Download real-time advertising best practices for travel advertisers

2014
REAL-TIME ADVERTISING
BEST PRACTICES
FOR TRAVEL ADVERTISERS
CONTENTS
2
INTRODUCTION
3
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
3
CHALLENGE: REACHING THE RIGHT INTERNET BROWSERS
3
SOLUTION: QUANTCAST CUSTOM AUDIENCE PROFILING AND PROSPECTING
4
CHALLENGE: UNDERSTANDING ROI
4
SOLUTION: MULTI-CHANNEL ATTRIBUTION, WITH SPLIT FUNNEL ATTRIBUTION FOR DISPLAY
5
CHALLENGE: EFFICIENT RETARGETING
6
SOLUTION: MULTI-VENDOR SPLIT FUNNEL ATTRIBUTION INSIGHTS
7
SUCCESS STORIES
7
SUMMARY
2
INTRODUCTION
The travel vertical is arguably the most saturated when it comes to the number of advertisers competing for
consumers’ attention and striving to drive incremental sales online. Tour operators such as Thomas Cook and Kuoni
offering end-to-end holidays compete with hotel and flight providers, such as Marriott and "asyJet. Furthermore,
all providers compete with comparison and booking engines such as Skyscanner and Hotels.com. In today’s fragile
economic climate, value for money is often the most important consideration for consumers when making travel
arrangements. A survey by ABTA revealed that 53% rate lowest prices as essential or important when booking a
holiday (Source: http://abta.com/news-and-views/press-zone/abta-reveals-consumers-top-10-essentials-for-bookinga-holiday). Added to this is the recent surge in popularity of consumer reviews made available through websites such
as TripAdvisor, which has increased the length of consumers’ research phase and diversified the mix of websites
visited to conduct research. The image below depicts the online resources used by typical couple Dan and Sarah
when researching a holiday.
DAN AND SARAH
AIRLINES
Check price of
booking direct
TOUR OPERATOR
Research
destinations
and cost
HOTEL
COMPARISON
ENGINE
Find best price
and read traveler
reviews
FLIGHT
COMPARISON
ENGINE
Find best price
TRAVEL REVIEW
WEBSITE
Read reviews
of destination,
accomodation and
tour operator
3
For travel companies this means that they need a multi-channel marketing approach, with an always-on component
focused on reaching the consumers who are most likely to convert in order to avoid wasting budget on windowshoppers or those researching a destination to which they have already planned to travel. Finally, we know from a
study by IBM Institute for business value that the most important measure to gauge marketing success for CMOs is
return-on-investment (ROI) (Source: IBM, From Stretched to Strengthened, Insights from the Global Chief Marketing
Officer Study, 2011).
This best practices guide will discuss the unique challenges facing travel advertisers looking to drive incremental
sales through online advertising and present opportunities for savvy marketers to get ahead of the game with
advanced tactics.
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
CHALLENGE: REACHING THE RIGHT INTERNET BROWSERS
Understanding the need for an always-on strategy begins with understanding when consumers are researching travel
services. TNS consumer research for Travel Weekly late last year found just over half of family households planning a
holiday over the next 12 months (51%) would go away between July and September. However, 27% of adults without
children were planning holidays this winter, and 29% were planning a holiday this summer. Close to one in four (23%)
were planning a holiday this spring. One in five (21%) of those without children were not sure when they would go
away compared with nearer one in 10 (13%) with children, presumably because the latter feel compelled to book
holidays within certain time periods (Source: http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/2014/02/07/46898/analysisoutlook-for-family-bookings-in-2014.html). For advertisers this means they need an online presence all year round in
order to capture all available holidaymakers and travellers.
However, we know that holidaymakers and travellers go through a research phase before booking. Then comes the
purchase, and very often they will research the area again closer to departure to find things to do. Therefore, it is
important for advertisers to reach consumers in the pre-booking research phase but not waste advertising budget
targeting those who have already booked and are conducting pre-holiday destination research.
SOLUTION: QUANTCAST CUSTOM AUDIENCE PROFILING AND PROSPECTING
Quantcast’s unique measurement observes millions of customer behaviours in the moment, directly measuring
audiences spanning hundreds of millions of web destinations. Quantcast Advertise then acts on real-time custom
audience profiles. We identify people who have the most data points in common with your current customers. We
act on these insights to influence their journey with tailored ad delivery, to generate higher conversions from new
customers and optimal revenue growth.
4
CHALLENGE: UNDERSTANDING ROI
The majority of CMOs believe connecting with customers through digital channels and ROI-drive will impact
marketing most, and CMOs believe ROI on marketing spend will be the number one method for determining success
by 2015, concluded a study by IBM (Source: IBM, From Stretched to Strengthened, Insights from the Global Chief
Marketing Officer Study, 2011). Today, many advertisers and agencies struggle to accurately report ROI for a number
of reasons; inaccurate measurement and disparate use of technology are the main culprits. Travel advertisers in
particular can struggle with measuring the ROI from their digital advertising as the path-to-conversion can be longer
than the average cookie window, and the final package bought by a consumer is often the result of the initial sale
plus cross-sold products such as travel insurance, car hire and flight upgrades.
Inaccurate measurement in digital media is very common and can be caused by many different mistakes. Firstly, not
all advertising is tracked through a central system of record such as an omnipresent adserver or tag management
system. The result is that clicks on ads from different channels or campaigns are counted by different systems, and if
more than one channel or campaign click is involved in a path-to-conversion then each system will count and assign
credit for that conversion. When reports from each system are b0ought together, the total number of conversions is
too high, and the ROI is artificially inflated for those channels or campaigns with independent or decentralised
tracking.
The most widely used model today is still the basic last-touch model, which is used by 54% of advertisers and
agencies (Source: “Marketing Attribution: Valuing the Customer Journey, eConsultancy, 2012). 4"07-,"ɲ&1ɲ
+-2&42"!ɲ7ɲ&, ",2&4"1ƾɲ,!ɲ)$-0&2%+1ɲ0"ɲ,-ɲ!&##"0",2ƽɲThe harsh reality is that last touch is outdated and very
easily abused by retargeting vendors. All upper-funnel activity (prospecting) goes without credit for conversions,
and partners on the plan fight to get the last touch. This ultimately creates the wrong incentive and a lose-lose-lose
situation for all parties involved. The consumer loses because they are oversaturated with retargeting ads to the
point of annoyance. The marketer loses because their budgets are over allocated to those partners or channels.
Finally, ad targeting vendors lose because they are forced to optimi1e to an inferior attribution model, which
significantly dulls their targeting toolset and potential.
SOLUTION: MULTI-CHANNEL ATTRIBUTION, WITH SPLIT FUNNEL ATTRIBUTION FOR DISPLAY
Ad servers and tag management solutions such as DoubleClick, MediaMind, TagMan and Qubit, to name but a few,
offer solutions that track all forms of advertising and provide marketers with tools to allocate credit across the pathto-conversion as they see fit for their business model and objectives. For travel advertisers, this may mean assigning
significant credit to the first touch, as that was the ad that made the brand part of the consumer path-to-purchase;
however, travel advertisers may also need to assign a large portion of the credit to the last ad, as this was the ad that
closed the sale, so to speak, in the highly competitive, price-sensitive travel market.
5
Recently, Quantcast announced a fundamentally new way of looking at attribution within display advertising. We call
it Split funnel Attribution. This solution is not exclusive to Quantcast. It is an
open-source solution that we are actively using and sharing with attribution
platforms, adservers and other vendors. We set about creating this solution
because despite today’s plethora of measurement options for display
advertising, we believe that many advertisers are not making the most of
their advertising budget because they are measuring the wrong thing.
In order to keep filling the top of the funnel, advertisers need to work with
vendors who are capable of effectively prospecting, finding new customers
who have not been to a brand’s website before. However, this is harder
than simply retargeting previous website visitors and is often neglected
by display advertising partners. Quantcast’s Split Funnel Attribution
introduces a second point of measurement, the touch point immediately
FI R S T S IT E V ISI T
before the first website visit. One of the most beneficial aspects of being
able to distinguish between who contributed to a conversion from both
the prospecting and retargeting phases is that now you’ve created a
partnership between the two efforts.
CHALLENGE: EFFICIENT RETARGETING
The explosion of many, many retargeting vendors and adexchanges into
the digital landscape tells us that retargeting is relatively easy to do, simply
Conversion
0"/3&0&,$ɲ2" %,-)-$7ɲ2%2ɲ ,ɲ20 (ɲ31"01ɲ-,ɲɲ5"1&2"ɲ5&2%ɲ --(&"1ɲ,!ɲ37ɲ!1ɲ-,ɲ.3)&1%"0ɲ
5"1&2"1ɲ1ɲ,!ɲ5%",ɲ2%-1"ɲ --(&"!ɲ31"01ɲ.."0ɲ-,)&,"ƽ However, just because they are retargeting users does not
mean that all vendors are doing so efficiently. An article that appeared on Advertising Age in 2010 titled “The Pants
That Stalked Me on the Web” describes Michael Learmonth’s experience of being bombarded with ads for a pair of
shorts that he placed in an online shopping basket and subsequently abandoned. The strategy employed by the
advertiser was to remain top-of-mind as Michael had not bought the shorts; however, in reality the tactics used by
the retargeting vendor were too aggressive, and Michael could have ended up resenting the brand and electing to
purchase his shorts from an alternative brand. Both retail and travel companies tread a very fine line with consumers
valuing their relationship with the brand as well as price and should not risk alienating themselves from consumers
through excessive retargeting.
6
SOLUTION: MULTI-VENDOR
SPLIT FUNNEL PROSPECTING INSIGHTS
FIG 1: PROSPECTING VS RETARGETING
100%
The solution here is simple: As with attribution,
there needs to be a single source of tracking.
80%
Quantcast offers advertisers and agencies
creative tracking that can be deployed across
activity from multiple vendors. The result is
a series of insights that show the efficiency
of each and every partner on plan. The graph
60%
40%
in Figure 1 shows a report available that tells
advertisers and agencies the percentage of
20%
prospecting and retargeting activity run by each
partner on the plan. The simplest use for this
0%
PARTNER 1
report is to check that each partner is acting
PARTNER 2
PARTNER 3
PARTNER 4
PARTNER 5
according to the brief that has been set.
PROSPECTING
RETARGETING
It is also possible to see the ad frequency for
each prospecting partner on the plan. In some
cases we have seen ad frequencies reach 100+,
meaning that the retargeting vendor is showing
more than 100 ads to consumers after they
have visited a brand’s website. This is simply not
FIG 2 : RELATIVE CPA
a good user experience.
Prospecting Insights can also be extended to
30%
show the relative CPA of each vendor on plan,
this time using the Split Funnel Attribution
20%
model described previously, shown in Figure 2.
10%
N
0%
-10%
-20%
-30%
-40%
PARTNER 1
PARTNER 2
PARTNER 3
RELATIVE CPA
PARTNER 4
PARTNER 5
7
SUCCESS STORIES
ONLINE ACQUISITION OF NEW CUSTOMERS SOARS FOR CORSAIR THROUGH PARTNERSHIP WITH QUANTCAST
Quantcast Advertise, together with the custom audience profile Quantcast have built for Corsair, allowed them to
identify other ideal prospects across the web and anticipate what a customer needs or wants before they even know,
to truly influence their unique journey.
RESULTS:
• Quantcast is number one partner on plan
• ROAS of 25ɲ2&+"1ɲ&,4"12+",2
• CPA reduced by more than 50%
“When we decided that we needed to increase our prospecting activity, Quantcast was a natural partner for us. Their
approach to real-time advertising aligns perfectly with our goal of driving new customers that have never been to
our site. The results speak for themselves; Quantcast outperformed the other partner we worked with and we’ve
implemented our next campaign with Quantcast already.”
Geoffrey Gouverneur, Traffic Acquisition Manager, Corsair
SMOOTHER SAILING FOR FERRY BOOKINGS
Quantcast worked with the client to build a real-time custom audience profile based on the highest-value MyFerryLink
customers. Combining its big data set and Predictive Intelligence, Quantcast matched the custom profile against its
real-time view of the web to find and reach the closest matches, adapting to seasonal changes in real time.
RESULTS:
• 99% of consumers reached were new prospects
• ROI of 6
“Quantcast exceeded our expectations by delivering 44% below our target CPA goal.”
Laurie Glover, Head of Digital, MyFerryLink
SUMMARY
Many travel companies are embracing programmatic advertising and seeing success. Due to the nuances of the
travel vertical, there are specific challenges that all travel marketers need to be aware of and have a strategy for
overcoming. Careful media planning, accurate measurement and appropriate distribution of credit across media
partners are key requirements for all travel marketers to realise the full potential of programmatic advertising.
74 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 4QJ ɲE [email protected]
© 2014 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
T +44 (0)203 322 7863
W quantcast.comɲ