Travel brands are discovering that driving up conversions
requires counterintuitive design and a smart approach to testing
For almost every travel brand, their marketing and sales
funnel is extremely porous, with consumers dropping out at every stage and low
numbers eventually turning into bookings. Pushing up conversion rates isn’t
straightforward either, find EyeforTravel’s new Converting the Customer report, which is free to download now. To
succeed, designers, webmasters and analysts will need to be ready to take a journey
into the sometimes illogical and counterintuitive world of marketing and sales
psychology.
http://1.eyefortravel.com/LP=21727?extsource=prUnderstanding what does and doesn’t work all starts with a
strong base in thorough testing. Steven Consiglio, product performance manager
at Booking.com, said that it always has “countless, ever-present” different
versions of its site on trial and uses A/B testing to measure the success rate
of one version against another.
“Most of the concrete opinions we’ve brought to the table
have been wrong,” he says. “In terms of hypotheses, we do worse than a coin
flip on things that we feel will improve the guest experience – it really
speaks to the importance of a testing culture. We added a shadow to the
Booking.com search box and conversion increased. There are a hundred of those
[kinds of example] that are nonsensical.”
Sam Nazari, head of solutions engineering at Sentient
Technologies also finds that small changes can add up but trying to
second guess which ones or why is borderline impossible: “One of our clients
decided to reverse the payment and address fields. So instead of the customer
filling out the address and the payment field, let them start with the payments
and then the address field. We don’t necessarily know why, but our AI told us
that that variation is a top performer.”
He has also found that it can even pay to create an ugly
website! “Abub Media tested very odd colors, and non-obvious combinations of
colours were actually the best performing design. So, a pink background and
perform widget, a white call to action with black text and a lime green banner
was a top performer. They call it the ugly widget creator! We generated that
design, and it was a 45% lift [in bookings] over [the] control.”
Product choices and menus are also a place where travel
brands need to apply testing and psychological know-how. Normally, putting in
more product choices and steps before the final checkout leads to noticeable
drop out at each stage and reduces conversion and revenues. However, by
optimising the choice presented to the consumer, there are times when this is
not the case and counterintuitively the opposite is true.
Take easyjet for example. They introduced new baggage
options in 2018, offering consumers 15kg, 23kg and 26kg hold bag choices. This
would seem to go against the grain of reducing cognitive load for the consumer
by adding more choices in this instance. However, through site optimization,
menu design, and some clever psychological pricing, this is paying off. Whilst
the jump from a 15kg hold bag to a 23kg hold bag costs a few pounds or euros,
the 26kg bag cost over 60% in the example we looked at on their website in
August 2018. This is a classic pricing trick that makes the consumer assume the
middle option is the best value, with the 26kg option essentially a redundant
option, and the 15kg option acting as an anchor price to emphasise the value of
the 23kg hold bag.
These are all examples of why it is important not to assume
your logic is the same as the customers and to examine any attempt to lift
conversion through comprehensive testing. Whilst changing small items, such as
the colour of the call-to-action, the position of menu items, or the wording
behind ancillary sales items, can seem small and nonsensical, adding them all
up can make a real difference to the bottom line. It therefore pays to test the
counterintuitive and go against your instincts in the pursuit of higher
conversion rates.
To learn more about how to drive up your conversion rates
and revenues download the new Converting the Customer report for free now by clicking here. This report includes
findings on:
- How to measure and understand intent to purchase.
- What content and marketing will drive up conversions.
- How to retarget and remarket in a way that brings customers back.
- How to use different channels effectively.
- Why social proof is critical and how it can dramatically raise revenues.
This report is part of our Behavioral Analytics Report
Series, where we seek to uncover how brands can understand the modern traveler
to drive higher conversion rates, lower acquisition costs, and ultimately give
them the best possible product at the right price. You can find the first
report, Understanding
the Travel Consumer by clicking here. You can also sign up to
EyeforTravel’s newsletter to be notified when our third report in
the series, which covers dynamic and personalized pricing, is released.
