time. It was again an incentive new and unique to share experience with costumers. The result of this tactic was a “tell a friend” marketing where users can invite friends right from their app site by email, or Facebook and Twitter post and also received 25$ every time a new friend joins the company. 2.Utilize social media HotelTonight uses of social media has been a success due to the big relation that mobile computing and social media have. The company effort encouraged costumers feedback, interaction and sharing. The company’s main focus is Facebook which became an important way to connect with customer. "One of the challenges is that this is an app," explained T.J. DeGroat, Social Media Marketer, HotelTonight, "Everything is locked up in the app, so that led to [users] checking the app every single day and they


still might miss out on some of the new, exciting content.“ "A lot of times we are able to reach out without [the user] actually directly asking for help," he said. Facebook is used by HotelTonight to share contents such as videos or announcement of new hotels added to the app while Twitter is used to announce specials or extra deals Twitter and Facebook provide the company with an opportunity to respond to user needs, questions and concerns, with the PR team always ready to answer the answers of users.

Result The most interesting result of the product launch effort is in a very crowded travel app space, HotelTonight has reached number one in the App Store category twice, both after significant online PR campaigns. The app has

ranked as the #1 download in the travel category on Apple's App Store maintaining a stable top 25 position in the App Store travel category, and even reached number 35 overall. • 60% of customers come in through word of mouth or social media; 40% from mobile. • From 0 to 110.000 Facebook fans in around one year. • One initiative in June increased activity on Facebook daily by 51%. • From 0 to 20.000 Twitter followers in nine months.

HotelsTonight team came to the conclusion that costumer are more involved with mobile compared to website commerce because they can have a voice and share, positive and negative feedback through social media or review at the app store.


email [4] [5] [7] [12] [15]

Opt-in emails is one of the few marketing tools that allow marketers to push highly targeted messages directly to customers. Unlike web, which is a pull media, newsletters promote a product or service to the consumer, bypassing other marketing distribution channels creating consumer demand at relatively low cost. Opt-in emails are also one of the best tools to build and maintain customer loyalty.

Advantages of email marketing Data capture: subscribers have to give their email address and details giving companies precious data. Highly targeted: data gained can be use to constantly improve the personalization of the message conveyed. highly measurable: email measurement data can be extremely accurate allowing marketers to have a live picture of the situation thanks to click-trough rates, delivery rates, open rates and several other continually evolving statistics. High ROI: Econsultancy’s 2009 Email Marketing Industry Census stated that 90% of respondents report an average ROI from their email campaigns of above 300%.

But on the other hand It’s difficult to acquire subscribers. There are 3 mail strategies to acquire newsletter subscribers: Co-branded email: the recipient receives email from companies they have strong affinity with. Third party email: a company publicizes itself in another company newsletter as a form of online partnership Cold email: emails are sent using a customer e-mail list provided by specialized list providers. This strategy is risky because it can be considered SPAM.

Email success factors Warc research individuated 7 critical factors to consider for an effective email marketing campaign: 1. Relevance: ensure that customers are receiving information that most resonates with them, sending emails that customers really want, geared towards their self-reported interests and demographic profile.

.



2. Frequency: over-emailing customers is counter-productive. Testing is the only way to determine the right frequency for a brand. The more frequency is hire the more emails have to offer exceptional value. 3. Tested content: test the message sending emails to a small number of random recipients before any large email campaign. This will allow marketers to measure how effective each offer is and optimise for the highest possible performance. 4. Graphics: graphics should supports everything from brand to call-to-action effectively. Significant images can push content below the fold, while excessive images can slow message loading. 5. Personalisation: this is the most important feature in a email and the best way to make a commercial message relevant to the customers. 6. Flexible response strategy: capitalise on every potential customer lead reviewing individual responses and circulating the details as widely as possible. Companies should respond to customers when appropriate to obtain competitive advantage. 7. Data management: keeping a database of customers details is necessary to constantly improve an email-campaign

Email in the Travel Industry The receipt of permission-based email makes travel consumers more likely to do business with a travel company. • 63% of recipients of opt-in emails from travel

companies are more likely to buy from companies that send them emails.

• 50 % who receive permission-based email from travel companies said they feel more loyal towards the sending companies and their brands.

• 86% of respondents opt to receive emails from travel companies to learn about sales, discounts and special offers.

• 46% subscribe to hear about new packages, routes and destinations.

• 69% want to receive personalized content based on their website activity and past purchases.

First Choice alerts

First Choice went beyond the idea of personalized email creating MyHoliday Alerts. This web feature allows subscribers to receive opt-in emails completely tailored to their preferences and needs. Customers can select their favourite destinations and dates of departure, their budget and also the opportunity to choose the frequency resulting in a rich and meaningful newsletter that gives value to the customers.

Expedia CruiseShipsCentre email

Expedia CruiseShipCenters, operating in the U.S.A. and Canada, added more than 100,000 subscribers to its email list and got nearly twice as many to update their profiles between August and October 2011.

Objectives "The more people we put into it, the more sales we make," says Dave Mossop, Manager, Interactive Marketing, Expedia CruiseShipCenters. The company needed more subscribers for its five newsletters, and also needed current subscribers to update their information.

Target North American consumers aged 55 and over who were interested in travel.

Strategy Launch a sweepstakes in to improve the email list and lead current subscribers to update their profiles. They gave away one cruise vacation each day for 25 days using viral tactics to expand the audience.

Tactics

1. the campaign The marketing team launched the campaign and started awarding free pairs of cruise tickets 3 weeks later for 25 days. People entered by using one of two online forms that also invited them to sign up for email newsletters. Participants could earn more chances to win by encouraging friends to enter the campaign. Existing customers received the email displayed left. Every email, handled by

corporate team, appeared to come directly from the local travel agents and included their photos and contact information. 2. landing pages Current subscribers visited a the existing customers landing page after clicking a link in an Expedia CruiseShipCenters email. The page described the sweepstakes, asked visitors to "confirm your profile to win," A form on the page preloaded the subscriber's information from the team's database. The new customers landing pages, promoted though channels that reached new audiences, was similar to the existing subscriber page but: emphasized "enter to win" instead of "confirm your profile“, pre-checked two of the newsletter opt-in checkboxes, requested seven fields of information instead of 10. 3. viral promotion After entering the sweepstakes, visitors saw a "thank you" confirmation page with similar branding and layout. The page explained visitors could increase their chances to win by using a viral sharing page displayed right to refer friends. Any entries generated by the referrals earned the sender another entry in the sweepstakes.

Entering the information and clicking the "tell my friends" button sent a simple email to each person. After clicking the button, another confirmation page



thanked visitors and told them they could further increase their chances by referring more friends. This looping page made it easier for visitors to reach a large number of contacts. 4. online promotion Banner advertising - the team placed ads on its website, as well as travel-related third-party sites and banner ad networks. The ads pointed to the campaign landing page.

Facebook and Google – the team posted regular updates on Facebook and purchased advertising on the network that targeted North American consumers ages 55 and over who were interested in travel. The team also ran pay-per-click ads on Google for searches related to cruise vacations.

Email - during the campaign, every promotional email the team sent in its regular program included an ad for the sweepstakes. The ad was not shown to anyone who already entered, which

helped avoid confusing or irritating subscribers.

Results "We've done this the last four years now in a row, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger," Mossop says. "It's become a staple of our online marketing program that our sales agents demand, just because it helps generate leads for

them."

The campaign grew the team's database by more than 8% in 50 days, which translated into well over 100,000 new subscribers. Other results include: 36.4% of people who entered were new to the company

More than 14% of current subscribers updated or verified their profiles

80% of entries subscribed to at least one newsletter

3.5 newsletters were subscribed to on average for each entry

People who shared the sweepstakes with friends contacted 20 people on average, and about 25% of the referrals entered. This means, on average, about five new entries were created for every person who forwarded the campaign to friends.

Few post-campaign unsubs Marketers can see a drop in their subscribers at the end of a list-building sweepstakes, as many people sign up to win and unsubscribe afterward.

Mossop's team did not find this to be true in this case.

The contest was very well targeted and got the right audience participating. People who are interested in travel are unlikely to unsubscribe therefore the unsubscribe rate stays low with average at far less than 1%, typically from 0.01% to 0.03%.


mobile [2] [9] [11] [13] [14] [21] [22]

The mobile revolution The advertising landscape is changing dramatically: with consumers continuing to feel the economic pinch, finding and developing new channels for promoting value is crucial. Mobile technologies can provide many of the answers, helping to engage customers and enhance marketing activity. Mobile attracts younger, more affluent and more educated consumers and delivers on performance benchmarks such as awareness, message association and purchase intent. mobile effectively moves consumers through the marketing funnel from awareness to purchase, repeat buys, and advocacy. Mobile has proved itself a most adaptable medium, facilitating quotidian tasks like shopping, checking bank balances, locating restaurants or stores, navigating routes, monitoring health, paying bills, downloading music and videos.

Marketing implications - Location specificity Mobile gives companies access to a wide range of consumer data, including geographic movement patterns and shopping history: this gives the opportunity to target location-sensitive promotional offers to mobile device users. Messages can be targeted based on the user’s location combined with their stated preferences and revealed behaviours. - Ubiquity Being used on continuous basis, Smatphones are always on, as a result mobile technology provides virtually continuous access to the primary user via voice, messaging or portal platforms and not just in fixed locations. - Interactivity The audience is connected to the organisation through a network and not a pipeline. Everybody involved in sending the message are only one click away from the audience. The key challenge for companies is response time.

- Transactions Mobility means that direct click-through, e-commerce applications and mobile payment solutions are easily available to consumers whenever and wherever they are.

Types of mobile advertising - Mobile display Banners, rich media banners - Mobile activation enables traditional media such as TV and print to be displayed on mobile devices and be interactive - Audio Mobile music apps - Branded Apps Allow the customer to benefit from a company services remotely (e.g. booking hotels or doing and airplane check in) - Location-Based Advertising Utilizes GPS technology for geolocation in

order to call customers to action on

geographical basis (e.g. find the nearest

retail location.

Mobile in the travel sector Mobile is revolutioning both the travel planning period and the in-trip experience. Particularly during the in-trip experience there are huge opportunities to make the travellers better informed, allow them to find services and attractions tailored to their interests, and even provide special location-based features that can only be delivered via mobile. More than ever travellers are clearly beginning to expect and demand them. According to Amadeus IT solutions 16% of travellers used smartphones to book trips in 2011. That figure rises to 18% amongst the 18-35 age group and to 33% amongst frequent travellers. In addition, 3.4% of all travellers use their mobiles today to check-in for their flight.

The future is mobile Travellers are going to feel more empowered than ever in the next years. Google reports 300,000 new Android activations per day and that 50% of all new internet connections worldwide are coming from mobile devices. The number of searches in the travel category via a mobile device is constantly rising as the percentage of queries coming from mobile devices now makes up 19.5% of all hotel queries. Travellers are not only searching by mobile but they are actually completing transactions from their devices: the number of mobile bookings

in the travel space has accelerated from $20 million in 2008 to over $200 million in 2010.

Business Travellers The penetration on mobile Web is higher for business travellers: according to research by Travelport 55% of business customers now use mobile technology to search and book hotels. Of the 600 professional surveyed worldwide: • 80% would like to see mobile

applications offering suggested restaurants and bars.

• 71% rank Wi-Fi as one of the

most important technology solutions that should be included as standard in hotel rooms

The UK market 45% of the 2000 respondents own a smartphone. Of these in the last 12 months: • 17% have researched a

holiday on a mobile app or mobile website.

• 3% have booked their holiday on mobile.

• 12% have downloaded a mobile app related to travel.

• 8% have used an app to research a holiday.

• 14% that have used a mobile website to conduct research.


Opportunities People are using their mobiles when abroad, for local research into restaurants and places to visit, directions etc. They are also downloading apps to help them while on holiday such as weather apps, translation apps and city guides. The opportunity is there for travel brands to provide these apps to provide a better overall experience. investing n native apps seems to be very beneficial as native apps provide a superior user experience than the web and lead to higher customer engagement and loyalty.

Tablets A fact that is often not considered when deciding where to allocate app spend is that tablets are rapidly replacing laptops and desktops in the home particularly for “fun” tasks. Designing an app for tablets might just be worth an added investment.

Platform Diversity When developing a mobile strategy it has to be considered that travel consumers are likely to be experiencing brands on various

different devices (tablet, desktop, mobile) depending where they are and what’s quickest and easiest for them at that time. A cross device experience for the customer should therefore be considered.

Keeping the pace Nathan Clapton, VP Mobile Partnerships, Mobile, TripAdvisor, stated that 6 million unique visitors now visit the TripAdvisor mobile site per month. He recommended launching new features quickly and acting fast to fix and improve user experience issues. In the rush to develop mobile apps, many forget to promote the app once it’s launched and in the following months: Clapton emphasized the key to TripAdvisor’s mobile success was their focus on promotion such as British Airways have done to launch their mobile app. Travel companies need to invest money into this growing channel otherwise if a customer is searching for travel information on a website and this site is not optimised for mobile or it doesn’t provide an app then chances are will the customer find competitors first.

British Airways mobile

In 2010 British Airways launched a new mobile application that marked a renewed focus on alternative customer engagement channels. The app allows members to manage their account and bookings through their mobile, as well as providing real-time flight information.

Objectives British Airways wanted to promote the launch of the Executive Club app using a connected marketing strategy that allowed them to contact the Club members in a highly targeted fashion.

Strategy Promote the application download in an extremely targeted fashion.

Tactics As usual, British Airways used e-mail as a key part of the marketing process conceived for the lunch of the application.


They analysed e-mail data, identifying that an increasing number of emails were being opened on mobile devices.

Mobile optimization British Airways optimised the e-mail campaign for mobile devices, matching the e-mail announcing the application to the device it was viewed on and linking through to the appropriate application for that device. This process would deliver e-mails to members in the best fashion for their e-mail viewing habits and promote application downloads in a targeted way.

Data analysis British Airways analysed the Executive Club e-mail database, assessing the number of mobile users vs. traditional users, to enable deeper segmentation and more targeted messaging. Using a special database query they identified which customers had opened a British Airways e-mail on a mobile handset and on which type of device. Targeting each member individually would generate the best results for application downloads, so British Airways decided to create four e-mails for the launch, each one tailored to a different mobile operating system (iPhones, Android phones, BlackBerrys and Windows phones).

Results Open rates these targeted emails devices far exceeded opens for desktop versions and were in excess of 50 per cent for iPhone and Android. The content designed to render appropriately on each of the different devices, leading to aclick through rate of 25 per cent for those who accessed the e-mail on their iPhone, and of 30 per cent for BlackBerry users.


evening. While both tablets and mobile are portable devices that can be used in a variety of places, according to Google Mobile, tablets are used primarily at home as “lean back” devices while sitting on the couch. Expedia tried to enhance its mobile offer focusing on the expectations of people using their devices in a relaxed situation and looking for an app both functional and entertaining. Since launching in spring 2011 on iPhone, IPad and Android, Expedia Hotels has become one of the world’s most popular hotel booking apps. Globally the Expedia Hotels mobile app has been downloaded almost two million times (over 100,000 times in the UK) and has been the iTunes App Store’s #1 free travel app in more than 40 countries including the UK.

Expedia Hotels IPad app

• Rich and captivating interface • Deals at 130,000 hotels worldwide • Read reviews from 4 million travellers (1) • Hi-res photos of hotels, lobbies, rooms and more (2) • See all available hotels in your vicinity using GPS location • Filter by price, distance, hotel name, and traveller rating • Compare multiple hotel details and locations in just one tap • Localized for 16 languages • Book in just four taps (3)(4) • View amenities and descriptions for every hotel • Book once with the app, and customer info is saved for faster future bookings

“Nothing is more intrinsically mobile than travel, so Expedia strives to offer a practical, simple and delightful experience on mobile phones and tablets,” said Jeremy Xavier, director of marketing for global products at Expedia “We’re developing products to make sure people are able to book travel however, whenever and wherever they like and have the same great experience”. In late 2011, the Google Mobile Ads team

shared how the proliferation of various screens is impacting user behaviour, especially search behaviour. The team recently looked separately at searches from tablets, PCs and mobile devices. The data showed that during the workday users are searching from their computers and they use smartphones steadily throughout the day with a lift during commute time and in the evening. As per the study, tablet usage spikes dramatically in the

1

3 4

2



Ritz-Carlton mobile email 3. Create custom pages for iPhone users The initial email tied to the landing pages encouraged subscribers to learn more about an exclusive membership offer. Once clicked, it sent subscribers to the team's website, which detected their device-type. Any subscribers using an iPhone were shown the new custom landing page. This is an enhanced version of the generic page: the team expanded the single-page format into a three-page experience to include more information and images. A “view images” button brings the visitor to a customized image section displayed at the bottom.

Results • The site saw a 243% increase in the percent of mobile traffic generated by email marketing between pre-launch Q1 2010 and post-launch Q4 2010.

•Mobile landing pages for those offers saw a 7% conversion rate on average compared to the 5% of the typical marketing offers.

• iPhone visitors converting at a higher rate:

8% of all landing page traffic went to the iPhone page 15% of form completions came from the iPhone page

• Quarter-by-quarter breakdown: In Q1 2010, 2.8% of traffic generated by email marketing came from mobile devices, 90% of which came from iPhone users.

Through Q2 and Q3 2010, 5.5% of traffic generated by email marketing came from mobile devices. Of that, 60% came from iPhone users and 25% came from iPad users.

In Q4 2010, 9.6% of traffic generated by email marketing came from mobile devices. Of that, 56% came from iPhone users, 30% came from iPad users, and 4% came from Android device users.

The Ritz-Carlton is an American brand of luxury hotels and resorts with 77 properties located in major cities and resorts in 25 countries worldwide The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club offers luxury vacation resort memberships. In the first half of 2011 about 2.95% of traffic on ritzcarltonclub.com came from a smartphone or tablet computer. The company marketing team realized that the email landing pages didn’t look good and were difficult to navigate and likely costing conversions.

Objectives Optimize The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club's email landing pages for mobile visitors targeting the growing mobile audience on a tight budget with simple tactics.

Strategy Uncover the mobile audience and focus on the optimization for the customers’ preferred devices in order to maximise the investment.

Tactics 1. Uncover the audience Of all mobile traffic to The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club in Q1 2010 from email marketing, 90% came from iPhones. Therefore the company team decided to optimize just for the iPhone users. 2. Create a generic page for mobile users • Mobile pages are much smaller and simpler than standard pages.

•A mobile Internet connection is often much slower than broadband. With this in mind, the team designed the bare-bones landing page displayed below that fit its budget, rendered cleanly, and was easy to use.

Simply advertising a website on the banners isn't going to improve the conversion rate. The banners should be focused on a specific product and the name of the website should be mentioned in the call to action, for example, for more information about the product

Link the banner advertisement to the product page rather than the home page people will first visit the website to know more about the product and service rather than learning more about the company. Therefore, the banner advertisement link should lead to the product or service advertised in the banner rather than the home page.

Banner ads should appear on the top of the page the results of several researches clearly show that banner advertisements attract the highest attention if they are placed horizontally on top of the page or vertically on the top right side because these places attract the maximum attention. Secondly, if readers are not interested in the content given in the page they are unlikely to scroll down.

online ads - banners [4] [5] [31]

Banner advertising is the most important form of internet advertising. Being highly attractive, banners not only attract customers but also covert these visits into sales. Banners have 2 functions: • To entice potential customers to visit the publisher's website to make a purchase • To create or strengthen brand

awareness. On the base of these objectives, marketers will decide the text and graphics to be used in the banner, the type of banner (GIF, GIF-animated, rich media) as also which sites to host the banner.

A banner ad should be placed on web pages that

deal with content related to your offering Unlike offline advertising, Internet marketing is highly audience focused. Working on the principle that online ads, should appear to the people who are actually interested in the offering in question in order to reach the target audience..

This will greatly increase the click through rate.

Advertise a product or service rather than a website The content of your banner should be minimal but it should give a strong message in the minimum possible words.



Animated banner ads are better than static ads Banner ads should be able to grab attention movement attracts more attention than something that is static. Animated banner ads have multiple frames with different images and text appearing one after the other. in animated banners since the frames keep changing after every few seconds, the content should contain a strong message that is able to retain reader attention. The message should be complimented with an attractive image that gives some information about a product.

Ryanair banners

and pop-ups

The banner adverts on the Ryanair website are too small and too compacted. It is difficult for a visitor to the website to distinguish between the design of the website in terms of navigation and the banner adverts. This could mean banner adverts are not noticed and therefore a waste of space for both the company and the advertising client. The adverts don’t stand out against the website’s colour theme which causes them to blend in and makes it difficult to catch the eye of the user. The banner adverts towards the bottom of the page are also too close together and there’s too much going on at one time which can distract the user from the website content. Banner ads as a form of advertising effectively have over time become less effective. The original banner ad in 1994 garnered a 78% click-through rate (CTR) compared to banner ads today that get on average a 0.2% CTR. Pop ups are unnecessary and irrelevant to the stage of process the customer is currently at – the customer has specified they don’t require travel insurance and yet they are still being targeted for insurance pop-up adverts. This will create a negative view towards the travel company in question as the customer will feel as if they are being bombarded with irrelevant advertisements. Ryanair should track what the individual users are doing in terms of the stage of the form in order to direct relevant and necessary advertising toward each customer.


Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that encourages people to pass along a marketing message. This marketing method relies heavily on a high pass-along rate from viewer to viewer. If it works and a high volume of viewers pass-along the marketing message, the overall growth snowballs with speed. The opposite is also true, if the rate of pass-along is too low the growth decreases and the message begins to fizzle out. At the height of business to customer (B2C) despite the most of start up campaigns have a viral component in their strategy, relatively few marketing viruses achieve success on a great scale.

Advantages: • low costs: the only cost is the production of

the message. • high efficiency: a successful viral marketing

campaign • high credibility: customers trust word of

mouth far more than any form of advertising.

• opportunity to continually adjust promotions

Viral marketing is mostly cost-free as aside from the cost of producing the message all word-of-mouth promotion from viewers is free. Time and resources in this method are available easily: one person contacting friends and relatives can lead to a web of people seeing the message as more and more viewers pass it along. This is made even easier by social networks as friends and relatives are even easier to access over the internet. Websites such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy to share videos and links to viral marketing campaigns as users can tag friends allowing the message to be viewed by not only the original user’s friends but also friends of any users who have been tagged, commented on the video or liked the video. Twitter aids viral marketing for free as users are able to “retweet” any links, videos, pictures or messages from the company itself thereby sharing the information to any followers who may choose to share it once more. .

viral marketing [25] [32]


Disadvantages Viral marketing can be complex and needs to be done right in order to create a big enough buzz so the viewer will want to pass the message along to a friend. • Difficult to control: the strength of this method of marketing depends on the transfer of messages from viewer to viewer. During this process, it may reach someone the company wishes to not be associated with. • It promotes brands and not products: companies may suffer from the disadvantage of aiming to sell a product or service because viral marketing mainly promotes the brand rather than the product, however this is not necessarily a complete disadvantage as viewers can choose to look at a company’s product line based on a viral marketing campaign. The company therefore have another potential customer they may not have previously reached without using a viral marketing campaign. • Threat of spam: greater awareness of a brand can lead to spam when the message is conveyed to people that are not the target market

Sandy Balls viral fail Video on a tourism or destination website is quite essential, but what about all the other video sites where many internet users are already actively watching video spots online? With more than 4 daily billion search queries YouTube can now be considered the 2nd Largest Search Engine, therefore a correctly submitted video is more than 50-times more likely to push a tourism website on the first positions among search engine results than traditional SEO techniques Anyway if not done correctly, viral videos can be dangerous: the biggest disadvantage of viral videos is that the company cannot control what is said about the business in social sites, if a viewer has a negative view and expresses this on Youtube or on social networks it can alter people’s opinions whether and create a backlash. That’s what happened to Sandy Balls. The holiday resort located in the Hampshire region, became famous in the wrong way: a successful parody by American comedian Andrew Garcia made the resort famous overseas. As a result the original Youtube commercial reached almost 400.000 view, mostly driven by the america spoof video.


affiliate marketing [5] [24]

Affiliate marketing I defined as “a commission based arrangement where referring sites (publishers) receive a commission on sales or leads by merchants (retailers)”. A successful form of affiliate networks are aggregators which are becoming the king of online transactions, from job searches to holiday shopping. The aggregator model is an efficient resource for users who want to simply perform transactions and get the best deal without branding static.

The advantages for companies : • More visibility in paid and natural listings

also for generic queries. • Opportunity to target different audiences

.

• Increase the reach of a brand

But on the other hand: • Profit can be limited • Risk of brand exploitation • Risk of brand reputation damages in case

of Inconsistent with the brand values

Affiliate in the travel sector Travel brands have traditionally held a great relationship with affiliates, consistently using a range of publishers to improve their reach across the web, to ultimately drive leads and improve sales online. Publishers are most interested in promoting advertisers from the travel industry, with 73 per cent citing this as one of the most important sectors for their online advertising. This was followed by retail

brands, which were favoured by 60 per cent of publishers. KAYAK affiliate programme is a good way for travel companies to build traffic and turn it into revenue. Kayak has hundreds of affiliates operating in the travel industry: •user-generated travel review sites •travel blogs •hotel and resorts web sites •travel agents •airports •newspaper/TV site travel sections •professional travel guides •portals KAYAK created an integrated travel search engine that matches affiliate sites visual appearance.


conclusion and recommendations Market situation The economic downturn has hit consumer spending and holiday sales declined every year since 2006. On the other hand, the constantly increasing broadband penetration and the diffusion of smartphones and mobile devices increased the online purchases.

Traffic Building techniques The use made of traffic building techniques in the travel industry is generally good.

SEM The travel market is extremely crowded, therefore search engine optimization very difficult without a significant investment in paid search marketing. As a result the prominent positions in natural listings are taken by biggest companies.

Online PR The great importance given to customers satisfaction in the travel market is the main reason for the effective use made of online PR. The majority of companies that play a significant role in the market put a good effort in engaging customers: social networks are usually a good way for customers to communicate effectively with

companies while blogs are often valuable and frequently updated.

Email Good use of newsletters and opt in email across the sector: this technique have been greatly improved in the years an now most of the emails sent to customers are well designed, targeted and rich of meaningful content

Mobile Mobile marketing is still growing and it’s the traffic building technique with the biggest future potential. This potential is even bigger for the travel sector: mobile devices are indivisible friends of travellers. Companies in the sector are taking advantage of the new mobile technology in a profitable way.

Online ads Banner advertising is a faltering technique: expert internet user, who are constantly growing in number, have developed a n “advertising blindness” towards them. As a result their effectiveness is relatively low. Animated and rich banners still have an appeal, anyway the high number of display

marketing messages which bombard the web users everyday makes display advertising weak traffic building method.

Viral marketing This is probably the weakest traffic building method in the travel sector. Very few companies managed to run a successful viral campaign. This is probably due to a limited virability of travel marketing messages: travel customers look almost exclusively at hard facts such as quality and prices and they are hardly influenced by the hype that goes along successful viral campaigns

Recommendations The main weakness that comes out this review of traffic building techniques in the travel sector is a general lack of integration. In order to be effective, a marketing campaign should be integrated: every technique involved should be heavily linked to the others creating a network. These bonds significantly reinforce the marketing message. The traffic building campaigns in the sector are often badly integrated , as a result the message conveyed is fragmented and the resulting call to action is not powerful enough to give return or investment.


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