How many revenue managers use Google Analytics data as a tool to help them take the right decisions?
NB: This is an article from Direct Your Bookings
And what kind of data and KPIs, if any, can revenue managers work with in Google Analytics? It’s always the same old story: even if you have a very good conversion rate of 10%, what is the remaining 90% of people not converting doing? How do they behave? And again, what kind of data and KPIs and metrics can be tracked in order to help us take better decisions?
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And so today we’re going to see three different revenue marketing KPIs that not only tell us how people behave on our direct channels, but also represent a real gold mine in the hands of the hotel marketer who could potentially use this information to run better and more in-target marketing initiatives.
This and more coming up, so let’s dig in again.
#1 KPI: Length of Stay
How many people do search (other than booking) for one night, two nights, three nights, seven nights, even 14 nights, and so on and so forth?
And why should you be tracking length of stay on a search level?
There are multiple reasons, of course.
And first of all, from a statistical (or revenue-management perspective), you want to know how many bookings you have for two nights as opposed to five nights.
Cool. Then you might want to know also how many people search for two nights as opposed to five nights.
In other words, what’s the specific conversion rate for two nights for searches for three nights, for searches for five nights, and so on and so forth?
For example, if you have many bookings for one night, but you don’t have many bookings for two nights, despite the very high number of searches for two nights (in other words, the conversion for two nights is very slim), then apparently your hotel is not much appealing for searches for two nights, probably because the competitors are better, probably because your rate are anyway not enticing, or probably because your value proposition is not as appealing or as interesting as you may be thinking.
And thus, you might want to create, for example, a special offer for those searching for two nights, maybe a discount, but it may also be an additional benefit, or a free upgrade… that boils down to your hotel, to what you have to offer and to your specific value proposition.
#2 KPI: Combination of Adults & Children
And why would you want to track that?
The principle is the same: you want to know how many searches you get for one adult, meaning solo travellers, two adults, probably couples, or those searches that include children and therefore likely families.
What you get in terms of production may be different, proportionally speaking, from what you get in terms of searches and thus, since you want to convert as much as possible based on the searches that you get, that is what you need to look at in order to drive better performance.
These revenue matrics (KPIs) are of paramount importance also for your marketing Department.
If you see someone making a booking search including children and not converting, meaning not turning into customers, your marketing Department may want to be remarketing to them specifically knowing that they search for children and therefore showing an ad that is probably family related.
#3 KPI: Booking (Search) Window
How much in advance do people search? As you know, booking window is the time that elapses between the booking date and the arrival date.
Do you get many last minute bookings? And those last minute bookings, do they reflect last minute searches?
Again, and in other words, do searches and bookings go hand-in-hand?
Is the conversion rate for last minute the same for early bookings? In terms of volumes, you can get something similar also from Booking.com.
For example, in their extranet, they have a very detailed and very nice analytics section, and a good practice would be to actually combine what you see there, for example, the booking window there, as opposed to your booking window, on your booking engine.
And why so? Because if you see that, for example, you convert a lot better there as opposed to your Direct channel, and so if you see that you get many requests and many bookings on Booking.com within a certain booking window and on your booking engine the situation is not as good as on Booking.com, probably from a distribution perspective there is something that you could do better, or probably something that the OTAs have been doing that you are not aware of.
Now, again, these KPIs are nothing new.
We’ve talked about the length of stay, we’ve talk about the occupancy details, a combination of adults and children, and we’ve talked about the booking window.
However, as said, the power of tracking these KPIs is not just about statistics and revenue management; it’s also about marketing.
For example, Length of Stay: if you see that you get many requests for three or more nights and you do not convert very well for three or more nights, your marketing Department could, for example, run remarketing campaigns specifically to those who search for three or more nights. Of course, the longer they stay, the more interesting that potential customer is.
Just like your marketing team creates custom audiences on Google or on Facebook, segmenting people who visited, for example, specific pages of your website, you can do the same thing using these revenue-based KPIs.
And so again, you can create a custom audience, for example, for those who search for three or more nights. Or you can create a custom audience for those searching for children, and therefore you might want to retarget them with a family-based ad.
Or again, a custom audience that includes only last minute searches so that you can retarget them with a last minute offer.
And that’s why even if you have a booking engine or a CRS that already tracks these KPIs on a search level, it’s important to have them tracked also in Google Analytics because then you can create custom audiences directly in Google Analytics linking them to your Google Ads account, so that you can use these custom audience in Google Ads.
The same principle is valid for Facebook: if you have been using a tool like Google Tag manager, you can track the exact same thing for Google Analytics and for your Facebook Pixel, and even though the structure is slightly different, the ultimate result can be exactly the same.
