Understanding Travelers at Key Decision-Making Points

You don’t have to look far to have study after study tell you that customers are dynamically evolving, largely due to being constantly connected to the digital world. Digital marketers are responsible for not only understanding how their efforts direct customers through the customer decision-making journey, but also ensuring that their efforts are consistent on an omni-channel level.

Understandably, different consumers are at different stages of the consumer decision process when various brands become engaged with them. There are three distinct types of travelers, all of which present unique opportunities and challenges along their decision-making journey at the awareness, consideration, and decision stages.

2017-03-27_1034Source: The Buyer’s Journey

Group A, the Dreamers, are the consumers who were not actively pursuing the idea of travel until they watched some sort of digital or traditional ad. Group B–the Wandering Travelers– are those consumers that intend to travel but have no specific destination in mind. Finally, Group C, Mindful Travelers, consists of consumers with the desire to travel with a destination in mind.

Dreaming of Traveling (Dreamers)

Dreamers have the longest journey to complete before making a purchase decision because they need stimuli to recognize their desire to travel. Dreamers are more likely to consult with their peers in person or on social media for suggestions on travel before making their way to a specific metasearch site. This delay in seeing an advertisement, realizing their need, and searching for information to support their newly recognized need could cause the consumer to not associate the booking site as the solution to their needs. These consumers illustrate how important it is to have consistent messaging and presence on social media and digital advertising to complement any efforts made on a traditional level. In order to best reach the Dreamers, traveler advertisers should also keep up with emerging trends such as DAT (Dynamic Ads for Travel) on Facebook.

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Source: Think With Google

Wandering Travelers (Wanderers)

According to a 2015 presentation by Google, 54% of wannabe travelers don’t have a specific destination in mind when they begin their external information search. While likely to make a booking decision on a metasearch site, the Wanderers will often have a longer process to complete compared to Mindful Travelers. For example, if an ad features international destinations, it may queue a need for international travel in the Wandering consumer. 65% of leisure travelers searching for inspiration turn to the internet. On average, this group will visit 38 different sites before making a purchase decision. This makes the Wanderers unique in that they are more likely to be influenced by suggestions in booking site’s commercials than the Mindful group.

Both Mindful and Wandering consumers have the most immediate value to booking sites and hoteliers, due to the fact that both groups are entering their “consideration” stage following exposure to an advertisement. Because of their active information search, metasearch sites can easily help these consumers along their decision making journey.

Mindful Travelers (Mindfuls)

Mindful Travelers are most closely associated with consumers who have already engaged in at least an internal information search by choosing what destination meets their needs before seeing any sort of travel ad. Because they are further along in the consumer decision-making process, they are closer to making their purchase decision. Their evaluation of alternatives will have a more refined selection of options because they don’t need to pick their destination, and thus their consideration process will be more streamlined. This group still has a good opportunity to be influenced on the brand selection preference. Since 2014, travelers across the spectrum have been less persuaded by brand as they are by price and amenities that fit their needs.

To review, engaging with prospective customers on multiple channels is a crucial part of the consumer decision-making process. From their first impression to the final purchase decision, companies must ensure their marketing efforts keep a consistent and effective message. By analyzing three different consumer groups, metasearch marketers and hoteliers realize and act on opportunities to move these consumers along their decision-making journey. This will not only lead to higher bookings but also build better brand equity by being present for each step of the process.

How We Can Help:

As the business initiatives of OTAs and suppliers become increasingly customer-centric, the digital strategies of these companies must reflect the same principle by delivering relevant advertisements to potential customers.

Koddi’s advanced reporting, intelligent bidding platform, and vast amounts of industry data allow us to uniquely impact each of these customer segments at the right time in a way that other advertisers simply can’t. We drive success for our clients by understanding their business goals and translating them into direct response campaigns across multiple channels. Have questions about how we can help you achieve the best optimization strategy to drive bookings and higher returns for your metasearch campaigns? We’d love to hear from you.

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Marketing , Travel