2011 Silver Best use of eCRM

Client TUI Travel UK

What is wonderful about this work? This email programme drives sales by managing engagement, supporting decision-making and encouraging conversion and upsell to high-margin products. Personalised relevancy is driven by what customers do online, with timely tailored content. We saw 65% open, 33% click through and 54% take action, with conversion 44% better than the control and an ROI of 807%.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? Many people only book one holiday a year, so Thomson has a relatively short window to convert casual browsing into a booking. They use web analytics data to turn hundreds of millions of searches and email clicks into actionable insights. These identify active holiday seekers and dynamically tailor offers and content. By analysing continually-evolving web search frequency and booking conversion trends, we have identified tipping points to define: casual browsers, serious searchers and red-hot prospects. We use precision eCRM to deliver emails with tailored content, tone, timing and frequency to support millions of active holiday seekers. The result is a truly 1-2-1 email programme delivering huge returns for the brand.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? The creative is centred on what we know about each customer at each stage of their journey. With dynamic headers, personalised subjects and bespoke content, each customer receives a uniquely supported journey. The primary phase (warm) is geared towards those with a lower level of engagement, at the beginning of their consideration phase, and aims to aid in the research process. Phase 2 (hot) and Phase 3 (red hot) target consumers from the beginning to middle of their journey, carrying them through the decision-making process and driving thoughtprovoking engagement. The timing and frequency of each phase is tailored and each email is dynamically crafted with offers to destinations, from UK departure points, for departure periods and holiday durations known to be under consideration. Phase 4 (sizzling) is a conversion and tactical phase, focused on individuals at more advanced stages of decisionmaking, to drive final conversion. The emails present tactical offers based on hotels that users have been selecting and make alternative recommendations, based on ‘people like you’ analytics, with user reviews and availability information.

Results Results prove that our data-led creative thinking is right on the money. Campaign results are very strong. Simple email metrics include a 65%+ open rate, 33% click rate and a 54% action rate. Sales conversion tracks the 75% of converters engaged with the programme before booking. We have seen a 44% improvement in conversion against the control. ROI is currently circa 807%.

Team Mark Brennan, Jeremy Gidley, Dan Ridler, Steve Cathcart, Dinesh Hirani, Allan Tran, Dan Stan, Davenia John.

Other contributor Omniture – Web analytics integration.