Social Media and Marketing

IN-DEPTH: Interview with Geraldine Madeira, head of Travel Industry Solutions, Microsoft Online

Published: 21 May 2010

IN-DEPTH: Interview with Geraldine Madeira, head of Travel Industry Solutions, Microsoft Online

It is believed that online advertising is still largely undervalued for branding. The Internet is still disproportionately used for direct-response advertising.

EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta recently spoke to Geraldine Madeira, head of Travel Industry Solutions, Microsoft Online, about the current approach towards online advertising. Excerpts:

With consumers creating and shaping your brand via social media - an advertiser will need to ensure it’s in control of what is getting out there. In this context, how do you think online advertising has evolved as a branding tool?

I believe that online advertising technology has evolved as a branding tool, but I don’t believe all travel advertisers have evolved to completely see the benefits of branding online. With the development of technologies such as social media, rich media, dynamic creative and online video, there is no shortage of ways travel advertisers can build brand awareness and brand loyalty. However, many travel advertisers still hold online advertising to an ROI metric and not a brand metric.

In the context of social media, brands have been given a unique opportunity to join the conversation. Travel advertisers no longer have to sit back and hope that their message lands in the right place to the right audience at the right time. With social media, they can join their travel audience in real time to create an open dialogue about their brand experience. With social media tracking tools like Looking Glass, brands can track what their customers are saying and respond immediately to growing concerns about their brands. When companies sufficiently invest in staffing and consistently respond to customer comments, a brand becomes more personal, more relatable and more likable. However, I don’t think participating in social media is for every company unless you have enough resources to invest the people, time and effort needed to be consistent and authentic in your responses.

It is acknowledged that advertisers favoured online channels over the last couple of years. How do you assess the current approach towards online advertising?

I believe travel marketers have to look at online advertising more holistically. I understand the need and pressure to drive ROI, but I strongly believe that combining brand and direct response together online is the key to success. Traditionally, online has been held to a much more stringent metric than offline channels and it is often bought with a very fragmented approach. We work with many clients who have separate search and display agencies. Within display, different teams work on distribution, traditional display, targeting and re-messaging. Some of the teams may or may not talk to each other. I believe that the right allocation of budget starts at the strategy level and is communicated to all teams involved. This sounds simple in theory, but does get complicated in practice among a variety of teams. Where I have seen the most success is when travel companies look at marketing in layers and are able to answer core questions like:

1) What are the core travel or audience sites that will be my foundation,
2) what targeting and re-messaging can I layer on to build reach and relevancy,
3) how am I incorporating my key search terms and
4) what emerging media (video, social, mobile, gaming, etc) can help compliment my overall media plan?

How do you expect the power of social media to nudge ahead of some of the traditional online travel booking and planning channels especially with integration of real-time feeds from Facebook and Twitter on search engines?

Social media in the form of rating and reviews have been a part of travel marketing long before Facebook and Twitter. Social sites that concentrated specifically on Travel like TripAdvisor have made a powerful impact on the Travel ecosystem, but it did not negate the power of traditional online booking and planning channels. I believe both can coexist in favour of the consumer.

With any emerging media or trend, we need to continually track not only the traffic, but the effect the traffic has on bookings and brand awareness. An increase in visitors doesn’t always equate to an increase in a qualified travel audience. Though I am a strong proponent of testing new media, I always recommend a diversified marketing plan when consulting with CMOs and Directors of Marketing. As consumers move through the travel cycle to be inspired, shop, book, travel and share, they use a variety of sites to meet their travel needs. Social media is one of the many tools consumers use to make their travel decisions, so I don’t expect it to take the place of traditional online travel channels. However, when used correctly, it is a good compliment to the success of existing channels.

Marketers including ones from hotels admit that many advertisers have actually switched their offline advertising to online, which has resulted in an increase in CPC. In many search terms, they are now competing with twice as many advertisers as they used to. It is becoming much harder to achieve high ROIs and they now have to focus more on long tail terms as generics are just not a viable option anymore. How do you assess the situation?

There is no question that high ROI metrics are becoming more difficult to reach. However, with any line of business that starts to mature, companies have to become even savvier in how they spend their marketing budgets. The marketplace is definitely changing and with more competition, travel advertisers have to become more creative in how they look at their entire marketing portfolio.

At Microsoft, our research teams have invested a lot of time in evaluating the “the last click” model. Often, the online industry attributes the last click to search. Though search is a key component in any travel marketing plan, there could have been a number of other media driving a consumer to search for a particular brand or destination. We have found that when combined with display, search can have significant lift in brand awareness, message recall and purchase intent. As search ROI becomes more difficult to reach, I recommend looking at ways to fill the funnel through traditional display, rich media, dynamic creative, video, mobile and social media.

Behaviour analytics help in understanding and predicting customers’ desires and to more effectively serve relevant content and products in real time, ultimately increasing satisfaction and conversion. How do you assess the adoption of behaviour analytics at this stage?

Targeting whether behavioral, demo, geo or profile has been widely used and been proven successful for many travel advertisers. I believe the collection of data and how it is used for targeting will continue to be a strong tool in online marketing. We are now starting to see a layering and combining of data from publishers and direct suppliers to OTAs and data aggregators. The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them the right message at the right time. In travel, we are seeing a rise in OTAs, publishers and ad networks using this data in unique ways to consolidate customer information and behaviours. Combined with your own customer database, you can create look-alike models or conquest your competition which can be layered onto rich media and dynamic creative. A few travel advertisers are dabbling in this trend now, but in the future, I see this becoming the norm.

Online Marketing Strategies for Travel USA 2010 Conference

Geraldine Madeira, head of Travel Industry Solutions, Microsoft Online, is scheduled to speak at the Online Marketing Strategies for Travel USA conference which will take place in Miami (2-3 June).

For more information, click here

Or contact:

Gina Baillie
VP Global Marketing & Events
+44 (0) 207 375 7197 (UK)
gina@eyefortravel.com