Web Analytics India Blog

Continuing from the earlier posts on Online Travel Industry in India

Post one: Online Travel Industry India and Web Analytics Status

Post Two: Marketing Trends in Online Travel Industry India

This post covers how Web Analytics Tools can be used for Online Strategy and Optimization.

To Step back a little, Travel Industry has evolved! Big time in India. It all started with the airline industry boom, followed by Train and now Bus services. It’s young and happening and evolving

THE PAST

Gone are the days when
1.    You had to wait in a long Que for your air/train tickets!
2.    You had to be on phone with travel agents
3.    Spend time traveling to book and confirm tickets
4.    Last minute cancellation/rescheduling was a tedious process!
5.    you had to go to different agent for your hotel/holiday booking
6.    Spend time negotiating on travel/holiday deals
7.    when you had no idea of how your hotel/holiday destination looks before landing there!

THE CURRENT

Enter Online travel industry ! and just a few clicks and your all set! And what does consumer get?, a one stop shop for
1.    No more going to Travel agents (options of e ticket or paper)
2.    Click away from booking tickets and cancellation too
3.    Meta Search with options like Price range, non stop, airlines options and instant booking
4.    Online itinerary
5.    Mobile alerts
6.    Mobile booking
7.    Great deals on hotels and holiday package
8.    Customized travel deals
9.    Preview of holiday destination (video, reviews and hotel looks)

THE FUTURE

So Here are some trends which one would see (some already existing) in travel industry and “undoubtedly” web analytics plays a key role here!
1.    Increased Meta Search Penetration
2.    Cross selling of related products
3.    Increased Mobile Penetration
4.    Improved Self Services
5.    Increase in RIA ( Rich internet applications)
6.    Travelers Review
7.    Social Media Marketing

With market evolving and internet penetration increasing, every Online travel marketing firm will need to emphasize ( iam sure they do) on ROI on each Marketing efforts, new technology (RIA’s) used, Self Services and also keep a track of future trends ( Mobile, Social media etc)

Measuring What matters!

The two previous posts on online travel industry in India was on web analytics status and marketing trends in India. however there’s still lot’s of room for improvement.

Online Firms in India having been spending huge amount on “Awareness/Reach” that is Marketing efforts* (SEM, Banner, Affilates, Email, TV, Print) and are yet to

• Understand the Return of Investment (ROI) on Awareness
• Yet to measure Engagement and conversion
• Segmentation and Loyalty Analysis
  
• Leverage the “Power of Optimization”
  

* wish i could support this with hard facts, but this is based on my previous web analytics status check of online travel industry sites.

I could not agree more with Ravi ( who commented on the earlier post)

I think there is a bigger problem ,Indian Online travel industry is plagued with is all focus is on acquisition of customer and almost negligible focus on customer conversion. Obviously, all of them focus on how can they cheaply get a consumer to get to their site and thats it. few really understands that increasing user engagement will hugely drive conversion. Also it is less cost effective to increase sales via increase in conversion than to increase in acquisition of customer. However, this scenario will change very soon.

Yes Ravi the Scenario will change!, and will change for good for all the companies which embrace and understand the power of Web Analytics.

Key performance indicators (KPI’s) for online Travel Industry

Travel sites are challenging with so many moving parts and rich media applications which drives success. Remember KPI’s are bridge between your business objectives and web analytics data, Each site may it’s own specific set of measures

however, Here are 7 Key Performance indicators which will help one get started assuming you have your web analytics data implemented to capture this data.

1. Revenue per Booking
2. Sales Cycle
3. Look to Book Ratio/Conversion
4. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
5. Campaign Conversion rate
6. Top Origin and Destination Cities
7. Top Geography and Demography

Here’s a brief description of each Key Performance Indicators for Online Travel Industry

1.) Revenue Per Booking:

Revenue per booking will vary by season, product type, booking pace, and because of this variation it’s important to have a trended view of the KPI to give you an overview of your revenue performance.

2.) Sales Cycle:

Sales cycle will help you understand,

• Days Before first purchase: The number of days that elapsed between the customer’s first visit and
  his or her first purchase.
• Days Since Last Purchase: The number of days that elapsed between the most recent purchase
  and the preceding purchase.

3.) Look to Book Ratio/Conversion:

The Look-to-Book Ratio is the percentage of visitors (looking) who actually make a purchase (booking).
Look-to-book Ratio helps

• Understand if there customers are satisfied with their visit/shopping experience.
• Understand how qualified the traffic to their Web site really is. Look-to-Book.

4.) ROAS (Return on Ad Spend):

Helps understand the return on various marketing spend, helping you do a quick SWOT analysis

5.) Campaign Conversion rate:

A quick overview of all your campaign performance.

6.) Top Origin and Destination Cities:

This probably is one of the oldest metrics used by airline industry, This metric can help

understand popular city pairs and also correlate with other metrics (example: Understand which airlines compliment with popular city pairs, measure look to book conversion for top origination and destination cities, Revenue per booking for popular pairs)

7.) Top Geography and Demography:

This metric gives great insight, the reason i emphasize this is coz of how internet booking is gained/gaining importance India, this metric will help you understand top cities and evolving areas where internet booking is growing.

So above was the list of top KPI’s for Travel Industry which will help travel firms provide actionable, real-time insight that can help them with both online and offline strategies.

Missing something, time to add your perspective via comments.

The Next Post would deal with Automobile Industry and it’s online presence in India. Until next post happy reading!

Here’s an update to all those who are planning to attend the WAW Chennai event. WAW Chennai event to be held on August 9th is now postponed by a day to August 10. Here’s an update from Palani who’s hosting the event.

Host: Palani Balasundaram:

As the event was scheduled for Saturday (09-08-08), we had some difficulty in finding a suitable venue. Hence, we are forced to postpone the event to Sunday (10-08-08).

The event is to be held at:

Star City Bazullah Road
39, Bazullah Road,
T.Nagar
Chennai – 600017
Ph: +91 44 – 28155050
Timings: 16:00 hrs to 18:00 hrs (4:00 p.m to 6:00 p.m)

If you have any questions/difficulties in reaching the venue, please feel free to reach me on 99401-61424.
Looking forward to see each one of you this Sunday!

After a great event at Bangalore, WAW is all set to happen again in Chennai.

You can now register for the event here.

Register for WAW Chennai

Event Date: August 09

Day: Saturday

The Venue and Agenda is yet to be decided and will be appropriately communicated to all.

You can contact Palani for more information or details. In case you do have feedback or suggestion please feel free to reach Palani

Contact Info: Palanib@yahoo.com

Stay Tuned for more Information and Update

It was wonderful set up at Country Club Bangalore and a nice weather for Web Analytics Wednesday to kick start. It was great to see the turn up of folks.

Thanks again to Eric from WebAnalyticsDemystified, Dave from SiteSpect and folks at Coremetrics to make this wonderful event happen!

So how did the Event Unfold? So here its goes

An Introduction to begin with of all the folks who attended, Many Web Analytics Enthusiast, Internet enthusiast arrived including few experienced folks who were interested to start Web Consulting firms.

There were many for whom this was first event and who were eager to get into this ( in big demand) field. It was also great to meet few blogger (Web Analytics blogs) from india , Vijay Bathula who blogs on VijayWeb and Rohan Kapoor.

A Special Mention to Tahseen Khan who came all the way from Pune ( West India) to Bangalore to attend this session!. Thank you Tahseen !

It all started with a small presentation on:

Web Analytics in India

Web Analytics Vendors in India:

• Web Trends ( Done through reseller)
• Omniture
• Unica

Web Analytics Industry is pretty small and finding qualified professionals is hard

Web Analytics Industry Focus in India is on

• Exploring Options ( Free Tools why not?)
• Educate Marketers and Business head ( Web Analytics Power Evangelizing)

So what was all the discussion topic about?

• Web Analytics Tool Used (Popular Tools): As per the poll taken GA Topped followed by Omniture ( Mostly MNC’s), Web Trends and Clicktrack.
• Is Log file based Analysis a Legacy now ?
• Data Accuracy!, Which tool gives accurate data: You can probably imagine how does this discussion went )
• Web Analytics and Statistics: How statistical methods can be used in Web Data Analysis)
• Behavioral Targeting: Different Tools and Methodologies used and Best Practices

Outcome of the WAW Meet

There was a clear need of a platform for web analysts, for all level of expertise ( Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced)

• Web Analytics India Community: Under Construction
• Web Analytics Events: Hold More Event ( once in Quarter) locally and across major cities

Finally thanks to the entire audience for active participation during the event and also for all your feedback to make Web Analytics India Site better.

Not to Forget thanks to Naveen for taking care of the logistics and also Ravi Pathak for making sure everything goes well! You guys rock!

P.S: There are still few copies of the book Web Analytics Demystifed, if you do need a copy please mail Trinadh at ktrinadhrao AT yahoo.co.in

It’s official now! and dates have been finalized. Thanks to Eric Peterson over at Web Analytics Demystified and also folks at Coremetrics and Sitespect for sponsoring the event.

It indeed is great to see how Eric and other sponsors help build a large Web analytics social network in local communities.

Update: Please see below the event location/venue details, and couple of ways you can reach the venue(refer map). This was the best option available with ample “Parking Place”.

You can now register for the event

Register for Web Analytics Wednesday

Location: Bangalore

Date: July 5th

Day: Saturday

Time: 5.30 PM

Venue: Country Club, 55/1, Deevarabeesanahalli, Sarjapur-Marathalli, Outer Ring Road, Varthur Hobli, Bangalore

Sponsors: Web Analytics Demystified, CoreMetrics and SiteSpect

Agenda: No formal agenda! just meet, greet and speak!

Pre Event Poll: Click Here to take the survey

P.S: The Venue is almost decided and we are waiting for a confirmation, and please do register via the above link so we can personally send you the venue information and yes it will also be posted on the blog.

So here’s a event to meet web analysts around Bangalore, and have great conversations. Stay tuned for the Venue details!

As always suggestions are welcome! Click here voice your opinion

Feel free to reach out via comments or mail in case you are unsure of the location or have doubts/clarifications.