On The Beach Improves Their Attribution Modeling and Increases ROI by 25%

Attribution modeling is the process of distributing credit between different marketing channels that a consumer interacts with, prior to completing a purchase. As online reporting becomes increasingly sophisticated, attribution modeling helps advertisers to understand the purchase journey of their users and find the most effective ways of targeting new customer segments.

Online travel specialist On the Beach used Multi Channel Funnels and the Attribution Modeling Tool in Google Analytics to understand which marketing campaigns were driving their sales. They analysed all of their online marketing channels and search campaigns to uncover their true performance. On the Beach compared different attribution models to assess the relative contribution of each of their campaigns to their online sales. They found that generic (non-brand) campaigns for travel destinations and holiday terms were driving more sales than were being reported via traditional “last click” methods.

By understanding the true value driven by their generics campaigns, On the Beach were able to reach more potential customers when they searched with generic keywords, by increasing their investment. As a result, they have seen significant growth in sales and revenue, with a 25% increase in return on investment. The full On the Beach case study can be found here.

These findings were also supported in a recent case study with lastminute.com, where they found that generics were driving 43% more sales than were reported through their online analytics. The lastminute.com case study can be found here.

For advertisers who want to get started with attribution, there are great resources available:

* The Customer Journey to Online Purchase
* The Multi-Screen World
* Marketing Attribution Playbook .

You can also catch up with our entire attribution webinar series:

*An overview of our research on how the industry approaches attribution (watch here),
*The foundational steps for attribution using Google’s tools (watch here),
*Intra-channel attribution with Search Funnels in Google AdWords (watch here),
*Cross-channel measurement with Multi-Channel Funnels (watch here),
*Strategies for the Attribution Modeling Tool (watch here).

Find out more about the updated attribution modeler in Google Analytics on the Google Analytics blog.

Posted by Paola Lopez, Industry Manager, UK and Edwina Keyes, Account Manager, Dublin.

2013 Travel successes on G+

It's been a while since we posted a G+ update so we'd like to share with you the latest successes our Travel clients have had on G+ this year: a case study from the UK and one from across the pond in the US.

Travel Republic: Online travel agents Travel Republic have two reasons to put the champagne on ice, having just reached a pair of major milestones in their social media activity. The company’s Google+ page is not only celebrating its first birthday, but it’s celebrating reaching 1 million followers on the platform too. Carry on reading if you want to know how they did it....click here.

Pure Michigan: As part of their social media campaign which won the Mercury Awards for Social Media, Pure Michigan created a G+ page in order 'to be where conversations about our state are happening. We created our Google+ Page to connect with folks inside and outside of Michigan to encourage them to vacation here.' They saw higher CTRs through social annotations: 'there is social proof in seeing which of your dozens of friends already follow the page. You feel compelled not to be left out.' In addition, they created an extremely successful hangout which resulted in their follower number jumping from 50K to more than 94K in a matter of days. For more, please click here.

Posted by Anna Tong, Industry Manager UK

Curious how Google+ can work for Travel brands?

We're pleased to announce a new case study for how LateRooms.com has found success with Google+. A few of the top highlights from the study include: Approaching 600k followers Several posts have been re-shared over 2,500 times and have received 500 comments A 9% CTR uplift with social extensions on their Brand campaign. Take a look at the blogpost here and download the full case study to see more results and quotes from LateRooms.com! Posted by Erica Trittschuh, Industry Manager UK.

More travel research for you to explore

Want to understand how search drives travel purchases? To compare mobile and desktop use? To understand more about the ROPO effect: research online, purchase offline. Or perhaps you want to deep-dive into the travel market in a particular country? Think Insights is home to the latest insights from a wide range of industries including the travel sector. The site houses case studies and thoughts from leaders to help you develop your travel digital strategy. And now the site has expanded to cover 21 different countries, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. You can now search our expanded library by country and by sector, making the latest travel research even easier to find. Plus, there are new tools and videos for you to explore, including: two videos on the consumer journey looking at ROPO and attribution. Check out this video to see how the newly expanded Think Insights website can help you. And follow Think on Google+. Posted by Claire Martin, Product Marketing Manager, Google UK

InterContintental Hotels Group sees monthly mobile site traffic increase by 20%

InterContinental Hotels Group’s sophisticated mobile strategy is having a demonstrable impact on their business in Europe. The business operates seven hotel brands: InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites, and is the largest hotel group in the world by number of rooms.

We caught up with Marco De Rosa, IHG’s Mobile & Interactive Marketing Manager for EMEA, who’s been using Google AdWords mobile ads to reach new customers on their mobile devices. Recently, IHG began creating mobile-optimised websites and creating AdWords campaigns with messaging specifically targeted to users on their phones.

“By using text specifically aimed at mobile users, we saw revenue from our mobile search activity increase by 91% YoY,” says De Rosa. “Thanks to our current activity with Google, traffic to our mobile site is increasing by 20% MoM.”

Watch the full interview with Marco in the below video or visit the Google Mobile Ads Youtube Channel.



To read the full case study, please download this PDF.

Posted by Michael Schipper, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team.