With customer buying behavior constantly evolving, online travel brands are constantly tuning their approach towards purchase patterns and other factors.
Google has analyzed about 36,000 Google Analytics accounts (that have enabled ecommerce tracking) to understand the role played by various online channels towards shopping/booking decisions. Also, the study focuses on the correlation between purchase order value and number of days/steps.
The study plots data for 11 industries including travel, retail, finance, health and media. Users can also view the report data for seven countries - US, UK, Japan, Brazil, Germany, France and Canada.
Marketing channels vs Online purchase decision
In the entire purchase path of a customer, marketing channels like email, display ads, paid search ads, social media, and direct visits add various value to the customer at various stages.
The study has classified the purchase path into two:
- Assisting interaction: These are the channels that build brand awareness, makes a customer to consider a brand, and earlier in the customer purchase funnel
- Last interaction: These channels act as the last point of contact prior to a purchase
Below chart shows the role played by various marketing channels across all industries in the US market (click on all below images for better resolution).
Here, a channel’s position on the chart is defined by the 'assist/last interaction ratio'. In general, ratios less than one mean the channel acts more as a 'last interaction', while ratios greater than one mean that the channel acts more as an 'assist interaction'. Read more about the value computation process - here and here.
Channels such as 'display ads', and 'social' assist the users in their purchase decision. Channels such as 'direct' and 'organic search' act as a 'completion channel' in their purchase decision.
However, when it comes to travel industry, social and email channels assist the users in their purchase decision. Direct and 'other paid' channels act as a 'completion channel' in their purchase decision.
Channels impact in travel industry, in the US:
Among the seven countries reported, differences exist in terms of the impact caused by each marketing channel.
For example, in the UK, 'display click' channel has a high value of 4.8, and it is the top channel that assist users in their purchase decision.
In Japan, only 'direct' channel acts as a 'completion channel'; in Germany, all seven channels are more or less equally spaced in assisting/completing a purchase.
Average order value vs Number of days/steps to purchase
STAY WYSE stated in its recent study that youth travellers' length of stay is related to the advance purchase window.
This Google study reveals the correlation between 'average order value' (AOV) and number of days/steps it takes to make a purchase. Here, 'steps' is the number of interactions with the brand. And, AOV is the purchase value, for easy comparison, AOV at day one/step one is taken as "1".
Average order value by days/steps for all industries in the US:
Key observations from above graph are:
- As the number of days it takes to purchase increases, the AOV increases
- Spike in number of purchases on days between 26 and 30
- Spike in number of purchases between 28 and 30 steps.
Average order value by days/steps for travel industry in the US:
In the context of travel industry, it can be inferred that the AOV stays more or less flat with respect to number of days it takes to purchase. It is also interesting to note that only about 15% of the total revenue comes from purchases made in more than one day.
Again, these metrics differ for each of the seven countries reported.
For example, in Japan travel industry scenario (refer graph below),
- AOV dips as the number of days (it takes to purchase) increases
- Total purchases more or less remain the same among customers who make a purchase between 4 days and 30 days
- A gradual decrease in total purchases can be observed as the number of steps increases (especially between 3 and 15).
Average order value by days/steps for Japanese travel industry:
Study methodology
This report comprises transactional data collected from 36,000 Google Analytics accounts/profiles with ecommerce tracking enabled. The report includes only profiles whose owners have authorized sharing with Google Analytics and third parties. Selected profiles were filtered to exclude those with zero conversion counts and negative value conversions.
NB:Traveller image via Shutterstock.