Increasing conversions is a critical piece of online marketing for hotels, which face a myriad of factors online that contribute to healthier conversions. There are concepts like the billboard effect that some believe matter greatly to hotels while others see photos and videos as the most important pieces of a hotel's online image. Cliq Orange falls into this latter category, claiming that its proprietary technology can analyze a hotel's photos and videos for impact on conversion — and increase it by 20-30%.
Of course, those are big numbers. So how does it all work? Cliq Orange linked up with Rotterdam's Erasmus University to research how photos affect booking behavior. Characteristics such as contract, color, position and quality of content were each tested to see how each impacted conversion.
The company then used this research to develop technology that scans the published content for 45 features, each rated on a 5-point scale, creating a consistent analysis of a hotel's photo and video content. This information is then used to improve available content, which the company itself helps improve through its own production. Cliq Orange can then implement its findings to adjust content to be more clickable.
Results, as reported by the company, include new photos for the the Marriott Renaissance Amsterdam, where conversions were increased by 13% in a 17 day trial period, leading to an estimated Euro 10,000 increase in sales via booking.com. The technology also includes continuous A/B testing, creating further opportunities for improving conversion with different multimedia content.
The company claims to consistently monitor performance and then prepares to alter content dynamically as needed depending on results achieved. This is an especially intriguing proposition for hotels faced with many online marketing channels in the form of OTAs, each of which has its own unique customer demographic.
Rather than attempting to discern which photos are the highest performing on their own, hoteliers could rely on technology to dynamically serve the right image to the right customer at the right time. This information can also be used on supplier direct websites, where customers are seeking high-quality media for knowledge and assurance that this is the right hotel for them.
NB: Stack of vintage photos courtesy Shutterstock.