‘Travel intent’: a target worth hitting

INTERVIEW: Understanding a customer’s intent and then targeting them with information that is highly relevant to a trip they are planning is becoming increasingly important. It is called data-driven marketing and according to a US-based travel data and media company, Sojern, it could be a game-changer.

Historically reaching your customer with the information at the right time and in the right place was a bit hit-and-miss for travel marketers. But with recent advances in the digital advertising ecosystem, marketers can now leverage anonymous consumer data from multiple sources to target key audiences. And they can do this based on their actual intent and behaviour, as opposed to just making assumptions. So whether a potential customer is initiating a search, completing a trip or getting ready for the next one, ads can be worked out accordingly.

As a specialist in this arena, US-based travel data and media company Sojern is focused on improving how ads deliver by capitalising on its unique ‘travel intent’ data. For instance, its Boarding Pass application offers relevant, targeted offers and content through many leading air carriers including American Airlines, Delta, US Airways, and United Airlines among others.

EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke to Brad King, VP of marketing & vertical sales, Sojern who believes intent-based marketing is a real game changer.  

EFT: How do you assess the adoption of such offerings in the travel sector?

BK: Access to travel intent and purchase data at scale simply didn’t exist prior to the ‘data revolution’. As a result, some areas of the travel industry are still ramping up when it comes to taking advantage of data-driven marketing.

Today’s media buying technology, combined with data management capabilities and domain expertise from companies like Sojern, allow marketers to access actual traveller data to do all kinds of targeting that they couldn’t do in the past.

Travellers can now be targeted based on destinations searched, past trips booked, travel party make-up (individual or family, male or female), booking lead times (number of days between search and actual travel) and many other characteristics and behaviours that can inform, influence and improve marketing strategies and campaign performance. 

Ultimately, we are still in early innings of the data and audience targeting game, but travel marketers are really starting to understand the power that this new marketing and distribution channel has.

EFT: What sort of objectives can travel marketers achieve by targeting in this way?

BK: Marketers using intent-based targeting can now accurately reach consumers that have demonstrated a specific intended action when it comes to booking their travel. This is a far more accurate and successful approach than using content as a proxy to identify and target travellers. 

The ability to market to the most qualified consumers and engage them with a relevant message (also driven by intent data) is critical for driving strong campaign results and achieving the ultimate goal of driving bookings.

A data-driven targeting approach can enable hotels, airlines, rental car companies and destinations to align their marketing campaigns with their revenue optimisation goals, putting more marketing effort towards routes, brands, properties or destinations likely to underperform.

EFT: When planning for data and intent-based targeting, what are the do’s and don’ts for travel marketers?

BK:

Do:

•     leverage your first-party data to its full potential and combine it with third party data from trusted sources within the industry

•     use a platform or a partner with a platform that can manage data-driven campaigns at scale and deliver insights in real-time

•     establish concrete metrics for success and conduct regular analysis and optimisation to maximise campaign performance and success

Don’t:

•     continue to rely on contextual proxies for targeting in-market customers

•     assume all data is created equal. Data that is stale or of questionable provenance will not be effective for targeting purposes

•     be afraid to experiment and explore. New technologies and experts in the space can provide deep insights that can be used to quickly and effectively tune a current campaign or improve performance in your future campaigns

 

EFT: At this stage, how should travel marketers optimise their marketing spend?

BK: A wasted impression is money down the drain for travel marketers. Reaching your target audience at the precise time they need to book that airline ticket, hotel room or rental car will improve your ROI exponentially.

Rather than wasting marketing dollars on an audience whose intentions are questionable, marketers must first determine the specifications of their target audience. Marketers can then target their services and offerings in the window of time that travellers need them most, taking full advantage of the data available to expose these impressions and in return, optimise their marketing spend.

EFT: Can you cite some examples of how data and intent-based targeting is relevant today?

BK: Using a focused data model that includes search and purchase data from multiple travel industry sources is one way to deliver relevant and timely impressions.

For instance, rental car bookings often happen within 72 hours of the trip – we know that from our data. So rental car marketers can use this information and skew the deliver of the impressions to travellers within that specific key time frame – when they are most inclined to book.

Focused travel data provides actionable intent information that we can use as a signal enhancer to direct our efforts more effectively. 

 

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