Ai Editiorial: Analytics - the key to personalisation



Trying to sharpen your personalisation and cart recovery efforts? Analytics is key. Are you focusing on omni-channel data integration? If you aren’t, then you are missing out on chances to convert would-be buyers into confirmed flyers as confirmed by Ritesh Gupta, Airline Information Correspondent.

“Never miss an opportunity to re-embrace your relationship with the unfaithful”. This statement, made during the recently held Mega Event 2014 in New Orleans, reflects the opportunity for remarketing in the travel sector.

An abandoned cart creates an opportunity for airlines to re-engage with the undecided or uncommitted traveler.

Remarketing through “follow-me” display ads has been in use for years with the goal of enticing the would-be traveler back to complete his or her purchase.  With omni-channel data integration, airlines can have an even broader view of their customer, and use this insight to engage with them across virtually any channel, with the goal of converting would-be buyers in to confirmed flyers.  This is where the promise of analytics comes in.

But analytics are only as good as the available dataset. 

Solutions exist today that bring together both anonymous visitor information and customer details from multiple databases found within an airline: web, email, mobile, loyalty, booking, and more. The information can be augmented with third-party information such as social. This rich profile provides a foundation for better understanding how visitors and customers will respond to re-engagement efforts when they abandon. 

“Airlines are opting for real-time personalisation initiatives driven by a deep understanding of each individual and smart analytics. Web, email, mobile, call center…airlines aren’t leaving anything to chance,” says Boxever’s VP – Sales, Ultan O Brien.

Airlines can create an interaction timeline for each visitor and customer from the instance they visit a website. Once they have an “identifying” event (e.g., registration, booking, or the like) then all of the rich anonymous behavior is incorporated into the “known” profile. In either case, using analytics and predictive marketing, known and unknown site visitors can be served dynamic content based on who they are and what their current context is, say as per the chosen routing. (See the screen shot below.)

 

Single View of the Customer

Travellers don’t just use the web from one device – they move across desktop and mobile, across channels like web, social, mobile, email, creating a messy web of digital information about their intentions. Specialists can combine this multi-channel data into the single view of the customer, and from this rich profile, develop customer segments.

So with such detail, airlines then are in a position to act upon “event triggers”. Event triggers signal customer behavior and result in a responding action. For example, when a customer leaves a product in their cart before purchasing. This trigger sets off a chain of analysis – who is the customer, what is their profile, what product have they abandoned, what content should be communicated to them about this product, and when should the email be sent. In predictive marketing solutions, this enables every abandoned cart email to be specifically targeted for that individual, with the probability of a transaction much higher as the customer gets back into the booking flow.

This intelligence can be applied into the myriad of touchpoints an airline has with a passenger throughout their lifecycle, from discovery to booking to post trip. 

Airlines today are defining their objective with precision. For instance, Singapore-based Tigerair, in one of our conferences this year, shared what it had set out for as far as personalisation is concerned:

•           Reduce shopping cart and abandonment and increase online conversion rates
•           Improve attach rate for add-ons and ancillary products
•           Upsell other destinations based on past purchase history
•           Leverage previous shopping behavior to customize experience on the website site
•           Increase repeat purchase rate

The airline created a single view of the customer, and worked on an online profile to support Tigerair.com. With web personalisation efforts timed throughout the customer web journey, the airline witnessed 3-4% uplift in the conversion rate.

Similarly, airlines can achieve a host of other goals. It could be reducing cart abandonment, better email targeting, or contact center experience optimization. 

It’s time airlines now consider retargeting or personalisation to be a dynamic exercise, one which depends upon the intent of the customer. Or specifically one which gets in touch with customers with a recommendation that augments a flyer’s decision-making. If your marketing platform isn’t helping you do all this, then you aren’t moving in the right direction.

Go for a single view of the customer one that spans across all channels - online, offline and 3rd party. And then act on it in real-time.

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