Are You Reaching the Right Travel Prospects at the Right Time?
In late 2016, Expedia released the results of an exhaustive study where they tracked vacation planners along their whole path of purchase from the dreaming to the booking. They found that travelers in Canada, the USA, and UK are viewing more websites, reading more articles, and doing more of their vacation planning online than ever before. Here are some of the key findings.
Time spent on travel content sites is increasing dramatically year over year.
The number of sites visited increases as the trip gets closer. Are you reaching your prospects in multiple locations on the web?
Travel advertising recall is very high during the planning process.
The ideal time to reach prospects is in the dreaming, inspiration, and narrowing down period. As they visit more booking sites in later stages, recollection decreases.
The same is true of social media, which is important for inspiration, but becomes less influential as the prospects move closer to purchase or destination decisions.
When travelers are deciding where and how to go, they are relying on search and social proof/advice from those they trust. In the early stages it is key to appear on authority sites that rank high in search.
It is clear from this data that the most effective time to reach potential clients or visitors is when they are still early in the process, before they have decided on an itinerary and what kind of tour(s) or hotel(s) they are going to book. Advertising that reaches them late in the process has to compete much harder for attention. Most travelers have made their decisions long before hitting the “Buy” button or calling your office.
Would you like to make one digital marketing deal that gets you on 10 popular travel sites and all their social media streams?
E-mail Donna for a custom proposal or call 1-(813)-603-7203.
[Data and images from Expedia Media Solutions. Get the full report here.]