use data-driven marketing to grow your travel apps

HOW TO USE CUSTOMER DATA TO

By Jim NicholsVP-Marketing, Apsalar

ACCELERATE GROWTH FOR YOUR TRAVEL APPS

TRAVEL APP INSIGHTS SERIES - 2016

IntroductionApps are rapidly transforming the ways that people interact and trans-act in digital, especially in the travel category. While just a few years ago the app space was completely dominated by games, now travel apps are becoming very popular. More and more travel businesses around the world are relying on apps to drive engagement and sales.

2

>>>


THE BREADTH AND DEPTH OF CONSUMER TRAVEL PREFERENCESOne of the most interesting aspects of the travel business is that two people sitting next to one another on a plane, in identical seats, may have radically different preferences for travel services and amenities. Here are just a few of the many important ways that their needs may differ:

Business or pleasure occasion?

High- versus low-price-sensitivity?

First or business or coach class?

Brand preferences and points programs?

Luxury, trendsetting or utilitarian venue preferences?

Urban or suburban location?

Need for on-premise restaurant, pool, fitness center etc.?

Flexibility on departure and return dates?

Purpose

Costs

Class

Brand

Ambience

Amenities

FlexibilityTravel has been one of the first verticals to get serious about collecting customer data as a means ofanticipating the particular needs of a traveler. The OTAs as well as the leading travel brands now have extensive databases of information about travelers, preferences, frequent destinations, brandaffinities, price sensitivity and more. Data they use to deliver tailored PC and mobile web marketing.

Environment

Time Urgency

3TRAVEL APP INSIGHTS SERIES - 2016

MAKING TRAVEL APP MARKETING CONSUMER-CENTRIC

By contrast, data-driven travel app marketing is only in its infancy. Techniques that are common online are only now becoming available in the app arena. But now that they are available, travel companies should start taking the same sorts of data-driven approaches to app marketing that they take with consumer touchpoints that take place on other screens.In the pages that follow, we will be providng ideas and tips to do just that. We hope that these insights and recommendations will help you make your travel app marketing more effective through afocus on leveraging the power of data to create richer and morepersonal customer relationships

>>>


How to define the data collection strategy for your app, including which types of consumer actions you need to track.

How to correctly evaluate your various marketing partners -- to measure their relative abilities to drive your KPIs.

How you can apply seven use cases and strategies to start driving rapid growth in your travel app business immediately.

How you can convince more app users to buy in-app rather than taking their transactions to the PC web.

We’ll be discussing:

1234


When you are just getting started with in-app measure-ment, the most important things you need to decide are which consumer actions to track. In the mobile app measurement industry, we call in-app consumer actions 'events'. By tracking events, we gather the data necessary to understand the effectiveness of your marketing programs. We also gain a granular view of exactly what each consumer does inside your apps.

1Travel AppData Collection Strategy

At Apsalar, we classify in-app user events into four big "buckets":

1. Validation Events: Actions that help identify the user (anonymously, of course.)

2. Engagement Events: Actions that indicate "involvement" with the app,and presage long-term usage.

3. Intent Events: Actions that indicate that the user is considering and preparing for a purchase.

4. Conversion Events: Completed transactions.


Email Address (Hashed) A hashed email can be used to link purchases and other actions that take place in one environment to those that take place in other environments. For example, hashed email can be used to link in-app purchases to e-store purchases and CRM activity. When we unite all that data, we create a more holistic understanding of the customer.

Device Advertising ID Many media partners will pass the Device Advertising ID (e.g., IDFA, Android Advertising ID) to advertisers. This helps us identify a user's device so we can link marketing activity to consumer actions. Device Advertising IDs can also be helpful in associating a customer’s activity across devices, because Device IDs are far more persistent and mobile-measurement-friendly than other identifiers, like third-party cookies.

Social IDs Because the social networks have extremely sophisticated algorithms to spot fraudulent users and activity, social IDs can be used to help ensure that an app was installed by a real person, In addition, social IDs can be the foundation for retargeting and other re-engagement efforts on social networks.

Custom Advertiser ID Some advertisers use their own customer IDs to identify users who log in, make purchases, etc. A custom ID is a great way to link transactional behaviors across devices and platforms.

Age and Gender These are useful, non-personally-identifiable attributes that help with basic segmentation.

Latitude and Longitude Most industry people expect location-based marketing to grow in importance. To prepare for that eventuality, we suggest that advertisers record phone longitude and latitude when users install.

Validation Events are important for anonymized user identification. They help us identify the device on which actions take place, so we can associate all of an individual's behavior to a single ID or profile. Here are the most important events/data points to track:


Engagement events tend to be category-specific. Hereare some examples of some of the engagement types that travel companies should track.

• Instructions/Tutorial Viewed? If the app has instructions ora tutorial, whether or not a consumer reads it/watches it is astrong indicator of their depth of interest.

• Input of Travel Rewards Numbers: By choosing to committhis information to the app, the user gives you a strongindication of their interest in long-term use.

• Input of Travel Preferences (Airlines, Hotels, Car Rent-als, Time of Day, Class of Service): Preferences like theseoffer a treasure trove of insights you can leverage to tailormarketing programs and experiences to individual users.

• Destination Searches: When you collect and retain detailsabout past searches and trips, you can later use these facts totailor offers and packages to the individual user.

• Wish Listing: A significant number of consumers like towish list "dream" items. Analysis here can help you defineprograms and experiences that may be relevant to eachindividual user. In addition, you can (with permission) sharethese lists with other connected users as gift suggestions.

• Rating/Reviewing: By recording these opinions, you cancraft richer marketing programs and recommendations thatbetter reflect what each individual use wants and needs.

• Content Sharing: Noting the content that a user shares canprovide valuable data to use in codifying someone'spreferences and interests.

• Did User Install Updates? This is a great indicator of thedepth of interest an individual has in an app. Each update isa concrete demonstration of their commitment to an app.

Intent events are a rich source of information on whether an individual is committed to transacting in an app. Further, by analyzing which items the person appears to be interested in buying, you gain important insights into their interests - insights that power effective individualized communications.

• Check availability: Not surprisingly, this is an extremelypowerful indicator of interests and likely future purchases.This action can also give us insights into an individual'slifestyle and other factors that may drive future purchasepreferences.

• Add to cart/shopping bag: Tells us what the person isreally interested in buying. Committing to a cart is, for mostpeople, a strong indicator of likely future purchases.

• Begin booking (and every other stage of the booking pro-cess.) Find out which steps a user takes in the process.Tracking every step is a must to identify buying processbottlenecks that may be impeding your conversion rates.

• Input credit card details: Another demonstration ofserious interest. And, in these days of security concerns,brand trust.


With Purchase events, it's critical that you record the specifics -- or "parameters" -- of what the individual has just bought. Parameters are the details from each event that help us develop a richer customer profile. Here are some parameters we highly recommend tracking for the vertical:

Air/Car Travel Services Hotel ReservationsTotal Revenue Total Revenue

Destination/Location Hotel Location

Quantity of Items Quantity of Items

Departure/Pickup Date Check-In Date

Return Date Check-Out Date

Carrier/Company Hotel Brand

Taxes Levied Taxes Levied

Class of Service Class of Room

Bought on Discount? Bought on Discount?

Size of Discount Size of Discount

For travel apps, parameters are invaluable as a source of individual user insights. Make sure you pass all relevant parameters with each purchase so you can better understand your business and create personalized communications for each user.


You and your brand probably expect more from your app than "just" a colossal number of installs. You likely need to drive strong bookings and realized revenue. Given that, it's a bad idea to just use install counts and CPI as the only measures of media partner effectiveness.

Media companies that drive dirt-cheap installs often deliver the lowest quality users. That’s because the least expensive ways to drive an install (like incentivized downloads, side-loading and APK) tend to garner lots of "users" who actually have no interest in what you sell.

An example: If I agreed to download your app in exchange for an hour of free Wi-Fi, am I likely to be a high-potential-revenue- user? Probably not. If it sounds too good to be true from a CPI perspective, it probably is.

That’s not to say that every incentivized install program is bad. But you should dig deep to find out whether its realistic to expect quality users from a program before you sign the contract.

One of the most frustrating things we see from our view into hundreds of app businesses is that lots of mcommerce companies still optimize to cost per install instead of revenue per marketing sollar invested.. Doing so often drives exactly the wrong allocation decisions.

Here's an example. According to Liftoff’s Mobile App Engagement Index, the average travel app CPI in the US is about $6 - $5.58 for a male user and $6.42 for a female.

Given this, should travel apps then focus solely on men? NO! Liftoff reports that women buy the majority of travel offerings, so acquiring female users may make more sense. They may cost a little more to acquire, but they will generate lots more revenue.

Net: always evaluate vendors based upon the extent to which they help deliver your KPIs, not surrogate measures. Ensure that the measurement tool that you choose can provide a precise measure of the return on ad spend for vendors and campaigns, not just basic CPI metrics.

2Evaluating Your Vendors BasedUpon Revenue KPIs, Not Installs


http://info.liftoff.io/app-index-q2-2015

http://info.liftoff.io/app-index-q2-2015

Once you are collecting the right data on key customer events, it’s time to put that data to work. Use individual and audience insights to power segmented and customized marketing programs. Here are seven key use cases in which customer event data can play a huge role in improving revenue, customer engagement rates and profitability:

� Optimized Vendor Allocation

� Broad-Based Mobile Retargeting

� Broad-Based Cross-Device Retargeting

� Reactivating Cart Abandoners

� Bringing Lapsed Customers Back to Buy

� Advanced Lookalike Modeling

� App Cross-Marketing

Seven Data-Driven App Marketing Use Cases3


21

INSIGHTS “FROM THE FIELD”

Apsalar clients have used this technique to radically increase the size of their customer bases. The payback from ROAS-optimized vendor allocations is immediate AND lasting.

Deduplication also offers immediate ROI benefits. It usually reveals that high quality media vendors are far more efficient than those that seem to offer remarkably efficient CPIs.

Broad-based mobile retargeting: Retargeting is the fastest growing sector of app marketing, and among the fastest growing for digital and mobile marketing in general. And the reason is because it works outstandingly well. By concentrating on high-potential segments, you increase your share of voice with these "consumers that matter," and can deliver customized messages geared to need states.

Here are two examples specific to travel apps:

• Apps can target segments of their users whoexplore destination information but have notdemonstrated intent to transact. This engagementstate often represents a very big chunk of travelapp users - one that can be cost-effectivelyreached with tailored messages that drive deeperengagements.

• OTA apps can target users who have transactedfor a low margin item, like an airline ticket, buthave never used the app to make a higher-margin hotel or rental car reservation.


Our data show that travel apps were among the first movers for broad-based mobile retargeting. Early interest was focused on using retargeting to drive more high-margin events, like hotel bookings. Now the use of retargeting is growing to encompass more event types, including some that relate to increasing exploration and search engagement rather than driving immediate revenue.

Optimized vendor allocation: Collecting data on all of the paid and organic events that drive installs and other desirable actions is the first step toward having the information you need to assess vendor performance and efficiency.

Analyze the results of each of your media partners so you can delvier the right mix of media to maximize return on ad spend.

In addition to enabling you to allocate your spend in the ways that are most accretive to your revenue goals or other KPIs, you can also ensure that you don't pay multiple vendors for the same install. "Deduplication" can drive a savings of 20% or more on your overall CPI. The more partners you use, the greater the potential for duplication.


Cross-device mobile retargeting: Through partner-ships with device graph companies, it is now possible to anonymously target individuals across screens by connecting third-party cookies from the PC and mobile web with device advertising IDs from the app world.

The number of companies doing this at the time of this writing is small, but we expect these figures to climb rapidly in Q4 2015 and 2016.


Pioneers in cross-screen app user targeting tell us that they do so to avail themselves of the low costs per impression in PC (and mobile web) Display. Device graphs also help these clients gain a richer understanding of customer interests and behavior that they also can put to use in remarketing.

Cart abandon reactivation: This use case is one of the key drivers of the effectiveness of retargeting. By reaching out to users who have demonstrated strong in-tent signals but have not yet transacted, it is possible to drive a significant portion of these users back to transact.

The percentage who return depends on at least six criteria:

Category dynamics ing begins

- Price point Size of discount offer (if any)

- Whether it would be a user’s first or a repeat purchase


Cart abandoner targeting works if your app has sufficient scale to accumulate enough abandoner IDs to meet the audience targeting minimums for your preferred vendor(s). IIf you do not have that scale, you would do well to focus on broad-based retargeting until your business has achieved greater scale.

3 4

How many retargeting messages are received

How fast retargeting starts after abandon


a) Bringing lapsed users back to buy: As we all know, thenumber of apps on a typical mobile device far exceeds thenumber that are used regularly. Recent figures fromNielsen in the US show that the average smartphone bearsabout 100 apps, of which about 15 are used regularly.

Many apps lose more than 80% of their customers in justthe first month after the install. Given those dynamics, it iscritical to keep your app top-of-mind, and one way to dothat is to remind users after N days of inactivity.

Understanding past travel exploration and booking patternsis critical here; it obviously makes a lot more sense to re-mind a lapsed user who books a trip every week than onewho only books a few times a year.


This tactic works for driving re-engagement with an app as well as encouraging incremental purchases. Care should be taken to understand the typical buying patterns of your app users so that you know when and how often to deliver your messages.

Driving sustained use of companion apps is a fairly uncommon tactic thus far in the industry, because there is little direct revenue attributable to those apps. But as more and more travel companies seek to replace labor with self-service apps, the financial case may become more enticing.

f. Advanced lookalike modeling: Travel companies havebeen leveraging lookalike modeling for acquisition efforts inthe PC realm for years, so it should come as no surprisethat it is a fast-growing area for app marketing. Likely, manyof the app media partners you work with are alreadyleveraging lookalike models on your behalf.

Lookalike modeling is most effective when a brand collectsand analyzes all of its installs and customers FROMACROSS ALL MEDIA VENDORS, in order to understandthe complete picture of its customer base. Whilesophisticated media partners can do a good job withlookalike modeling using only the installs that they drive,there is no substitute for the broadest possible view.

Another key element of brand-centered lookalike modelingis the opportunity to identify more target audience seg-ments. By arming your media partners with ALL thesegments, you will empower them to drive even betterresults for your brand.


While more brands are taking steps to collect and leverage all of their customer data, too many punt on this challenge, with the result that they limit the scale that they can obtain for their app business.

By creating a common data store of customer profiles from across all vendors, a brand can not only safeguard its information and prevent data leaks, it can also ensure that all of its marketing programs are informed by the best possible customer insights.

5 6


� Interests

� Lifestyles

� Propensity to make in-app purchases


In our interviews with marketers, we heard that sometimes there is territoriality tension between marketing teams for different apps.

App cross-sell: Users of your related apps are a natural place to start prospecting for new users/customers. First, the cost to acquire them for the second app will likely be much lower. Second, the strong customer profiles that you have for the first app will help you segment users to identify ideal targets for your new app. You’ll be able to do so by examining:

� App usage patterns

7

Really try and break this down. In addition, it’s helpful to explore ways to get creative in messaging to attract cross-users. While the users of one app are likely a good prospect base for another, you need to unlock your teams’ creativity in order to make the best use of resources and drive the highest response rates.



1. Travel tends to be a high ticket item, andpeople have security concerns regardingmobile transactions.

2. Travel is often a well-considered pur-chase, and users avail themselves ofmany different types of connections toaccess information. But for transacting,consumers still like to use a PC tocomparison shop.

3. Travel booking sometimes requires sig-nificant data entry, which is made easierwith the fill-sized keyboard of a PC.

4How you can convince more appusers to transact in-app rather than taking their transaction to the PC web

Many users of travel apps switch to the PC web to complete their transactions.

Lots of experts have theories about why this is so common. Some of the most popular are outlined below:

Communicate Available Offers: Make sure that you communicate available offers clearly and prominently.

Create Urgency: If offers are set to expire, give consumers a reason to transact now by communicating deadlines aggressively.

Allay Safety Concerns: Make sure you provide assurances that transacting in-app is very safe. If you work with assurance solutions like TRUSTe, make sure you feature those relationships in your checkout process.

Simplify the Data Entry: Make sure that your buying experience leverages any contact information you have already in pre-fill forms etc.

Pricing Guarantees: Very few of us have relied on only one website for travel pricing. We check around, or use services that do this for us. If you offer a price guarantee, this can likely improve your chances of in-app conversion.

Get Creative About Differentiating In-App Purchases: You and your team may be able to identify ways to differentiate the value of buying in-app.

Here are a few ideas to improve your chances of success:


FINAL THOUGHTSTravel marketers are among the most creative business leaders around. After all, the need to romance experiences and optimize buying processes is part and parcel for success in your industry. Few industry analysts disagree with the idea that apps will become an increasingly critical channel for the travel industry. The time is now for travel marketers to devote their strategic and tactical acumen to the challenges inherent data-driven in-app promotion and business building.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Nichols is VP of Marketing for Apsalar. Jim has 20+ years experience in over 80 different categories, including developing successful positioning and go-to-market plans for more than 40 adtech and martech companies. He joins Apsalar after several years as VP of Marketing for Conversant, where he led various efforts in the successful rebrand of the company from ValueClick, Inc. The rebrand and associated industry attention for the company contributed to the $2.3B sale of Conversant to Alliance Data in December, 2014. He is a prolific writer for digital trades on brand marketing, mobile, video, data, and customer profiling. Publications include iMedia Connection, Inside Radio, VentureBeat, ad:tech, ShellyPalmer.com, Jack Myers, and many consumer publications. He holds a B.A. in U.S. History from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Chicago.

ABOUT APSALAR

Apsalar, the leader in mobile data management, helps direct marketing brands get better marketing effectiveness by providing a mobile data management platform that delivers a true understanding of customer behavior in apps and across other marketing channels.

The Apsalar Mobile DMP enables brands to measure marketing effectiveness, enhance, manage, enrich and segment profiles to build audiences, and easily and safely connect to other marketing partners so brands can confidently share their data and audiences.

APSALAR ATTRIBUTION

APSALAR AUDIENCES

APSALAR DATASYNC

MOBILE DMP

Collect and measure in-app consumer behavior and marketing performance.

Measure every in-app action relevent to your buinesss

Unite your first party data from all sources, enrich it with third party data, and build high performance

marketing audiences

Easily and safely share customer audiences and

data with your digital marketing platforms, including analytics,

marketing automation, media companies and legacy

DMPs

Get more great ideas and insights about app marketing by visiting:

www.apsalar.com/resources
