Costco Travel, a wholly owned subsidiary
of Costco Wholesale Corporation, has been using Google Analytics as its web
metrics program upon the launch of its website in 2008. The subsidiary has been providing Costco
members with vacation packages, cruises, hotels and car rentals since 2000 (“Costco
uses Google Analytics,” n.d.).
It is extremely important for Costco to
ensure that online behavior is tracked properly to ensure success. A big
challenge for Costco Travel and other online travel sites according to the “Future
of Airline Distribution Report, A Look Ahead to 2017”, is that the typical
traveler visits 22 websites in “multiple shopping sessions” before booking a
trip. (“Online Travel Market, 2013). This can definitely impact a conversion
funnel’s path to purchase (see below for more on funnels) by showing a lot of dropout
customers. By metrics alone, it can
appear that customers are abandoning the site without making a purchase, but
they are coming back at a later time to complete the purchase after conducting
research. Another trend amongst travel buyers is that they are using online
travel sites such as Expedia for research and then going directly through to
the hotel to book (MacKenzie, 2010).
This translates can translate to a lot of repeat visits but no sales.
Audience
Overview Report
From the Audience Overview report in Google Analytics, it is important for Costco Travel to look at visitor and unique visitor traffic. Costco Travel accommodates the Costco member—a consumer who is looking for leisure travel deals. Most take one or two vacations a year (if that), resulting in a high churn rate. As a result, unique visitors and new visitors are both important metrics to track. Additionally, Costco Travel must ensure that new customers are coming to the site continuously and purchasing travel services. Visitor traffic can be used to track seasonality in order to prepare for those looking for pre-holiday deals. In turn, Costco Travel can launch promotions in the months leading up to the holidays (“The Audience Overview Report,” n.d.).
From the Audience Overview report in Google Analytics, it is important for Costco Travel to look at visitor and unique visitor traffic. Costco Travel accommodates the Costco member—a consumer who is looking for leisure travel deals. Most take one or two vacations a year (if that), resulting in a high churn rate. As a result, unique visitors and new visitors are both important metrics to track. Additionally, Costco Travel must ensure that new customers are coming to the site continuously and purchasing travel services. Visitor traffic can be used to track seasonality in order to prepare for those looking for pre-holiday deals. In turn, Costco Travel can launch promotions in the months leading up to the holidays (“The Audience Overview Report,” n.d.).
The Audience Overview report is
important when gauging traffic to the What’s New page. It has been redesigned, to
keep visitors engaged and coming back for new deals (“Costco uses Google
Analytics,” n.d.).
Goals
The Goals report in the Conversions section in Google Analytics can provide important data for Costco Travel. Improving the purchase process and eliminating funnel dropouts for vacation and cruise booking services are priorities for the company (“Costco uses Google Analytics,” n.d.). Monitoring this path and making adjustments can increase sales (Mackenzie, 2010). Goal urls should be set up to monitor various funnels in the purchase process. Visitors have many options to create various vacation and cruise packages which make funnels a necessity. Costco Travel can set up funnels with the booking confirmation page as the goal and the intermediate pages and homepage as part of the funnel. I think that tracking the funnel path is extremely important for travel sites because people can abandon during a step in the path to purchase. Due of the nature of the product, a vacation package cannot just be added to the cart and evaluated to see if the cart was later abandoned. On travel sites, users create their own travel packages with various options to create their unique product (“Costco uses Google Analytics,” n.d.). At the end, they do not add to a cart, but they “book” a vacation.
The Goals report in the Conversions section in Google Analytics can provide important data for Costco Travel. Improving the purchase process and eliminating funnel dropouts for vacation and cruise booking services are priorities for the company (“Costco uses Google Analytics,” n.d.). Monitoring this path and making adjustments can increase sales (Mackenzie, 2010). Goal urls should be set up to monitor various funnels in the purchase process. Visitors have many options to create various vacation and cruise packages which make funnels a necessity. Costco Travel can set up funnels with the booking confirmation page as the goal and the intermediate pages and homepage as part of the funnel. I think that tracking the funnel path is extremely important for travel sites because people can abandon during a step in the path to purchase. Due of the nature of the product, a vacation package cannot just be added to the cart and evaluated to see if the cart was later abandoned. On travel sites, users create their own travel packages with various options to create their unique product (“Costco uses Google Analytics,” n.d.). At the end, they do not add to a cart, but they “book” a vacation.
According
to “About the Goal Flow Report” in Google Analytics, to effectively evaluate
the funnel, it is important to ask the following:
·
Is
there consistently higher traffic through some pages than others?
·
Do
some pages funnel visitors on to the shopping cart better than others?
·
Is
it a case of some products just being better than others, or is there a
difference between the page designs that might account for the difference in
traffic volume?
·
Do
the better performing pages offer more information about their products, more
customer reviews, or more options for visualizing the products before adding
them to the shopping cart? (“About the Goal Flow Report,” n.d.).
Ecommerce
The Ecommerce report can provide Costco Travel with a lot of sales data, down to the product and transaction level. Products, quantity and revenue can be measured. Perhaps there is a destination package that has not sold well online and based on the data, Costco Travel decides to remove it and tests a new package in its place. Without site analytics, they would not be able to interpret performance in order to test new products. Details regarding specific transactions can also be captured. For example, revenue from a specific sale can help determine ROI. Time to purchase is another metric found in Ecommerce Reports. You can see the number of days and visits it takes to purchase. This is especially significant because if Costco is finding that it is taking customers a few visits to the site before they purchase, it can be concluded that this is due to site design or functionality. Or due to the nature of the industry, people are visiting the site numerous times while comparison shopping before they make a purchase. This gives Costco Travel the opportunity to tweak a few things to see if that moves the purchase process along (“About Ecommerce,” n.d.).
The Ecommerce report can provide Costco Travel with a lot of sales data, down to the product and transaction level. Products, quantity and revenue can be measured. Perhaps there is a destination package that has not sold well online and based on the data, Costco Travel decides to remove it and tests a new package in its place. Without site analytics, they would not be able to interpret performance in order to test new products. Details regarding specific transactions can also be captured. For example, revenue from a specific sale can help determine ROI. Time to purchase is another metric found in Ecommerce Reports. You can see the number of days and visits it takes to purchase. This is especially significant because if Costco is finding that it is taking customers a few visits to the site before they purchase, it can be concluded that this is due to site design or functionality. Or due to the nature of the industry, people are visiting the site numerous times while comparison shopping before they make a purchase. This gives Costco Travel the opportunity to tweak a few things to see if that moves the purchase process along (“About Ecommerce,” n.d.).
Event
Tracking
Event tracking is one of the more important measures Costco Travel relies upon for insight into the path to purchase. This function tracks visitor actions that do not correspond directly to pageviews, such as a pdf download for example (Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, 2013). A tagging audit conducted in 2009 found that the site was designed to utilize Ajax server requests, which meant that a search page url would not refresh while a visitor was using certain elements on the homepage. For example, there are no unique urls while a user creates and modifies a search for a package from New York to Cancun. This is all conducted on one webpage, which means that all the actions needed to select a travel package are not recorded individually. A function called _trackPageview was implemented to track these events as pages in Google Analytics (“Costco uses Google Analytics,” n.d.). This information is helpful to Costco Travel because the form on the homepage allows customers to choose the specifics of their trip via form fields and dropdowns. Event tagging shows Costco Travel which products people are selecting the most. This is important information because it can drive which products the company offers based on its audience preferences (“About Ecommerce,” n.d.).
Event tracking is one of the more important measures Costco Travel relies upon for insight into the path to purchase. This function tracks visitor actions that do not correspond directly to pageviews, such as a pdf download for example (Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, 2013). A tagging audit conducted in 2009 found that the site was designed to utilize Ajax server requests, which meant that a search page url would not refresh while a visitor was using certain elements on the homepage. For example, there are no unique urls while a user creates and modifies a search for a package from New York to Cancun. This is all conducted on one webpage, which means that all the actions needed to select a travel package are not recorded individually. A function called _trackPageview was implemented to track these events as pages in Google Analytics (“Costco uses Google Analytics,” n.d.). This information is helpful to Costco Travel because the form on the homepage allows customers to choose the specifics of their trip via form fields and dropdowns. Event tagging shows Costco Travel which products people are selecting the most. This is important information because it can drive which products the company offers based on its audience preferences (“About Ecommerce,” n.d.).
Campaign
Tagging
Costco Travel must promote campaigns for different vacation packages. To track the effectiveness of campaigns, the campaign tagging function from Google Analytics must be enabled. Campaign tagging would allow Google Analytics to associate activity with different sources of visitors and marketing campaigns. ROI would determine if such promotions would continue in the future. Campaigns can be broken out by channel (email, paid search, affiliate, online ads), source (traffic source within a channel), campaign (roll up of all parameters), content (creative) and term (non-AdWords paid search) (Cohen 2008). The biggest hurdle in tagging campaigns (e.g. a “Visit Home for the Holidays” promotion) is ensuring that campaign tagging is correct. Many companies do not tag properly and this can be largely attributed to the number of those involved in the campaign such as affiliates and email marketers, to name a few (Knook, 2011).
Costco Travel must promote campaigns for different vacation packages. To track the effectiveness of campaigns, the campaign tagging function from Google Analytics must be enabled. Campaign tagging would allow Google Analytics to associate activity with different sources of visitors and marketing campaigns. ROI would determine if such promotions would continue in the future. Campaigns can be broken out by channel (email, paid search, affiliate, online ads), source (traffic source within a channel), campaign (roll up of all parameters), content (creative) and term (non-AdWords paid search) (Cohen 2008). The biggest hurdle in tagging campaigns (e.g. a “Visit Home for the Holidays” promotion) is ensuring that campaign tagging is correct. Many companies do not tag properly and this can be largely attributed to the number of those involved in the campaign such as affiliates and email marketers, to name a few (Knook, 2011).
Measuring the effectiveness of the
Internet is tricky for online travel sites and can increase the difficulty to
determine ROI. Although the focus of my essay is to discuss how Costco Travel
is using analytics and how they should use Google Analytics to improve success.
I would be negligent not to mention that
information from Google Analytics is part of the bigger picture in terms of
measuring bookings both on- and offline.
There are many plans that are researched and begun online but then
completed offline. Companies like Costco Travel need to figure out how they
would attribute these sales (Thomases, 2005).
References:
“About Ecommerce.” (n.d.). Retrieved
from https://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&utm_id=ad&answer=1037249
About the Goal Flow Report. Retrieved
from http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2520139&topic=1649581&ctx=topic
Cohen, A.L. (2008). Campaign tagging
with Google Analytics. Digital Alex Blog.
Retrieved from http://www.alexlcohen.com/web-analytics/2008/03/26/campaign-tagging-google
analytics/
“Costco uses Google Analytics to grow
Costco Travel, its online travel business.” (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.google.com/analytics/customers/case_study_costco.html
Knook, K. (2011). Want better Google
Analytics data? Learn to tag your campaigns. Search Engine Land. Retrieved from http://searchengineland.com/want-better-google-analytics-data-learn-to-tag-your-campaigns-97962
MacKenzie. Re-think your metrics: travel
booking isn’t linear. hotelmarketingstrategies.com.
Retrieved from http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/re-think-your-metrics/
“Online Travel Market.” (2013). NewMedia TrendWatch. Retrieved from http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/world-overview/91-online-travel-market?start=1
Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism,
West Virginia University. (2013). Lesson 7 – Advanced Google Analytics.
Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu
Thomases, H. (2005). Travel, tourism
& hospitality the challenges of online marketing, tracking and measuring
ROI. webadvantage.net. Retrieved from
http://www.webadvantage.net/webadblog/travel-tourism-hospitality-the-challenges-of-online-marketing-tracking-measuring-roi-566
“The Audience Overview Report.” (n.d.).
Retrieved from http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1144406
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