Empowering travel brands to optimize marketing during challenging times

New challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic have made efficient budget allocation more important than ever for travel marketers. Discover how measurement strategies built on data can enable better decision making and optimize performance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the travel industry especially hard, with digital sales in the U.K. and the U.S. each falling by nearly half in 2020 compared with a year earlier .

In order to navigate this challenging time, it's more important than ever for travel marketers to have strong measurement strategies in place so that budgets can be allocated to the most effective and efficient tactics.

In our new paper, How Travel Brands Can Optimize Their Marketing With Lift Measurement , we take an in-depth look at lift studies and how travel brands in particular can use them to understand channel performance and inform budget decisions.

Invest in data-based decision making

However, travel advertisers face a key issue with their measurement frameworks: Brands often spend the bulk of their budgets on one or two digital channels, making it difficult to determine the ROI of investing in new approaches.

To overcome this, lift tests can be a valuable tool. This is an experimental approach where ads are served to a subset of people and not served to a similar subset, enabling a data-based comparison of ad performance.

By controlling for the other factors that can influence performance, lift tests allow advertisers to measure incrementality, or the impact directly caused by marketing.

Evaluating media mix more effectively

When it comes to lift studies, travel brands face a specific challenge: Long consideration cycles and the tendency to concentrate spend on one or two approaches mean that advertisers often get a picture of channel performance rather than overall performance.

To gain the greatest benefit from lift testing, advertisers need an approach that delivers a comprehensive view.

Specifically, geo lift studies - which allow advertisers to apply geographical boundaries to test and control groups—can deliver the flexibility needed to truly understand the performance of different media mixes, not just individual channels.

Simply put, a measurement strategy that incorporates geo lift studies can help travel advertisers answer the question: How should I allocate my budget to increase the overall incremental performance of my marketing?

In the white paper we look at how travel brands in particular can benefit from lift measurement, delve into common challenges brands face when deploying tests and how lift allows advertisers to make more effective budget decisions.

What it means for marketers

The right measurement framework is crucial

Efficient budget allocation is more important than ever for travel marketers. In order to gain a true understanding of performance, it’s necessary to have a nuanced vertical-specific measurement strategy in place.

Lift can help marketers understand incremental impact

Determining the ROI of investing in new approaches can be especially difficult for travel advertisers. Lift studies can help brands understand relative channel performance and effectively compare different media mixes.

Study structure is key to measurement success

If lift studies aren’t structured correctly, they will deliver imprecise—or even inaccurate—results. In order to gain the most useful insights, advertisers should use approaches like geo-lift tests that provide the necessary flexibility.