Travelocity

Company Background

            Travelocity is one of the largest travel companies in the world, providing the most comprehensive and proactive travel guarantees in the industry. The company provides a high level of service and faces tough challenges keeping ahead of rapid developments in a highly competitive industry (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

The industry is faced with engaged, informed, and mobile customers ready to change a reservation at moment’s notice. According to a market study conducted by Google and Shopper Sciences in July 2011, travelers frequently use the internet for comparison shopping. Travel customers on average are using 10.2 online sources, visiting brand websites, aggregate websites, and search engines as they make purchase decisions. In order to succeed in this environment, Travelocity must be informed and agile in its online analysis and marketing (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

Web Analytics Approach and Implementation

            There were a few challenges for Travelocity to keep ahead of their competitors. First they needed quick access to actionable and decision relevant information. Next the data had to be pervasive throughout the organization. Lastly they needed a single source of truth for digital reporting (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

 Implementation of Google Analytics was straightforward and Travelocity used a single code snippet on each page of their site. The customization was minimal which allowed the company to start tracking progress immediately. Travelocity has a premium account with Google Analytics which provides the company with dedicated support. The company was able to work with the Google team and implement the tracking on their tight timeline. According to Satnam Singh, VP Analytics and Site Optimization for Travelocity, “Google has team of first-class support people on call that have worked with us to customize our implementation and continue to help us maximize our returns from Google Analytics” (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

Google Analytics provided a lot of value to Travelocity. The program was easy to use and employees were able to train on the tool immediately. The premium package also came with an efficient training program that was easy to implement. According to Keefe Wong, Web Analytics Manager at Travelocity, “The training effort that we put into Google Analytics is looked upon as a best practice in our company. During our initial training phase, we trained over 80 people in Google Analytics across different products and teams. We have done group sessions where every team could define their own KPIs and track with Google Analytics. This includes advertising and marketing, site content managers, site architects, creative designers, business analysts, and executives” (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

Implementing Google Analytics allowed Travelocity to have faster optimizations and improved conversions. Google Analytics enabled the company to have enhanced access to data across the company and they have been able to streamline their analysis efforts. Before, their analysis requests had to be funneled through a specialized team but now Google Analytics allows them to use an exploration tool available for the whole team. Requests that are sent to analyst teams are structured better and Travelocity has been able to reduce workload and get more actionable data to appropriate teams (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

The site speed report of Google Analytics has been very beneficial to Travelocity. This has supplied the company with a near instant fix to problems within the site. According to Singh, “Google Analytics has helped us quickly discover which parts of our website were too slow to load and therefore a potential impediment to our conversion process” (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

Another actionable result of implementing Google Analytics was found by analyzing bounce rates.  Google Analytics allows all team members access to website insights and through collaboration between an information architect and a project manager they were able to identify a serious problem. By analyzing the bounce rate they were able to identify a set of pages thought to be shared infrequently by visitors, only to find that the sharing behaviors on the page structure could not support sharing and fixed the problem immediately (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

Goals for the next web analytics project for Travelocity are already in place. The company plans to leverage 50 custom variables, event tracking, and funnel visualization. This will help them further expand the metrics readily available to the organization. Also this will help Travelocity create a robust second source of metrics for performance measurement. Lastly it will help the company to quickly determine drop off points throughout the experience on the site (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

Recommendations

            Travelocity already has a plan to implement event tracking in Google Analytics. Event tracking is a feature that allows companies to track visitor actions that don’t correspond directly to pageviews. This tool is very commonly used when there is an on-click event that a company wants to track but there is no confirmation page to use when setting up goals. Travelocity could start tracking events on clicks for promotions they posts on their website for travel deals. The site has promotions for deals that keep users within the website such as “Great deals for Spring Break” and “Cruise Super Sale Reloaded”.  However they also have deals based on sponsored ads that redirect users to other company’s pages. For example on their cruises page, there are ads for various cruise lines and users are sent to another company’s page. Currently there is an ad for “20% off Disney Cruises to the Bahamas.” Travelocity could track when users click the button for getting details so they can have another measure of their ad response rates. This information will allow them to see what users are interested in cruises but it will also give them information for advertisers who are looking to purchase space on their site. Tracking who clicks on the links within Google Analytics will allow the company to keep ad and site metrics in one place (“Travelocity,” 2014).

            Another feature that the company can use is goals to see how people accomplish tasks on the site. Goals can be somebody buying a plane ticket or completing an information request form. Travelocity can use goals to see which paid keywords they are using resulted in purchase. They will also be able to see which keywords work and which ones they should drop. Travelocity will be able to see which pages or parts of pages generate the most purchases. Lastly they will be able to see how changes they make to the site based on content or promotions effect conversion rates (“Google analytics for”, 2010).

            Based on goals that Travelocity sets up, they can add a funnel to determine their conversion process. They will be able to see where users drop off in the funnel and learn what they can do to streamline processes and keep consumers on track. For example if users are dropping off filling out a long travel information form, a solution might be splitting it up into two pages to see if it is more effective There are a lot of steps to purchasing travel accommodations and knowing the purchase path of consumers can be valuable information for marketing efforts and customer service (“Google analytics for”, 2010).

            Another feature Travelocity can track in Google Analytics is geographic data from customers. Although the company does not have physical travel agencies where customers can come in and talk to customer services reps, it is important to know how customer location effects purchase behavior. For example it is easy to assume that people in colder climates might respond well to an ad that features a tropical get-a-way. Most travel ads feature an image that looks like paradise to entice users to book a vacation. Using geographic information will allow the company to figure out how location effects where people vacation. For example, the company assumes that students that go to Kansas want to see spring break ads that feature a beach scene. What if these kids that are used to a rural setting do not want to go to a beach area for spring break? Customer data could show that these kids are more likely to book a trip to a city such as New Orleans so they can get the city adventure that they are not getting by living in a rural area. Tracking this information will allow the company to create more targeted ads and offers based on real customer data.

Conclusion

            In conclusion, Google Analytics allowed Travelocity to meet the challenges of their highly competitive industry. Through the rapid implementation of Google Analytics Premium, they were able to train users across departments. Enabling data sharing across the company allowed Travelocity to create an agile decision making culture. Conversion improvements were seen within weeks and they were able to set goals for future web analytics projects (“Travelocity uses google,” 2012).

References

Google analytics for travel agencies. (2010, March 06). Retrieved from

http://travelalchemist.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/google-analytics-for-travel-agencies/

Travelocity. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.travelocity.com/

Travelocity uses google analytics premium to enable agile, data-driven decision making across

the organization. (2012). Retrieved from http://ssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/travelocity-uses-google-analytics-premium_case-studies.pdf